VIVAT accelerates the pace of innovation to better serve customers

IT operations helps drive corporate growth

VIVAT helps customers become more financially self-reliant
Netherlands-based financial services provider VIVAT—through its portfolio of five insurance brands—has helped customers become more financially self-reliant for more than 150 years.

To stay ahead in the competitive financial services industry, VIVAT uses cutting-edge technologies to develop products and services that put customers’ needs first. The company has a culture of continuous improvement across the business, from people management to customer service.

Optimizing organizational performance is a primary focus, with a mission to drive efficiencies through cost savings, improved productivity, and faster time to market for new propositions.

VIVAT tasks IT with accelerating the pace of innovation
CIO Marcel van de Lustgraaf identified an opportunity for VIVAT’s IT operations to help drive corporate growth through the processes and workflows that underpin the company’s day-to-day business operations.

He explains: “Cost savings can often be made by looking at overheads and personnel, but we knew that IT could contribute to a fundamental shift that would drive lasting change for the organization.”

VIVAT deploys ServiceNow to automate and align IT operations with business goals
Under Marcel’s direction, VIVAT’s IT department set out on a journey to re-engineer the company’s IT strategy, creating an enterprise-wide, single system of record for IT infrastructure, service delivery, and operations.

Legacy systems were migrated and consolidated onto the Now Platform, integrating fully with Microsoft Azure and Visual Studio. 

“We believed that 70% of our processes could be automated, yet there was skepticism from the business about whether such an ambition could be achieved,” explains Marcel. “ServiceNow gave us a platform to optimize our IT operations and drive improvements in speed and efficiency through automation and intelligent workflows.”

With ServiceNow, VIVAT now has full control and visibility over its IT function and the cost of service delivery. Automated IT processes eliminated more than 70% of manual tasks, service issues are readily identified for immediate remediation, and resources are managed to suit the needs of the business.

ServiceNow helps VIVAT speed project and application development and achieve faster time to market
Through ServiceNow’s project lifecycle and program portfolio capabilities, VIVAT created a continuous working approach to project and application development that improved time to market for new products and services.

Meanwhile, increased visibility into VIVAT’s project portfolio facilitated a new, agile development approach. Marcel can now clearly view projects from a value perspective, and gain insight into the velocity of work—allowing more predictable project delivery.

“We’ve created a short-cycled working approach using ServiceNow^® Project Portfolio Management that’s opened up opportunities to innovate on a continuous basis,” says Marcel. “Our project system is automated, our pipeline is automated, and integration with Azure allows full control.”

ServiceNow helps VIVAT create a DevOps culture for continuous innovation
VIVAT’s new IT strategy enabled Marcel to deliver on his vision for a DevOps-focused culture, mirroring the approach taken by larger global financial services companies. 

For the first time, operations and development are combined into a single technology stack. Marcel explains the rationale: “Previously, projects or tasks were thrown over the wall between teams. Today, through ServiceNow, we have one technology platform that brings together the entire process, and all the elements in the chain of delivery.”

Marcel’s team is embracing a T-shaped professional model, through which members draw on a wide range of experience, but can drill down if required using in-depth knowledge and skills. Visual boards offer an intuitive, graphical interface to manage tasks, while automation speeds up testing and approvals to accelerate development time.

Marcel explains: “We’ve created self-steering teams that are empowered to work in an agile way, and are adding value to the business by creating new apps and services. Team members are keen to expand their roles and welcome the opportunity to develop their careers.”

VIVAT uses ServiceNow to strengthen compliance and risk management capabilities
Compliance and risk management are critical for VIVAT due to the highly regulated nature of the financial services industry.

VIVAT uses the Now Platform to support compliance and risk management by storing and providing real-time status of IT controls. Failed controls are identified and flagged for immediate remediation through automation, minimizing risk. Additionally, automated audit reports dramatically reduce the cost and effort of demonstrating compliance.

“ServiceNow helps ensure full governance, providing instant access to the indicators that matter and the ability to control associated processes,” explains Marcel. “I can prove our compliance to regulations in seconds through detailed audit reporting.”

VIVAT plans to increase innovation throughout its operations and development processes with the help of ServiceNow
Following the optimization of its operations, service delivery, and project development, VIVAT is looking ahead to innovation-led initiatives such as blockchain, virtual reality, neural networks, and machine learning.

“Our business transformation over the past two years has been amazing,” says Marcel. “We have ambitious plans and, working with ServiceNow, we’ll be able to accelerate our pace of change and strengthen our leadership in the financial services market.”