IBM > Case Studies > A life insurance company: Releasing a new product line 11 months early with an agile development methodology

A life insurance company: Releasing a new product line 11 months early with an agile development methodology

IBM Logo
Customer Company Size
Large Corporate
Region
  • America
Country
  • United States
Product
  • IBM Rational Asset Manager
  • IBM Rational Build Forge
  • IBM DOORS Next Generation
  • IBM Rational Team Concert
Tech Stack
  • IBM Analytics
  • Agile Development
  • DevOps
Implementation Scale
  • Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
  • Productivity Improvements
  • Revenue Growth
Technology Category
  • Application Infrastructure & Middleware - API Integration & Management
  • Analytics & Modeling - Process Analytics
Applicable Industries
  • Finance & Insurance
Applicable Functions
  • Product Research & Development
  • Business Operation
Use Cases
  • Predictive Quality Analytics
  • Supply Chain Visibility
Services
  • Software Design & Engineering Services
  • System Integration
About The Customer
The customer is a leading life insurance company that aimed to increase its life insurance sales in the United States by 260 percent. To help achieve the goal, the company made an agreement with a large distribution company. Under the agreement, the organization would begin offering its life insurance products to the distribution company’s more than 130 member firms and their customers. As part of the agreement, the insurer needed to launch a new product line, including a new web portal, within just 18 months.
The Challenge
The life insurance company aimed to increase its life insurance sales in the United States by 260 percent. To achieve this, the company made an agreement with a large distribution company. Under the agreement, the organization would begin offering its life insurance products to the distribution company’s more than 130 member firms and their customers. As part of the agreement, the insurer needed to launch a new product line, including a new web portal, within just 18 months. Meeting the deadline posed a tough challenge, and the company decided to shift from waterfall to agile development to accelerate its development processes.
The Solution
The company adopted a DevOps approach, supported by IBM Analytics solutions—transforming its organization from 100 percent waterfall development to 75 percent agile development. The software factory entails five key steps: examining the product backlog, carving out a release backlog, creating a release sprint plan, executing the sprints and validating each release. The company used the DevOps approach to optimize the entire software delivery lifecycle. After each team identifies what it will be delivering for the month, it works to deliver continuously in two-week sprints.
Operational Impact
  • The company increased productivity by 1,600 percent, enabling it to release an important new product line 11 months ahead of schedule.
  • The solution has helped improve code quality. The company’s IT director comments: “We’ve never missed a release, and we’re always delivering value to our customer.”
  • The new methodology provides a level of insight into development operations that was previously not possible. “By using the DevOps approach, we have complete transparency across projects and sprints,” concludes the IT director. “And it all comes from one centralized system of truth. Transparency to stakeholders, to product owners and to the team where they can all benefit from that transparency.”
Quantitative Benefit
  • The solution enabled additional life insurance premiums that increased revenue by USD2.8 million per month.
  • The development of a business and IT aligned strategic roadmap that led to the execution of a USD26 million portfolio of deliverables.

Case Study missing?

Start adding your own!

Register with your work email and create a new case study profile for your business.

Add New Record

Related Case Studies.

Contact us

Let's talk!
* Required
* Required
* Required
* Invalid email address
By submitting this form, you agree that IoT ONE may contact you with insights and marketing messaging.
No thanks, I don't want to receive any marketing emails from IoT ONE.
Submit

Thank you for your message!
We will contact you soon.