Hiscox Europe: Driving Business Value by Building a Cloud Data Ecosystem Case Study

A new multitenant, fully cloud-based solution. It is ready for multiple local branch onboarding, supports different timelines and diverse source system landscapes. while improving scalability and efficiency.

As the adoption of digital technologies accelerates, the “want it now” consumer culture intensifies. We live in an increasingly hyper-connected world, with customers and businesses generating more (and richer) data than ever before.

Insurance companies are increasingly using data to drive business by leveraging behavioural data to augment portfolio value through new lead generation and retention or to detect fraud. They also use data for internal innovation, such as predicting asset risks.

To unlock the value of data, besides a technological transformation (based on upgrading legacy systems), companies need a cultural and organisational shift to push people to evolve from “data gatherers” to “data users”.

Hiscox is a leader in specialist insurance, seeking to provide the best protection for their clients through high-quality insurance products backed by excellent service. They are experts in covering a wide range of personal and commercial risks across 13 countries, with a proven track record in innovation, success, and excellence.

The Challenge

How to put data access to better use and seize value?

Hiscox Europe challenged Celfocus to build a trustable data platform that could become the single source of consumption for self-service, reporting and advanced analytics in the European business unit, with different country views and GDPR compliance, among other specifications.

Beyond technical implementation, Celfocus supported Hiscox teams’ upskilling and increased autonomy, adapting thoroughly to the company’s requirements and objectives.

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The Solution

A Single Source of Truth for All European Countries and Functions

Adopting a safe and planned transformation approach on foundation and rollout, Celfocus followed an Agile methodology and a seamless operating model to deliver an integrated enterprise data hub based on scalable cloud architecture aimed at consistently and cost-effectively covering Europe and country-level function requirements.

It enables advanced analytics, acts as a basis for future AI/Machine Learning use cases, and ensures data user engagement. The solution empowers all users with self-service business intelligence (BI), promoting a data-driven culture.

Benefits

According to Diogo Conceição, Chief Operations Officer at Hiscox Europe, “Celfocus presented a differentiated top-down approach that demystified the idea that building a data warehouse takes years. We were able to meet our pre-defined deadlines and address our business's main necessities and requirements.”

Celfocus granted a top-down approach based on a methodology that looked at Hiscox’s actual needs and business requirements. This allowed for a functional, vertical solution to be created in approximately 1 year, ensuring information consistency, relevance and granularity.

The solution offers:

Source system singularities, managed according to each source system’s requirements;
Common ETL process and KPI calculation design, independent of source systems;
The impact of core source system changes during the coexistence period is minimised;
Minimised impact of core source system changes during the coexistence period;
Simplified historical data integration;
Focus on development streams.

In addition, the solution allows for self-service and is a user-friendly tool for reporting, composing a single source of truth for Hiscox’s business users.

Project in a nutshell

Top-down, phased approach to the building of foundations for a data hub with European scope to be delivered in approximately 1 year;
End-to-end data lifecycle management aimed at 8 countries;
Over 100 daily users across Europe;
40 source systems;
11 business areas;
Teams' upskilling and technical implementation both provided by