"Our overarching business goals are around customer retention and acquisition. We also have an imperative for IT transformation that includes the introduction of new products and services and new mechanisms for the business to provide those products and services," explains Head of Architecture John East. "Changes in the industry were mandating the business move to a new way of dealing with underwriters. In addition, a new method of pricing was being introduced called Insurer Hosted Pricing. We didn't feel our old pricing engine was up to the task, and that generated key business and technical requirements.

"The business really needed a more flexible pricing engine so it could apply its own pricing models in its own way. Additionally, the service had to be quick. Customers either retrieve quotes directly from the website or using aggregators. With aggregators, we are in competition with other brokers; Therefore, we have to return quotations as quickly as possible to be featured in the search results. If we were unable to deliver the new pricing service, it could have resulted in a loss of market share.

"In parallel, we had the challenge of implementing new CRM and Master Data Management (MDM) solutions, requiring integration. One of the key objectives for MDM was to reuse those data services throughout the business. We needed to apply APIs and additional services so it could be consumed by the CRM as well as the digital platform.

“We realized that we needed integration and orchestration to produce the quote for the customer, as well as data transformation,” says East. “That led us to the requirement for an enterprise service bus (ESB). The requirement for an analytics tool came from the need to understand the real-time performance of services running through the ESB—to see how the new pricing service was functioning, and check any potential issues before they became problems.

"We had no prior relationship with TIBCO, but as we engaged with potential vendors for the ESB and the pricing service, we found that not only did TIBCO understand our requirement, they could demonstrate it through prior experience. We also had a litmus test. We wanted our development community to get handson with the technology and test it with minimal supervision to see how complex it would be to implement. TIBCO really excelled. Our developers were able to get to grips with the technology and do a number of POCs to prove it was right for us.

"With the help of TIBCO Professional Services, we designed and implemented a leading pricing service with TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks™ 6. The service put the business in the driver seat for managing pricing models and helped IT integrate a new product called Radar Live and apply a new pricing engine for the insurer business.

Business and IT Strategic Relationship

"The key business outcome we've achieved with ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks 6 and the new pricing service is a strategic relationship with the business. They are now looking at additional opportunities and products they can put on the pricing service, as well as additional integration opportunities both within the AA and with partners.

Higher Performance, Increased Opportunities, Faster Response

"TIBCO BusinessWorks 6, as well as TIBCO Enterprise Message Service™, have enabled us to exceed our original requirements. With the old pricing service, we were delivering quotes in about five seconds and handling about 20 quotes per second. We defined an SLA of three seconds across 20 transactions or quotes per second. The actual performance we've been realizing with TIBCO is an average of 1.5 seconds of transaction speed across 35 quotes per second. We can respond to more quotes, giving us a greater chance of getting business. The faster response also impacts customer acquisition and retention."

"Now that we have a strong foundation, we can apply the new pricing service to additional products and services—the home insurance business, roadside assistance, and things like European breakdown coverage and home services. Additionally, we are looking at API Management and security for integrating partners."