Demystifying Digital - Transforming Industries & Lives With Robust IT Infrastructure

Watch this video synopsis of the in-depth thought leadership article on digital transformation underway in the Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) sector and Hitachi India’s eminent collaboration with a leading insurance company that benefitted the lives of over 250 million people-

The dynamic Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) sector rely deeply on data digitization to foster process optimization and operational efficiency to deliver an immersive customer experience. However, for omnipresent and ever-growing data, the emerging challenge is to derive desired outputs from multiple data sources and decode innovative ways to achieve optimal data management throughout organizational divisions.

The unprecedented ‘pandemic environment’ has created an urgent need for banking and financial enterprises to adapt quickly and efficiently by leveraging digital transformation, which enables them to revisit their operating models. Cloud-based application development tools and data analytics have led them to bring new technologies to the market and embrace hybrid cloud-based solutions to deliver a superior value proposition and services to customers. According to a recent report by a leading financial daily, hybrid multi-cloud, automation, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence are some key technologies that will have a major impact in boosting the customer experience and optimizing the business growth in 2022.¹ BFSI is a key sector in the Indian market that leverages robust technologies as it aims to build a resilient digital future.

In 2021 for India’s insurance sector, there has been a growth of 17% in April-May as compared to 9% in 2020-212, which fuelled the online demand through digitization while maintaining social distancing. According to the joint opinion of India’s Finance Ministry, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, the next 5 years look bright for this sector.² The contributing factors for the growth remain automation, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, blockchain, and digital platform solutions.

Hitachi has mastered large-scale innovation in the insurance sector following a robust demand, with distinctive products and distribution channels, thus aiding exponential growth. Moreover, there is a growing demand to buy digital insurance, with an average 90% of customers using digital channels at least once a week.³

Uncertain times call for sustainable business opportunities to ensure survival and emerge as a winner. Technology pioneers like Hitachi play an indispensable role in nation-building by enabling greater financial inclusivity. Armed with its OT X IT expertise, the company is actively collaborating with the Government to hasten its digital journey to pioneer Social Innovation Business solutions and improve people’s Quality of Life in AatmaNirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India).

Hitachi Systems India Pvt. Ltd. has digitally transformed a leading insurance company by offering smart solutions that benefitted the lives of over 250 million people. The new transformation has been applied to a legacy of 9-year-old IT infrastructure used for core insurance applications. The main challenge was to keep the old infrastructure operational during business hours, which was piling up the costs. Hence, the requirement was for a consolidated and upgraded system that functions on an agile and scalable platform besides meeting the insurance provider’s growing demands for the next 7 years.

Through this project, Hitachi could successfully reduce the customer server count of 1,000+ from 113 data centers to 380 hyper-converged infra servers in 6 data centers. This proved to be beneficial in terms of power-saving and cooling costs. Consequently, the following business benefits were achieved:

• Hitachi will be able to enhance application performance by 20-25%.
• Consumers can pay their premiums seamlessly without facing any application downtime or loss of data.
• High-level design that promises better performance, availability of systems, and simplicity over the traditional data center architecture.
• Implementation of the latest technologies like Data Relationship Management (DRM) Automation, Hyper-Converged Infrastructure with Network, Security, Storage & Backup solutions, Centre for Complete visibility of Applications / Infra, Business Continuity with Multiple Level Redundancy & Data Redundancy for reduction of infrastructure requirements by 60%.
   

Additional benefits include:

• 24x7 Central Command Centre, which can help customers attain 24% faster identification of system issues.
• 80% reduction in time that is required to compile operational reports.
   

The solutions helped customers in many ways including serving a majority of the rural population with new IT infrastructure, minimizing the service queues, and optimizing the new IT infrastructure to reduce carbon emission and save energy.

To revel in the glory of digital transformation, companies must rely on the power of ‘now’ before it becomes obvious. To usher in positive change and embrace uncertainties gracefully, the government and BFSI sector must continue to design new policies and innovations to cater to the changing demands, now and forever.

Source:

1. https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/technology/outlook-2022-building-a-resilient-digital-future/2382720/lite/
2. https://bfsi.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/insurance/how-digitisation-propelled-indias-insurance-sector-during-pandemic/84009277
3. https://www.financialexpress.com/money/insurance/insurance-purchases-in-india-shifting-rapidly-to-online-modes-swiss-re/2170007/