Zurich

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Rapid development of a web based pension system

The challenge

Zurich Financial Services (ZFS), one of the world's leading financial companies, was facing some major market changes combined with changes in Government legislation. To address these challenges they needed to bring to market a new, innovative, low-cost pension product. To ensure this was a true low-cost offering a number of key principles needed to apply:

• Self-service product via the Internet
• Minimal corrective work on submitted payroll files
• Call centre contact minimised
• Units purchased only with cleared funds

To meet its market needs, such a proposition would also need to demonstrate:

• 100% error free record keeping
• A full range of available funds
• Sufficient disclosure
• Real-time fund information
• Web-based education (fund calculators, etc.).

ZFS had to move rapidly with this significant new business venture as the market just wouldn't wait. Late entry meant getting left behind. ZFS recognised that it needed to take a new approach to system development if the extremely demanding timescale was to have any chance of being met. The traditional, major software houses were considered but discounted for reasons of cost and an insistence on imposing their own solutions. Instead, ZFS sought a more flexible and agile partner prepared to work closely with the business.

The solution

ZFS selected IPL as its systems integration and software development partner to assist in the development of the Pension Administration platform.

The platform was to be based upon modern Microsoft technologies powered by low-cost, high performance Intel-based servers. ZFS had selected Profund's state-of-the-art oPen pensions administration package to be at the core of the system.

IPL mobilised an experienced multi-disciplinary team to undertake the challenge. First of all, experienced Programme Management, Software Project Management, and Technical Architecture personnel were engaged to establish an overall development programme, the software design and development approach, and the architectural framework for the system.

A team of experienced IPL analyst/designers worked closely with ZFS business analysts, Profund's technical specialists and ZFS's own technical staff to determine the real needs of the business and the system design options for supporting these. A large number of issues needed to be rapidly addressed before detailed development plans could be put in place. Just a few of these included:

• Web site branding
• Financial and User Information security
• Web site throughput and performance
• ACD and IVR use in the contact centre
• Document and Image management
• Workflow integration
• Legal disclosure
• Integration with ZFS internal systems.

A highly staged delivery programme was developed and the detailed technical design, integration and build of the stages were undertaken in parallel. Because of the close coupling between the IPL and oPen software, regular integration testing of the system was carried out throughout the development, reducing the time needed for system testing.

The architecture was based upon a three-tier design with a SQL Server database, an MTS/DCOM application server layer and an IIS web server. The oPen package provided separate Win32 client functionality. The web server software was written in VB Script using Active Server Pages technology, with the generated HTML/JavaScript capable of being viewed by a variety of web browsers. Application server components were developed using both VB and C++.

The highlights

The system was ready for user testing after 9 months of development, two months later, the new ZFS business was established, the contact centre was set-up and the new system was operational.

This highly scalable and secure, web-based pensions system provided ZFS with a strategic platform capable of supporting other pensions products in the future. Its development was achieved at a fraction of the cost that would have been incurred by outsourcing its development to one of the major software houses, and in considerably less time than a traditional internal IT development.