API management is driving Allianz’s digital transformation with Axway’s API Gateway that enhances security, agility, and responsiveness. How an opportunistic IT security project for one of the world’s largest insurers became an API-ready mission to develop greater responsiveness and agility with Axway API Gateway.
The Allianz Group is one of the world’s largest insurers, operating on all continents. In fact, when we talk about transformation, I think there are two key dimensions: technological transformation and cultural transformation.
The approach we have adopted at Allianz is concrete and pragmatic. We want to be API-ready and to put in place everything we need to use them, use case by use case, based on emerging business or customer needs. In 2014, we debated whether to implement an API Gateway. We chose the Axway solution because it best meets the needs we’ve expressed, including in terms of security, access control, and how easy it is for users to get to grips with configuration.
A key aspect of Axway’s Gateway solution was its upgradability, because we wanted to deploy a platform to manage security in external access to our information system. But in terms of future development, we already had our eyes on the future with API portal developments and a slightly more open way of managing our IT system. So, this was initially an opportunistic security project, but we already had future developments relating to our digital strategy in mind.
The first success story in the project was the creation and launch of the My Allianz mobile app, based on Axway’s API Gateway platform. Since then, we have used this API Gateway extensively. Many projects have followed, such as the development of an app for our insurance agents.
We also opened up our IT system to comparison websites. This new development relies on the API Gateway. Lastly, the use of connected objects, in the form of the connected car, is part of Allianz's driving project, Allianz Connected Car, which also uses Axway’s API Gateway solution.
So, we’re already preparing our IT system to allow it to communicate with the outside world by using services through the API Gateway, and we are likely to expand in the future to the API portal and other components, which will allow us to manage APIs better and fully launch Allianz in an open API environment.
Like Google, Facebook, and Amazon, we also need to respond rapidly and agilely to our customers' needs and requirements.
