Data governance for Insurance
The company is the Italian subsidiary of an international insurance and banking group active in 14 countries, with a total revenue of 15 billion dollars and a portfolio of 13 million clients: 20% of the international market. In Italy, the company boasts a turnover of 1.6 billion euros, generated by over a thousand agents spread throughout the territory, actively involved in promoting insurance in the Property and Life sectors, as well as in specialized consultancy in insurance, financial, and pension matters.
The Context
Operating in the insurance sector, the company possessed a vast information asset rich not only in sensitive data subject to strict national and international regulations, but also in information used across multiple departments and essential for the composition of products offered to clients. The company therefore needed to inventory all its reports and leverage them to gain full insight into the origin of the data, the roles associated with it, the responsible figures in its management, and, finally, its destination in the creation of policies and insurance products for the public.
Over the years, the stratification of data and the growth in their volume had made it difficult to clearly identify the ownership of information. For each data set, there were no defined management roles responsible for the maintenance and dissemination of information. The ambiguity of stakeholders prolonged the time required to obtain specific information, sometimes making it impossible, with negative consequences on the operability of the data.
In the absence of a topology of the information assets, the company was unable to unequivocally trace the lifecycle of a data point, from its origin to its uses, including the modifications it underwent over time and its relationships with other information. The lack of data lineage made every modification a potential cause of unpredictable effects within reports, policies, and products.
Solutions
Having understood in detail the context of data management within the company, we decided to outline the subsequent actions following a bottom-up approach, prioritizing decisive interventions on specific areas of concern, as indicated by the client, while still keeping the project scalable to encompass broader areas of the company's Data Governance.
The first, essential phase required the rationalization of all existing information. We scanned all databases to understand the exact placement of the information and the processes in place, then assigned stakeholders responsible for their update and maintenance. We then identified the lineage of the information with two complementary goals: to trace the physical end-to-end path of the data, and thus their complete life cycle, and to fully understand their logical function, identifying the ways in which they contributed to the construction of complex business concepts.
After analyzing the company's Data Governance needs, we proceeded to identify a Microsoft technology partner with solid experience in the system component. We then chose to base the Data Governance project on a fully managed cloud infrastructure, entirely managed by us, to which we added active monitoring services for the system component (SMS) and application support services (AMS).
To ensure the full success of the company’s objectives, we designed a pilot project integrating contributions from both internal and external teams. We initiated an intense awareness campaign on data governance topics within the company departments involved in the project, creating opportunities to explain the facets of Data Governance and its positive effects on workflow and business productivity.
The results
The clear assignment of stakeholders to data and processes ensured that every piece of information was given a responsible role for its maintenance and distribution within the company. In this way, each department can quickly locate information, its position, and its custodians. The processes involving information are optimized with a focus on maximum efficiency.
Scanning the metadata and reconstructing its physical lineage made it possible to associate a specific data set with each business concept. Mapping the life cycle of each data, including the interconnections between information and departments, provided a complex reference framework. Using this, the company can now conduct detailed impact analyses, providing a holistic view of the effects of every possible decision on the entire information infrastructure.
Thanks to the involvement of multiple teams in a careful internal awareness process, the company has taken its first steps in developing a shared data-driven culture, where key roles are able to recognize the function and cardinal importance of Data Governance, acquiring the tools and skills necessary to manage data responsibly within standardized and efficient workflows.