HP customer Helvetia Patria, an European insurance company based in Switzerland, has realized significant cost savings, increased profitability and business agility from an HP service-oriented architecture (SOA).

According to an independent study by Thoughtware Worldwide LLC ("Quantifying the Value of the eBusiness Center: HP Cost Savings Solutions for the Insurance Industry," July 8, 2005), HP helped the company achieve a 201 percent return on investment over a six-year period with its SOA offering. SOA is an approach for managing computing environments that uses loosely coupled, reusable and standards-based services to address changing business needs.

Helvetia Patria also reduced e-business IT operational costs by 59 percent while it experienced an internal rate of return of 26 percent (Thoughtware Worldwide customer case study Helvetia Patria, "Helvetia Patria turns to HP to create industry leading e-Insurance Solutions - realizes 201% ROI," January 2006).

"In the past, we were spending a significant amount of time and investment maintaining multiple IT environments that created more challenges than opportunities for us," said Didier Beck, head of the eBusiness Center at Helvetia Patria Group. "HP is a true partner who worked with us every step of the way to create a solution that could speed our entry into new sales channels and market segments."

Consolidated e-business platform built on SOA

Helvetia Patria turned to HP to implement a centralized Internet-based platform for the insurance industry that links information among its employees, partners and customers across Europe.

Using HP Nimius software and BEA WebLogic Server, HP built the SOA platform on an industry-standard, open architecture with integrated user management and multi-linguistic capabilities.

Collaborating with HP Services experts, Helvetia Patria consolidated 15 different types of services and platforms - from Linux to IBM CICS OS/390 to .NET programs - and designed front-end web services, technical infrastructure, processes and governance components.

The resulting eBusiness Center helped Helvetia Patria by substantially decreasing time to market for new products and helping to expand distribution channels. Additionally, SOA opened new opportunities to expand partnerships (for example, with brokers and agents) and enter different segments of the insurance market. ?
The HP SOA also has helped the company lower business transaction costs by improving efficiencies through repeatable processes and consistent data on clients, policies, claims, benefits and accounting.

"Helvetia Patria is an excellent example of a company using an SOA approach to develop new business capabilities, at lower costs, while capitalizing on its need to respond to business change," said Deborah L. Nelson, vice president of Worldwide Marketing and Alliances at HP. "HP helped to consolidate the company's IT infrastructure onto a single platform, eliminate technology and regional operating silos, and reduce overhead costs while capturing new and greater revenue streams."

HP's expertise in SOAs spans several years and encompasses partner offerings, world-class server and storage products, and leading management software, including HP OpenView SOA Manager. In addition, HP Services has several thousand professionals worldwide who are able to implement and deploy SOA and open source technology.

The Helvetia Patria study was issued by Thoughtware Worldwide, a San Francisco-based firm specializing in investment decisions and value management. The complete customer case study is available at www.thoughtwareworldwide.com/ downloads/ hpv_f.pdf.

Additional information about HP SOA and enterprise offerings for the financial services and insurance industries is available at www.hp.com/ go/ soa and www.hp.com/ go/ fsi.