In-houseNov 2014 — Dec 2017 · 3 yrs 2 mos

Senior Digital Architect & Product Manager

Allianz Insurance

Senior digital architect and product manager for Allianz UK's shared digital platform, with customer data and master data management at its heart. I built a single, household-level view of the customer that fed marketing and analytics, and a platform six projects reused instead of building their own — recognised by the steering committee as one of the key reasons for the programme's success.

Better MDM matching rates: 21%; Better MDM matching rates
Projects reusing the shared platform: 6; Projects reusing the shared platform
Person TCS team led, onsite and offshore: 15; Person TCS team led, onsite and offshore

Context

Projects across Allianz UK were building and maintaining their own separate solutions — duplicating effort, cost and risk. Customer records were spread across many systems, duplicated and inconsistent.

The answer was a shared digital platform: generic services, including a Customer Hub built on master data management, created once and reused across the business. My job was to define it, build the team and capabilities behind it, and win the projects that would adopt it.

Role & scope

Role: Senior Digital Architect & Product Manager
Platform: Shared digital services and the Customer Hub, reused by projects across Allianz UK
Customer data: MDM on IBM MDM Server: probabilistic matching, survivorship rules, reference data and a household view of the customer
Integrations: Adobe marketing suite, data lakehouse and data warehouse; federated ESB patterns
Team: Led and managed a 15-person third-party TCS team, onsite and offshore; built teams around customer data and MDM
Adoption: Six projects across Allianz UK consuming the shared platform
Engineering: Directed release management, configuration management and test automation for corporate IT developments
Vendors: IBM (products, licensing, consulting, SOWs, pilot POC) with procurement; TCS as implementation partner

Try itSee matching, survivorship and households in actionAn interactive MDM playground with fictional data — move the sliders and watch customers merge, golden records form and households appear.Open the playground →

Key achievements

A single, trusted view of the customer

Challenge: Customer records were spread across many systems — duplicated, inconsistent and hard to trust.
Approach: Built the customer data and MDM capability on IBM MDM Server: standardised addresses against Royal Mail PAF; made the highest-quality source, the policy system, the trusted source for the golden record; tuned automatic-merge and review thresholds against known duplicates, with periodic sampling by data stewards who also worked the review queue; cleansed the data and managed reference data — then built a household view of each customer.
Outcome: Matching rates improved by 21%, and the business gained a trusted, household-level view of its customers.

Customer data that powers marketing and analytics

Challenge: Trusted customer data only creates value when marketing and analytics can use it.
Approach: Integrated the Customer Hub with the Adobe marketing suite and with the data lakehouse and data warehouse, using defined integration patterns and data governance.
Outcome: Householded, trusted customer data available for marketing and analytics.

A shared digital platform for Allianz UK

Challenge: Separate solutions for every project meant duplicated build, higher running costs and more delivery risk.
Approach: Formulated and implemented the vision and strategy for the next generation of digital services, designed the Customer Hub and generic services, and defined the target operating model.
Outcome: Faster delivery and a lower cost of ownership than building and maintaining separate solutions — and a robust platform that de-risked future projects.

Winning six projects to the platform

Challenge: A shared platform only pays back if projects choose to use it — and each was used to building its own.
Approach: Led architecture workshops with the consuming applications to share the platform's scope, and helped them see how it would shorten their time to build and remove duplicated functionality. Prepared programme mandates and a reuse roadmap.
Outcome: Six projects adopted the shared platform instead of building their own.

Modern, reliable engineering

Challenge: Shared services demand consistent releases and an architecture that can grow with adoption.
Approach: Directed release management, configuration management and test automation; defined non-functional requirements on a tested platform; developed the containerisation strategy for the Customer Data Solution; and led proof-of-technology and design of federated ESB patterns.

A productive partnership with IBM and TCS

Challenge: The platform depended on IBM products and on a third-party implementation partner.
Approach: Worked with procurement to shape the IBM relationship — products, licence management, consulting, statements of work and a pilot POC — and led and managed a 15-person TCS implementation team, onsite and offshore.

Highlights

Built Allianz UK's customer data and MDM capability — a household view of the customer, integrated with the Adobe marketing suite, the data lakehouse and the data warehouse.
Improved MDM matching rates by 21% through probabilistic matching tuning on IBM MDM Server, data cleansing, clearer survivorship rules and reference data management.
Defined the vision, strategy and target operating model for the shared digital platform — adopted by six projects; recognised by the steering committee as a key reason for the programme's success.
Led and managed a 15-person TCS implementation team, onsite and offshore.
Directed release management, configuration management and test automation for corporate IT developments.
Shaped the IBM relationship with procurement — licensing, SOWs and a pilot POC — and managed third-party implementation partners.
Developed the containerisation strategy for the Customer Data Solution and designed federated ESB patterns.

How I led

Winning adoption, not mandating it

The situation: The shared platform would only succeed if other projects chose to build on it — and every one of them was used to building its own solutions.
What I did: I invited the consuming applications into architecture workshops, shared the scope of our work openly, and helped their teams think through how the platform would shorten their time to build and remove duplicated functionality.
What changed: Six projects adopted the platform, and the steering committee highlighted my work as one of the key reasons for the programme's success.

Bring consumers in early: architecture workshops before commitments.
Sell the outcome, not the platform — faster delivery and no duplicated build.
Build teams around clear focus areas — like customer data and MDM — with real ownership.
Keep sub-system solution architects and partners working as one team.

In their words

“Srini was the MDM Solution Architect working at Allianz.”

Delivery Project Executive, Independent Consultant · Worked with Srini

“During a complex design phase around Java services he was a leading light but also very supportive to my team.”

Delivery Project Executive, Independent Consultant · Worked with Srini

“understands the importance of putting himself in the business/customer shoes and has strong presentation skills.”

Associate Cloud Data Architect, Allianz UK · Worked with Srini

All testimonials →

Lessons

Adoption is earned in the room, not mandated from above. Show each team what's in it for them.

Customer data is only as valuable as the decisions it powers — design for the people who'll consume it from day one.

Technology & domain

IBM MDM Server
Probabilistic matching
Survivorship rules
Reference data management
Household view
Adobe marketing suite
Data lakehouse
Data warehouse
Data governance
Data quality
Federated ESB
Containerisation
Test automation

Contact

Let's talk.

I'm based in London, UK. Whether it's a leadership role, an advisory engagement or a transformation that needs shaping — my inbox is open.

srini.vankee@gmail.com