In modernizing its information system, the new data integration platform will assist in the expansion of the company's insurance business in France. Informatica's rapid response times, the system's quick speed to implementation, and its capacity to integrate a wide diversity of data were all determining factors in the choice.

BNP Paribas Assurance, France's fourth largest life insurance company

BNP Paribas Assurance has one of the sector's largest customer bases, represented by nearly 2.5 million contracts. A distinctive feature of the company is that it creates and markets products and services under two different proprietary names: BNP Paribas for products distributed by the network of BNP Paribas agencies in France, and Cardif for the other networks in France and abroad. The management of exchanges with its partners can be complex due to the diversity of communication methods - the data can be either directly transmitted or grouped on an Internet portal. This generates a substantial number of transactions with a daily average of close to 5,000 changing operations.

Project requirements: rapid deployment and integration capacity

The BNP Paribas Assurance project, implemented in France, will begin with the contract management system and the selection of an appropriate software package. In order to facilitate and accelerate the package's integration in its information system, BNP Paribas Assurance sought a data integration platform looking at quick implementation times, reasonable training costs, a heterogeneous environment, and independence. As of March 2009 the solution will cover all data exchanges throughout France. In August 2007, BNP Paribas Assurance evaluated three companies they believed capable of providing lasting solutions that had the potential to evolve, included among them was Informatica.

Philippe Renault, Information Systems Manager, BNP Paribas Assurance, explains, "Our aim was to set up a data integration platform on which to build our system. We therefore needed a long-term solution with the potential to evolve. Only a handful of organisations could meet our criteria."

He added, "We are working with Unix, Windows, Linux, and a multi-platform, multi-data management environment with Oracle, SQL, and other vendors. An additional priority was to find a solution capable of operating across diverse technologies. We attach a great deal of importance to having an open-ended system compatible with the data integration platform. Its independence is subsequently an important criterion for us."

Informatica PowerCenter - a solution with huge potential

Informatica was selected by BNP Paribas Assurance as it is the only independent solution capable of integrating the group's overall data. It is also one of the most comprehensive solutions as it can manage batch, real-time, and streamed data.

The company's data integration expertise was a further decisive element in the choice. The possibility to benefit from the wide-range of Informatica skills in the market was a guarantee that the installation and support would be of excellent quality.

According to Philippe Renault, "Informatica has long been active in its field and has made its mark primarily in the field of ETL (Extract Transform and Load) solutions. The company has, however, also invested in other technologies and functionalities. With the modules included in PowerCenter, we can do almost anything - from the supervision of data to the auditing of data quality. It has become an authentic data integration platform with great potential. Moreover, we are well aware of the fact that Informatica keeps a constant eye on all its features, and that the functionality will be extended over time."

To ensure that the contract management software package be available by March 2009, the data integration solution had to be operational by September 2008. In view of the tight deadline, the finalization of the prototype with Informatica PowerCenter was complete in only three weeks. This was a highly positive sign for BNP Paribas Assurance.