Pekin transformed its data environment from mainframe to Hadoop and introduced improved dashboarding for business users. Deployed in two years concurrent with a major core systems project, it eliminated a five-year data reporting backlog and contributed to a 70% acceleration of speed to market.
Business Need
Pekin Insurance was undergoing a core system modernization and the company needed to update its data practices and infrastructure from legacy mainframe–which required data manipulation in spreadsheets and flat-file databases–to Hadoop.
Tools and Technology
Pekin worked closely with ValueMomentum’s Data team and leveraged several vendor packages, including Hortonworks Hadoop for data lake, Orchestra Networks for master data management, MS-SQL for EDW, Qlik Sense for dashboards, and Attunity, Microsoft SSIS, and Sqoop for transferring data from the mainframe and integrating with the new core system (Guidewire).
Success Factors
The company attributes the success of this project to the support of the Board of Directors and executive leadership. The Data Governance Committee also helped change the company culture, raising the demand for quality data and analytics.
Impact
The project accelerated speed to market by 70% in combination with the new core systems environment. It eliminated a five-year backlog for report requests through the introduction of 40 new self-service dashboards for business users. It also eliminated shadow data factories, improving business accuracy and reducing compliance risk.
This case study was published in Novarica’s report–Insurance Technology Case Study Compendium June 2019 as Pekin Insurance: Big Data And Enterprise Reporting.
ValueMomentum’s collaborative, can-do approach has contributed immeasurably to the satisfaction of the employees on my team. As we’re distant from technology hubs, having happy employees is critical for retaining our advanced data talent. That’s invaluable to us.
AVP of IT Data, Infrastructure and Delivery, Pekin
