Custom Azure Solution Gives RAC Insurance Australia a Competitive Edge

Satalyst, part of Canon Business Services ANZ (CBS), assisted RAC Insurance to be innovative with technology and build and deliver a new online insurance product to market in record time

RAC Insurance (RACI) was keen to bring a new and innovative insurance product to market as quickly as possible with the aim of testing market appetite. Being able to deliver a product for the online market in a tight timeframe that was both economical and low risk was a challenge to RACI’s traditional IT approval channels and work pipeline process.

Satalyst relished the opportunity to demonstrate how the Azure cloud platform and CBS’s innovative ways of using technology and lean methodologies can provide real and cost-effective business solutions.

Satalyst had less than four weeks and a mere fraction of the normal product development budget to deliver a minimally viable product ready to be deployed live to the online market. A small Satalyst team comprising of a software architect, developer and project manager collaborated closely with a RACI product owner and other key personnel to build and deploy software in Microsoft Azure for a bicycle insurance product.

Leveraging Microsoft technologies, Satalyst applied lean methodologies and continuous integrated delivery in Azure to build the software and had it deployed and ready for launch in three weeks. Hosting the software in the cloud allowed an instantaneous go-live and provides the flexibility for instantaneous updates and deployment of future enhancements.

Satalyst’s use of intelligent cloud solutions, lean methodology and continuous integration for rapid software delivery in Azure was a new way of working for RACI and provided the insurer with a platform for the rapid deployment of new products in the future.

Ongoing application support and managed services

Satalyst built the complete bike insurance solution on the Azure cloud platform, external to RAC’s core insurance system. Building the solution in Azure (a first for RAC at the time) enabled a rapid development time and go-live when RAC had a competitive advantage. Since RACI launched the bicycle insurance as a new product in 2015, Satalyst provided cloud hosting, support, and maintenance of the application and Azure environments on a service-based model. Satalyst delivered automated and transparent management, monitoring, and reporting of Azure environments and on-call support hours to respond to critical events during the product’s life in market.