Background
A leading Fortune 500 financial institution that offers a wide range of financial products and services in more than 12 countries was looking to expand its market share in retirement planning. The company recognized that the Baby Boomer generation was rapidly approaching retirement and that developing an inventive product in retirement planning for this target market was an opportunity not to be missed. The company faced a typical infrastructure challenge in developing the new product – in order to compete effectively in the marketplace the product required a software system that would promote information sharing and cross several historically independent business functions. Based on industry experience and a unique approach to systems integration, VISTECH was selected to implement a solution.

The Challenge
The Fortune 500 company is not alone in its growing pains. Financial services companies have always found it difficult to release new products rapidly. The company’s proposed offering to the Baby Boomer market was particularly challenging as it required systems integration to connect retirement planning, insurance product administration, and mutual fund processing. To stay ahead of the curve, the company needed a unified retirement planning and administration system that could be accessed by clients, company service staff, brokers, and agents through a common web front-end. In addition, a user interface was needed to support annuity product functionality and integration of various pre-sales and back-end administration systems.

The Solution
To meet the challenge, VISTECH employed its Corporate Data Integration (CoDI) Enterprise Suite™ — an innovative approach to data integration. The CoDI Enterprise Suite™ enables existing systems to work together without major system overhauls, the ideal solution for the client’s challenge. The CoDI Enterprise Suite™ combines scalable and reusablecomponents with current systems and wraps the renewed enterprise with integration and translation services, using a “wrap-not-scrap” methodology (see Figure 1 - next page).

To develop the retirement planning tool and the supporting system, VISTECH employed its componentized, object-oriented development process to facilitate flexibility and reuse of CoDI Application Integration Components, resulting in a rapid assembly of the web-based application infrastructure.

VISTECH customized existing CoDI Business Modules, such as CoDI Client Management and CoDI New Business Acquisition, to meet the client’s business and processing needs. Industry-standard Microsoft .NET technology, Microsoft Enterprise Services, SQL Server 2000, IIS 6.0, and Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition all support the CoDI Suite™.

To complete the “wrap,” CoDI Integration and Translations Services bound together the client’s mutual fund and back-office insurance systems to deliver the desired functionality within the new, aggregated application.

It took only 14 months to implement the integrated solution for the retirement planning product, facilitated by state-of-the-art technology and pre-built CoDI components. While some of the components were developed explicitly for the financial services industry, most can be applied to any vertical market.

The Result
The Fortune 500 company hit the ground running with its target market – the Baby Boomers. The corporate data integration and common web front-end provided by the CoDI Enterprise Suite™ has allowed the company to integrate several critical business functions, interface with external systems, and unite sales forces among company staff, agents, and brokers. The flexible modular design provided by the CoDI Enterprise Suite™ will also help the company keep pace with future business demands. Since product launch, the company has realized a new source of revenue and a competitive edge in the retirement services market, and currently services a multi-million dollar asset base among Baby Boomer clients.