By The Open Group
The Open Group IT4IT™ Reference Architecture, a standard of The Open Group, is a value chain-based standard reference and operating model for managing the business of IT. It creates a model of the functions that IT performs to help organizations identify the activities that contribute to business competitiveness.
It supports real-world use-cases driven by the Digital Economy such as, Cloud-sourcing, Agile, DevOps, and service brokering, and is designed for existing landscapes, and accommodates future IT paradigms, making it ideal for Digital Transformation projects.
Here, in part one, we take a look at how real businesses from the banking and insurance sectors are implementing the IT4IT standard. You’ll also see how they have used it to help them both simplify and transform their IT environments to be ready for the Digital economy of the future.
Enabling a DevOps Culture
Rabobank™ is an international, privately held bank based in the Netherlands. It is one of the largest banks in the retail financial services market in the Netherlands. With significant global presence in more than 40 countries, the bank has more than 45,000 employees and 8.8 million customers worldwide.
The banking and financial services sector in particular, is under increasing pressure and competition due to digitalization. The pressure to deliver more services online, to do it faster, and to meet customer expectations for speed, efficiency, and excellent service has never been greater. At the same time, banks are also facing added pressure due to increased regulation, cyber-attacks, and security issues. Rapid change – and the need to adapt to it quickly – is the new normal.
With a growing portfolio of IT management solutions, Rabobank soon realized that a more sophisticated integration and interoperability is necessary to better serve the business. Increased demand for developing new services, as well as a need for greater continuity of services in production and faster time-to-market, was placing additional pressure on Rabobank’s IT development and operations departments.
To overcome these problems, Rabobank turned to the IT4IT Reference Architecture. Find out how they accomplished this here: www.opengroup.org/library/y161
Or watch the video of how Rabobank used the IT4IT standard to journey into DevOps here: https://youtu.be/gjwaH4upDOg
A Journey to Automation
ABN AMRO serves clients in the retail, private, and corporate banking sectors, primarily in Northwest Europe. They offer clients an extensive and comprehensive range of products and services across a variety of channels, including traditional and newer digital channels.
ABN AMRO used the IT4IT Reference Architecture to identify the critical paths within their company. By using a Value Streams approach to their transformation, they are now more able to keep ahead of the ever-increasing demands being placed on them as an organization.
Watch Ben Noordzij, Enterprise Architect with ABN AMRO, explore how they used the IT4IT standard to maximize the potential of automation: https://youtu.be/ncK85oIKvxY.
Agile IT4IT in the Digital Enterprise
VIVAT is one of the Netherlands leading insurance organizations, which brings together the Zwitserleven, Zelf, Route Mobiel, Reaal, nowGo, and ACTIAM brands under one roof.In 2015, it was bought by the Chinese organisation, Anbang Insurance Group. This led to a large modernization and restructuring project. VIVAT used the IT4IT Reference Architecture to transition their existing processes to a more agile, automated process using value streams.
This is why The Open Group IT4IT Reference Architecture has become essential to organizations such as VIVAT.
Here, Marcel van de Lustgraaf from VIVAT and Bart van Muyen from Fruition Partners explore how VIVAT applies IT4IT in their digital environment: https://youtu.be/c3T1E6tr9X0
Using IT4IT to Create a Lean and Agile IT organization
In 2017, The Delta Lloyd Group was acquired by its competitor, The NN Group for 2.5 billion euros, creating one of the Dutch insurance industries largest organizations.
Prior to this acquisition, however, Delta Lloyd used the IT4IT standard to firstly rationalize its IT offerings. Secondly, they utilized the standard to create a much leaner, more agile IT services team that was better able to respond to both the needs of its staff and their businesses requirements.
To see what challenges The Delta Lloyd Group faced, and how they overcame them by applying the IT4IT standard, watch Rob Akershoek explain their approach here: https://youtu.be/LzOR10Ae__E?t=22
In the next part of this blog series, we will take a wider look into how organisations from the IT, the Oil and Gas, Retail, Logistics and Manufacturing sectors are also using the IT4IT standard. In the meantime, to find out how the IT4IT Reference Architecture could be key to transforming your organization, please visit https://www.opengroup.org/it4it
Or, to find out how to obtain IT4IT certification, please visit: https://www.opengroup.org/certifications/it4it
@theopengroup #IT4IT
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