Achieving 65% Savings: The Impact of DevOps in Insurance for a Belgium-Based Swiss Insurer

Client

The client is a leading insurance company headquartered in Switzerland, specializing in a diverse range of insurance products, including Life, Non-life, and Enterprise Marine Insurance. With a strong commitment to customer service and innovative solutions, the client aims to provide tailored coverage that meets the unique needs of individuals and businesses alike, establishing itself as a trusted partner in the insurance landscape.

Challenge

The client recognized the urgent need to establish a centralized, flexible, and scalable build, deployment, and testing system to enhance their operational efficiency and consolidate their Business and Intelligence (B&I) tools and architecture. This initiative was driven by their ambition to implement a fully automated Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) system that could seamlessly support a multi-technology application stack. The existing infrastructure posed challenges, including fragmented processes and insufficient IT capacity, which hindered their ability to respond swiftly to market demands and regulatory changes.

By adopting a robust CI/CD pipeline, the client aimed to streamline their development workflows, reduce manual intervention, and ensure consistent quality across their software releases. This transformation was not merely about automation; it was a strategic move to enhance collaboration among development teams, improve time-to-market for new features, and maintain compliance in a highly regulated industry. The envisioned system would integrate various legacy systems and modern tools, allowing for a more agile response to evolving business needs and enabling the client to maintain its competitive edge in the insurance market.

Solution

Hexaware took complete ownership of the project, deploying a team of senior consultants to design and implement a fully scalable CI/CD system tailored to the client’s needs. Leveraging its expertise in DevOps transformation services, Hexaware delivered a holistic solution that addressed every aspect of the client’s development and deployment lifecycle.

The engagement began with a comprehensive DevOps assessment, where Hexaware continuously evaluated the client’s existing tools and technologies, providing recommendations to adopt evolving, cutting-edge solutions. Hexaware also assumed tool ownership, managing the entire Business and Intelligence (B&I) tools and infrastructure landscape, ensuring seamless integration and optimal performance.

To enhance efficiency and reliability, shift-left test automation was integrated into the DevOps pipelines, enabling early-stage testing and reducing defects in later stages of development. Additionally, Hexaware implemented automated environment status reporting, providing real-time insights across development, staging, and production environments through integrated CI/CD pipelines, monitoring tools, and ITSM systems.

This end-to-end solution not only streamlined the client’s operations but also empowered them with a robust, scalable, and automated DevOps ecosystem, enabling faster delivery cycles and improved operational efficiency.

Benefits

The implementation of the CI/CD system brought significant benefits to the client, transforming their software development and deployment processes.

• Frequent Deployments: The frequency of test environment releases increased from 1 per week to 3 deployments per week, allowing for more regular updates and enhancements to the application, which is crucial in maintaining competitive advantage.
• Reduced Release Time: The time taken to release new software dramatically decreased from 5 days to just 4 hours, enabling the client to respond more swiftly to market demands and customer feedback.
• Improved Build Efficiency: Build queue times were reduced to less than 10 minutes, thanks to a highly available build service. This improvement significantly enhanced developer productivity by minimizing waiting times.
• Automated Configuration: The management of application and server configurations was fully automated, streamlining pre-requisite activities and reducing the potential for human error during setup.
• Accelerated Testing: The introduction of multi-threaded test automation led to a reduction in overall regression and system integration test execution time by 5 hours, allowing for quicker validation of new features and fixes.
• Cloud Readiness: The DevOps framework was designed with a cloud-first vision, ensuring that all build and deployment actions, including CI/CD pipelines, are cloud-ready. This positions the client well for future scalability and flexibility.
• Quick Onboarding: New .NET applications or components could be onboarded onto the CI/CD system with just 1 day of effort, significantly reducing the time and resources required to integrate new projects into the existing framework.
• High Uptime: The system achieved an impressive 95% uptime, supported by strict SLAs for DevOps tools and infrastructure, along with self-healing and intelligent monitoring systems that proactively addressed issues.

Through a robust, automated, and scalable DevOps solution, Hexaware transformed the client’s CI/CD processes, showcasing the effectiveness of DevOps in insurance and boosting overall operational efficiency.

Summary

Hexaware’s DevOps transformation services enabled a Belgium-based Swiss insurer to reduce release time, enhance deployment frequency, and improve build efficiency. By implementing an automated, scalable CI/CD system, the client achieved significant operational improvements, cloud readiness, and faster onboarding, showcasing the transformative impact of DevOps in the insurance sector.