Growing responsibilities

July 24, 2019

Transforming a market-leading insurance conglomerate

How we worked with a Dutch insurance giant that employs roughly 13,000 employees worldwide, with operations in 18 countries. One of our consultants has the story.

"The client wanted a way of working for their management that better suited their teams. In my second year at BlinkLane, I started my assignment for the client's Bank division at the mortgages department. They had started their Agile journey with Agile teams a couple of years before.”

Expanding the assignment within the business unit

“While discovering the main challenges for the Agile teams, it became clear that transforming the management style of mortgages department alone would only offer marginal benefits. The teams heavily depended on other teams from different business lines - as is common in major corporations.

Together with the business sponsor, BlinkLane met with the managers of the other business lines. The joint outcome was a change plan for the entire Bank: we co-presented it to the IT management board and began implementation - working closely with internal coaches.”

New Cross Business Unit and Business line assignments

“The assignment quickly expanded further when another part of the corporation asked us to implement an Agile way of working for their Strategic Program. While implementing, continuing and changing the scope of that assignment, we learned of the existence of yet another cross-business unit program that focused on Life products.

At the new business line, we soon realized that - given the goal and the complexity - we would do well to adopt a more flexible and adaptive way of working. We implemented the new way of working together with internal coaches.

During this implementation we talked to the Change and IT department which was struggling with the setup of their Agile teams. As a result, we started a new assignment where - together with our sponsors and the teams themselves - we designed a new set up for their Agile teams.”

Engaged at the corporate level

“Our journey started at Bank Mortgages, then moved to the scope of the entire bank. We shifted to a company-level strategy program and zoomed in again on one of the business lines. Our impact continues to resonate at Group level for this client.

In total, we have been working together for 2 years. Nineteen different consultants have worked or are still working on this account - not simultaneously of course. We are careful to use similar consultancy styles throughout, to ensure that we create one language. We pay special attention to continuously approaching this client with the respect and the expertise they deserve.”

- Lisa van de Voort, senior consultant