AG2R LA MONDIALE - How a French Insurer enhances IT governance

Interview with Jean-Pierre Peignier, Head of IT Repositories, AG2R LA MONDIALE

What were the main steps of your project?

We started working with MEGA in 2000 under an initiative to start mapping our enterprise applications. Two years later, we added business process mapping, which until then had been managed using software that was part of the quality management system we implemented for our ISO 9000/2000 certification.

At the same time, we started thinking about how we could improve our database design. We selected MEGA’s solutions to boost our database quality and productivity and increase the visibility of the data we manage. Before, our databases were not consistent, and we didn’t really have a comprehensive view of our data.

In 2011, we started developing an Enterprise Data Model (EDM) that we used to design the pivot formats for our services platform. The EDM is based on Prima Solution’s IBCS™ model, which is better known under the ACCOR standard. It helps us design our databases and the application- to-application data transfers (pivot formats) for our services platform (the TIBCO ESB).

That means our services are developed with pivot formats and included in the mapping of our services platform.

The last step with MEGA has been to migrate all that we had developed to the HOPEX platform and move to the web interface.

Because MEGA’s enterprise architecture solution was used exclusively to enter data, we can’t really talk about mapping without mentioning the CASSINI intranet that we developed to display our IT system maps. Every month, the intranet gets over 2,600 visits from 530 unique visitors that view over 14,500 pages.

What were the challenges you faced, and the benefits of working with MEGA?

Setting up a team to independently develop and manage repositories

Since 2000, MEGA has been providing us with the proper resources and advisory to build up our skills and manage projects requiring specific know-how. We now have a ten-person team – including one MEGA consultant – that works autonomously to manage our IT repositories and develop and maintain our mapping processes.

Introducing IT system mapping to improve transformation projects

Enterprise Architecture plays a key role in our company, given the many mergers and acquisitions we have made over the years that have considerably increased the complexity of our IT systems.

Since 2008, application mapping has been a big help in our IT system transformation projects, enabling us to sketch out various functionalities on an IT city plan and identify an effective way to split applications. The EDM and services catalogue allow us to structure and rationalize data transfers between existing applications through our services platform. The analysis of our application portfolio carried out with the help of an IT master plan has enabled us to streamline our applications. We mapped some 700 applications using a shared methodology established by grouping application components together at a large enough scale so that they can be managed using maps that are not only “readable” by everyone, but also give a comprehensive view without necessarily going into the details.

A next step will be to roll out the Archimate modeling standard for architecture views and make the initial planning phase of the project easier.

Merging our IT repositories

MEGA’s solutions allow us to describe all our architecture layers, at both business and IT levels. We imported data that had been modeled on other applications during our various mergers, making MEGA our core system.

Since 2014, we have been using MEGA to merge our many different programs and repositories based on an IT city plan incorporating our applications and technologies. This map sends formal data flows to its client repositories and receives them from its master repositories. It has become a central repository for our operations as well as IT governance. For instance, when we introduced activity-based costing in 2013, application mapping proved essential for managing costs at our IT department. Costs were grouped along the same lines as our applications, which were included in the mapping. The same groupings were used in our systems for tracking time and calculating infrastructure costs.

Decentralizing updates

We requested thin clients and personalized desktops to make it easier for occasional users of MEGA solutions. We decided to provide users with a web interface developed to our standards and with a direct interface to MEGA’s solutions through the HOPEX desktop web services.

By decentralizing updates on application mapping (based on a zero training approach), we were able to increase the number of employees providing information (150 people today) without growing the size of the IT team.

Most of our application portfolio is managed by our IT department. However, with the ongoing digital transformation and emergence of SaaS applications, our business-line staff are getting more and more involved. These staff have access to a web interface and can modify the applications they are responsible for.

The next step will be to set up a personalized desktop for staff involved in technology mapping. This is something MEGA is currently developing.

Modernize our business process maps

When we merged with Réunica in 2015, we decided to use the MEGA Process BPMN solution to implement the IT department’s quality management system. Then, we started applying the BPMN method and tools to our corporate-level mapping process to support our new quality assurance policy.

Getting a comprehensive overview of our IT assets

As a result of the many mergers and acquisitions we have made over the years, managing our IT system and transformation had become increasingly complex. MEGA’s solutions has enabled us to get a comprehensive overview of our IT assets. The solutions were incorporated into our enterprise architecture approach and merged with other repositories, thereby helping us better manage IT infrastructure, operations, and governance.

The main reason why mapping was so effective for us is probably because of the excessively complicated nature of our IT systems. But it’s also due to the trust we have placed in MEGA since 2000, as well as the superior performance of MEGA’s platform and the support from MEGA consultants.

Solutions

• HOPEX IT Architecture
• HOPEX Information Architecture
• HOPEX Business Process Analysis
• HOPEX platform
• MEGA Services Team

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About AG2R LA MONDIALE

AG2R LA MONDIALE, the number 1 social and patrimonial protection group in France, offers a complete range of products and services for pensions, savings, providence and health. As a reference player in personal insurance, present throughout the country, the Group provides private individuals, companies and industrial sectors with services to protect their health, estates and incomes, insure them against life’s accidents and prepare them for retirement.

A joint mutualistic governance partnership, AG2R LA MONDIALE develops a unique social protection model that closely combines profitability and solidarity, performance and social engagement. Each year, the Group earmarks almost €100 million to help vulnerable people and support individual and collective sporting initiatives.

Learn more at: www.ag2rlamondiale.fr