CASE STUDY
Insurance company, Baloise Insurance, was created in 2013 through the merger of the Mercator, Avéro and Nateus insurance companies. It is part of the Swiss Baloise Group, a European provider of insurance and pension solutions.
Its insurance offering is tied to smart prevention services. The ambition of Baloise Insurance is to contribute to a safer world for all stakeholders, including employees, partners and customers.
This is achieved by offering innovative services that go beyond insurance products and by making processes simpler and safer. Examples include Safe Home, which bundles an insurance product with intelligent preventive measures( through sensors such as smoke detectors and alarm systems), as well as Mobly, a driver assistance system that can be easily installed using a dongle, enabling use in cheaper or second-hand vehicles as well.
Challenge one: Importance of 24 / 7 connectivity
The fact that ICT plays a key role in the insurance business is no secret. In addition, the use and dependency on ICT is set to increase in the coming years. One of the main reasons is the users’ desire to consult the necessary information anytime, anywhere and on any device.
“ The pace of change in the areas of the cloud, Internet of Things, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are driving Baloise Insurance to become an increasingly digital company. ICT is more than ever the backbone of our company,” said Jeroen Hulshof, Chief Information Security Officer at Baloise Insurance.
Connectivity can no longer be ignored in our society. A company or service must be available or accessible on a 24 / 7 basis. Also, any connection with partners and customers needs to be adequately secured,“ That’ s why our networking base layer is highly crucial,” said Alexander Schapman, ICT Services Manager at Baloise Insurance.
Following the relocation to new headquarters in Antwerp in 2010, Baloise Insurance joined forces with SecureLink to tackle its entire network. Requirements revolved around toughness, speed, safety and scalability. In 2017, the entire Wi-Fi
WE’ VE OBSERVED
EXCELLENT OPERATIONAL COOPERATION BETWEEN OUR
PEOPLE AND SECURELINK’ S NOC,
network was modernised. This not only resulted in a faster wireless network, but also one that is safer and more user-friendly for visitors and( temporary) external employees.
Network Operations Centre( NOC) Baloise Insurance decided to outsource the management of its network in order to increase focus on its core business.
From SecureLink’ s Network Operations Center( NOC), the availability of the networks and systems are monitored. By having a specialised external team track this very closely, extremely quick response times are guaranteed if an incident would occur.“ We’ ve observed excellent operational cooperation between our people and SecureLink’ s NOC,” said Alexander Schapman. www. intelligentcio. com INTELLIGENTCIO
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