Avivasa Migrated to IBM FileNet

AvivaSA's Document Management System is from IBM, Technical Support from BBS
 

BBS (Bilgi Birikim Sistemleri) carried AvivaSA's 15 years document management system to contemporary infrastructure with IBM FileNet system in 6 months. The project, where 30 million documents are transferred to the new system without realizing the customer, will open the way for better integration between business units.

 

Established in 1992 BBS (Bilgi Birikim Sistemleri) defines itself as a system integrator and solution partner. The company offers infrastructure and solution-oriented services to numberous of institutions with 140 employees. BBS has ISO 27001 Information Security Certification, ISO 20000-1 Information Technologies Management System Certification, ISO 9001 Quality Management System Certification, TSE Service Qualification Certificate and TSE A Type Penetration Test Certification.

 

BBS Corporate Sales Manager Aynur Olcer underlines that the certifications they have in the field of IT services in the public sector are highly important. “We also provide consultancy services to the institutions during the certification process,” says Ölçer. “We are the company for 28 years offering services to so many companies in Turkey. We're the so many manufacturer's international business partnerships in Turkey. We are one of the serious solution partners in IBM's hardware and software infrastructure. We have carried out projects in document management system and content management systems for approximately 7 years in the insurance industry. We made projects with almost all stakeholders of the industry. We did projects not only for the document management system but also for CRM.”

 

 

Insurance and finance are among the most important sectors for BBS together with banks. BBS IBM Software Business Development Manager Oktay Şükür, as BBS, document and content management of the main topics they touch in the financial sector; says CRM with identity and access management. “Insurance was a sector that did not invest since it did not make much profit until a few years ago. Yet, they have been making very good investments for the last 5 years, ”says Şükür. “We have carried out projects on IBM's content management systems products with almost all of the leading insurance companies. AvivaSA was initially using an older version of IBM's Content Manager application. Since they could not get enough support, they decided to quit that product. We proposed a new technology named IBM FileNet. Together with FileNet, we made a proposal to transfer all existing content to FileNet. We have shown how they can integrate with the systems they use. ”

 

Şükür states that there are very few companies that can make a project of this scale. “AvivaSA had 15 terabytes of data on IBM Content Manager” says Şükür. “It was a process that would take 5-6 months to transfer and had to be done without making the customer realize. Previously, we had experience in doing similar works with several insurance companies, and we gave AvivaSA this trust. We also clearly presented the part that they can integrate with their own systems. Thus, we started working together.”

Three are Main Needs in Insurance: Speed, Integration, Security

AvivaSA preferred to build a new system for the project instead of investing in an old system. “Document management system is a system that is located in the middle of all other systems especially in insurance” says Şükür. “It integrates with other relevant systems of the institution and all contents related to these systems are collected here. When necessary, access to content is provided by querying authority based.

 

In a nutshell, you need a system that is fast, easy to integrate and has strong security authorizations. This has gained more importance recently with KVKK. It is not enough just to prevent the data from falling into the hands of others, you have to plan the right of access within the company correctly.”

 

In Şükür's words, all of these are not easy as plug-and-play. “After doing the setups, what kind of content the company has, we first extract them” says Şükür. “Then we determine the search criteria of the content, that is, metadata. These vary from company to company according to need. Then we define the access rights of these contents. These are the result of long analysis, and this part scares companies the most. It is a great relief when we show our experience on that matter and say that ” ‘We have it ready, let's give you a template and move over it.”

 

30 million documents were transferred in 2 months, Users Has Not Realize It

 

The project that BBS made with AvivaSA took 6 months. BBS IBM Business Applications Manager Müjdat Mutlu says that a significant part of this period is spent for analysis. ” Although there are document types and metadata left in the old document management system in AvivaSA, our experience in the insurance industry has guided them.” says Mutlu. “They received a serious transfer of knowledge from us. We created the document types and metadata that should be together. We transformed the old ones into this new structure. This took a long time. The second critical phase of the project was the transition process. In this process, which was reserved for transferring old documents to the new system, we transferred about 30 million documents from the old system to the new system in about 2 months. Meanwhile, AvivaSA directed the road flowing from the current document management system to a new one. When the transition was over, AvivaSA started writing all its documents to the IBM FileNet system. We completed the project in mid-May 2019. In the meantime, we used two systems together for a while, we didn't make our customers and users realize it. ”

 

AvivaSA has developed the server architecture with the new document management system. Thus, it reduced hardware and maintenance costs. “Our systems started to work on a common infrastructure with the new system,” says Mutlu. “This has reduced our coding and code maintenance costs. Since the previous system was running on old technology, they could not get enough maintenance support. There was a problem in integration. However, thanks to the new technology that gives more confidence, the integration of the systems is much easier. End-users access the content they use in other systems not only in the insurance package very quickly, but also make their work easier.

Plug & Play Method is Insufficient, Customer Needs Specific Applications

Mutlu says, "Document management system projects cannot be conducted with a plug-and-play approach." "These are not plug-and-play style projects, they require customization. You need to develop custom applications for the customer. Therefore, we are actually taking on an important task. The customer never leaves you, they don't want to leave. Because the product has reached an important stage. When a new system is added, you move on to the second or third phases with adaptation or integration. Changing existing systems also means a new project. We have been working with AvivaSA for about 2 years now, and this will continue. We will make customizations together, we will make improvements. We will integrate the manufacturer's new features into the system, and apply security updates."
 

Oktay Şükür, BBS IBM Software Business Development Manager, says that the system they have designed has a team of 7-8 people devoted to project and support. “We are proceeding through a system that backs up each other in support,” says Şükür. “If one of our friends is not suitable, our next friend comes in and offers services. We have friends who have only been dealing with IBM FileNet for 21 years. Even our friend who has the least experience has worked on this system for over 6 years. Not only Turkey this regard, we arbiter in the region. We have made projects that are much cheaper than German conditions for financial companies in Germany. It was a project that worked better than them in terms of quality. We have 7-8 friends dedicated to this work, and even the most inexperienced of them is 3.5-4 years. We work with people who know our business. We don't have a team that has changed a lot of work. We work with people who know our business. We don't have a team that has changed a lot of work. We try to make our employees as happy as we can. We want our happy colleagues to make our customers happy. We keep our colleagues' IBM competency certificates up to date. Even when we saw that we had so many people, IBM declared us a Support Provider from the first year we worked together.”