Taikang Life
"BusinessObjects XI Release 2 enables our administrators across the country to make deep analysis into company's business operations through the BI platform without having to be computer tech savvy. This is really amazing!"
ZHOU Xiongzhi
Information Administration Manager
Taikang Life Insurance Co. Ltd.
Challenge
Needing Greater Flexibility and Security
With 31 subsidiaries, over 10 million customers and approximately 10,000 employees across the country, the Taikang Life is the fifth largest life insurance company in China.
Facing a highly competitive market environment for insurance business, the company wants to timely grasp the market trends and readjusts its business strategies based on the visibility of the company's operations. For instance, the company needs to know what kind of insurance products are selling best on the market, what about the output distribution of distributor channels, how about the effects of various promotions, etc. And all these are reliant upon the strong support from a powerful information system.
To this end, Taikang Life started from 2004 to build up a business intelligence system and after careful examinations and comparisons, they turned to BusinessObjects 6.5 as the application platform of its BI system which was put into operations since 2005 including the global reporting and a data analysis system based on C/S structure within the premise of headquarters.
The steady expansion of business scopes requires the front-end subsidiaries to be able to make overall business analysis as flexible as the headquarters while badly needing a browser-based data analysis system. However, the Web Intelligence of BusinessObjects 6.5 could hardly meet such a requirement. Moreover, the extension of data analytical system applications to the subsidiaries puts forward much higher demand over the authority management and information security.
Meanwhile, Taikang Life's finance SAP system went live in 2005. The data from new finance SAP system should be integrated into Taikang's data warehouse to provide all-around data to corporate executives for decision-making.
Approach
Migrate from BusinessObjects 6.5 to XI Release 2
After learning about the new features of BusinessObjects XI Release 2, especially the powerful Web Intelligence, Auditor, etc., Taikang Life decided to upgrade its BI platform from BusinessObjects 6.5 to XI Release 2.
In early 2006, Taikang Life signed agreement for the 2nd phase of its BI project with Business Objects Global Services who is going to undertake the system's upgrade. Besides, the company invests incrementally to deploy EPM of BusinessObjects XI Release 2 and Business Objects Global Service is required to develop the KPI management module for Taikang.
To realize the stable upgrade and bring no impact over the normal operations of the original system prior to the upgrade completion, Taikang Life constructs a set of new operational environment to upload all its data from the legacy system to the new XI Release 2 platform. The new KPI management module is going to be developed over the new platform and as all the development work has been finished, the newly deployed XI Release 2 will be switched as the formal system while the traditional BusinessObjects 6.5 will be out of operation two months later.
Use Data Integrator XI for SAP to Integrate SAP Data
On the selection of solutions for integrating SAP system data, Taikang Life finally adopted BusinessObjects Data Integrator XI for SAP as ETL platform. Within only 3 months, the implementation team successfully realized the seamless integration of data from SAP system to enterprise data warehouse.
Results
Greater Flexibility and Powerful Authority Management
The 2nd-phase of Taikang's BI project was completed in September 2006 with the application platform being smoothly upgraded to BusinessObjects XI Release 2. The end user is offered better user experience with the platform's presentation and they are satisfied with the seamlessly integrated dashboard and reporting. The response speed of XI Release 2 is significantly improved and the powerful capabilities of Web Intelligence make it possible for them to conduct various in-depth analysis through the navigator, for example, the slice and dice, drill-down, etc., without needing to install any BI client software on the computer resulting in remarkable reduction of maintenance by IT department.
In the platform management, the administrator can make centralized management over all resources and authority, lowering the complexity of working and the powerful authority control mechanism enables a more flexible and easy management of authority.
Quick Facts
- Industry:
Insurance - Business Pain
The steady expansion of business scopes requires the front-end subsidiaries to be able to make overall business analysis as flexible as the headquarters while badly needing a browser-based data analysis system. Additionally, the extension of data analytical system applications to the subsidiaries puts forward much higher demand over the authority management and information security. - Why Business Objects?
Business Objects Global Service team seamlessly migrates Taikang's original business intelligence platform of BusinessObjects 6.5 to XI Release 2 without causing any impact over the original system's operations before the completion of upgrade. In addition, Business Objects Global Service is also able to develop KPI module for Taikang.
The company also gains strong support from Business Objects technical support center in the course of upgrade, development and implementation of BI project. Whenever the client encounters any technical issues, the engineers of Business Objects support center will always respond at the soonest possible time to help them diagnose, position and resolve the issues, providing guarantee for the steady progress of Taikang's BI project. - Business Objects products and services:
BusinessObjects Enterprise, BusinessObjects Dashboard Manager, BusinessObjects Performance Manager, BusinessObjects Data Integrator,
Crystal Reports, Business Objects Global Services