WWK Versicherungen

Vision

WWK Versicherungen simplifies license management to save cost and improve flexibility

With the move to software-defined services software licenses have now become one of the largest IT related costs for organizations. Not only that but organizations often over procure software licenses, buying more licenses than they require.

While they were looking to minimize over procurement and ensure that they remained legally compliant the manual process resulted in additional costs. This required dedicating resources to the management of this vital aspect of their IT environment.

With the organization using Cisco software for their unified communications as well as their Wi-Fi and LAN environments they had been buying perpetual licenses, but they were finding this difficult to manage. With licenses purchased at different time and a variety of contract terms across their license estate they found that they were left with licenses they no longer needed and were overpaying for maintenance and service.

In addition, software licenses are subject to price fluctuations, requiring them to allocate additional budget should a new license be urgently needed. After evaluating their environment, they decided to move to a new software licensing model enabling them to reduce IT costs and better monitor the product life cycle a that the company had to dig deeper into their pockets if they were urgently needed. This would allow them to better monitor product lifecycles and provide comprehensive support for procurement decisions.

Transformation

New software license model makes changes and costs easier to plan

Working with us WWK has converted their entire software licensing environment to a subscription model. Leveraging an Enterprise Agreement (EA) they now have a licensing solution that provides them with more flexibility and cost flexibility.

Under the EA all their Cisco software and applications are covered by one contract with a single term, eliminating the different maintenance windows or unused.

With true-forward billing, new projects can also be implemented and expanded as required without incurring unnecessary costs. True forward billing means that if expected license usage is exceeded the adjustment doesn’t happen retrospectively, but only in the subsequent billing period. This proved particularly useful with the newly introduced Cisco Webex Meetings conference solution. Instead of having to purchase a new license for each additional user, a license survey now takes place at regular intervals and the price model adapted.

As a long-standing technology partner, we advised and supported WWK in setting up a flexible and cost-effective subscription environment. To deliver this we developed a license metric which was specifically tailored to WWK’s unique needs. In addition, a ‘concurrent user’ based subscription model for WWK’s contact center has been implemented. This model supports their ‘WWK real-time service’ omnichannel offering which handles around 1 million queries from customers and brokers every year. We also provided the contact center technology and Network consulting services for this unified communication platform.

This service has an availability rate of 90% within the first 30 seconds while offering complete transparency on when the call is going to be answered.

This quality of service is a critical competitive differentiator and has seen them receive several awards for customer service. These include the ‘Deutscher Champion der Lebensversicherer’ award from the daily newspaper Welt and the ‘German Brand Award’ initiated by Germany’s design and brand authority.

Results

WWK reduces the administrative effort and achieves more flexibility

Supporting multiple software versions with different maintenance contract periods can become an unnecessary burden for IT teams. With the new license model, WWK has simplified the procurement process and the management of their software licenses. In addition, they’re able to quickly adapt to any changing requirements – licenses can be activated and made available quickly if required. With the true-forward function, the company also benefits from a growth buffer for additional software and services, which can be used free of charge during the contract period. This means that if the license usage is unexpectedly exceeded, no additional payments need to be made, with the adjustments only taking place in the following billing period. At the same time, the administrative burden on the IT team has been reduced allowing them to focus on their business objectives.