Insurance Organization Enterprise Project Management Solution

Deploying a comprehensive solution to manage IT projects and operations.

The Client

The Client is one of the leading global services providers in insurance, banking and asset management. With over 182,000 employees worldwide, the group serves more than 80 million customers in about 70 countries, generating revenue of 102B euro.

The Challenge

The merger of Shared Services functions between the Client and its acquisition in the United States offered the opportunity to achieve a consistent Project Management (PM) capability. The capability included a PM methodology, a Project Management Office (PMO), and a PM software application. Challenges during this integration included:

• Lack of visibility at the portfolio level, including extensive manual data manipulation for reporting purposes
• Limited ability to view resource allocation and perform resource planning
• Two distinct PM cultures and software applications in place, one based on Microsoft Office Project Server and one based on Microsoft Office Project Standard and other tools

The Pcubed Solution

Pcubed worked with the PMO to establish a staged approach to introduce solutions to each of the business challenges. Pcubed developed a number of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure the compliance of schedules to PMO standards. The KPIs were made visible at the portfolio level, enabling senior executives to quickly assess the health of the entire portfolio.

As part of the budgeting process, project managers were required to create detailed budget estimates using Microsoft Office Project Server. A resource model and cost rate structure were created to facilitate accurate project cost estimation and baselining. The model and structure provided the management team with the ability to better manage resources by role, department, and name.

Microsoft Office Project Server was also deployed as a time tracking solution to select parts of the organization that previously utilized Microsoft Office Project Standard. The deployment included a migration to the latest version of Microsoft Office Project Server. This provided the organization with a chance to become familiar with the application and to evaluate its capability to meet the needs of the entire organization. Six months after initial implementation, a phased roll-out of the full functionality incorporated all IT related staff and work, including non-project activities.

The Client also required resource rates to be visible to select personnel only. To meet this important requirement, Pcubed developed a Vendor Cost Database linked to Microsoft Office Project Server, using Microsoft SQL Reporting Services.

The Results

The Pcubed solution provided a consistent Enterprise Project Management (EPM) framework from project initiation to close-out. Tracking of both project and other IT related activities now provides visibility of total IT spend. Consistent, near-real time reporting gives management the data required to quickly assess the status of projects, including adherence to budget and timing.