Case Study:

How do we achieve greater audit capability?

Munich Re launches new CMDB, delivering a single source of truth to inspire the trust and confidence of staff, clients, auditors, and regulators

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Highlights

9 mths
to deliver a 15-month project
99%
or CMDB key components discovered automatically
30%
more SQL databases discovered when compared to previous manual svstems

"

We now have a single CMDB providing a single version of the truth - an enterprise-wide tool that everyone in Munich Re uses. ServiceNow is now a strategic platform for Munich Re and the first question everyone asks is 'Can ServiceNow do it?'

"

Peter Schmidt

Head of Global ITSM Process and Tool Governance

Munich Re

The world's leading authority on risk


Munich Re tokes core of risks of varying complexity end seventy, whether it's
a rocket launch, cyberattack. or a global pandemic, and is active in all lines of
insurance worldwide. With more than 140 years of risk expertise and 40.000
employees in 50 countries, Munich Re is the reliable partner for the global
Insurance Industry end is clients

Meeting stringent regulations


Munich Re is at the forefront of the technology revolution that is transforming
the insurance industry. both in the availability and power of data analytics in the
understanding and calculation of risk, and in the development of ground-breaking
digital products and services for clients.


Todays financial institution are also operating in an increasingly complex regulatory environment. Like every other financial organisation in Germany, Munich
Re must meet stringent requirements set by BaFin, the financial supervisory authority responsible for ensuring the stability and integrity of the German financial system. But it must also meet the regulations in other countries.

State-of-the-art visibility and control



As part of a major internal service in digital transformation programme, Munich Re commissioned the development of a new state-of-the-art ServiceNow Configuration Management Database (CMDB). It provides a consistent taxonomy for all configuration items used across Munich Re's IT ecosystem. Centrally controlled, it enables automated access to all assets and data sources used group-wide. Previously, the IT teams used countless individual databases, often in manually maintained spreadsheets, and along with them, several homegrown applications to manage this data. *There was no end-to-end view of the business processes for the IT assets used across the group," says Richard Fothergill, Global Head of IT Service Management, Munch Re.

Introducing a ServiceNow CMDB would not only deliver substantial process and efficiency benefits for the company by providing a consistent view of the group's IT estate, but it would also enable it to respond precisely and at speed to all regulatory and audit data requirements.

Fast Delivery thanks to ITOM Discovery

By developing a lean and agile approach, combined with a small pilot at one
data center, ServiceNow and its London-based Premier Partner, CloudStratex, reduced the projected program timetable from 15 months to just nine, while delivering impressive results. With ITOM Discovery, 99% of all critical components of Munich Re's IT environment were discovered automatically. "We expected 80% an achieved 99%, that's fantastic," enthuses Duncan Docherty, CTO, CloudStratex, adding that the team was only able to do this thanks to the behavior-led approach chosen. Being part of the capabilities proposed by
ITOM Discovery, the behavior-led approach enables a quick grasp of al; error patterns across the target estate by theme, rather than by forcing the team to look at individual data centers one by one.

The program embraced more than 30 sites and data centers instead of the projected 15, and more than 30% more SQL databases were found than anticipated.

Trusting a golden source of truth


The ServiceNow CMDB is now trusted throughout Munich Re as the “golden source of truth”, with the capability to apply multiple criteria to extract all necessary data either from a business process perspective or for complete audit and regulatory compliance. “Before introducing the CMDB, it was difficult to determine what  certain infrastructures and applications were used for, whether and why they were critical,” says Peter Schmidt, Head of Global ITSM Process and Tool Governance, Munich Re. “Today, with the accuracy of the automated discovery, we have a  single-source-of-data model in place that provides reliable information on all assets used.”
Stakeholders throughout the business are enjoying productivity and efficiency benefits that centralised control, transparency, and user-friendly digital tools  have delivered. And not only are domain users now turning to ServiceNow to see the state of their components; the CMDB has also created the foundation for process compliance reporting, thereby enabling Munich Re’s management to measure regulatory compliance and respond to auditors far more efficiently.
It has also significantly helped in creating a better understanding of dependencies and impact for incident and change management, helping to improve stability.


Benefits across the business worldwide


The program continues with ServiceNow Security Operations and Vulnerability Management soon to be added to reinforce Munich Re’s data protection and cybersecurity stance. In addition, Munich Re intends to industrialize the CMDB information for more than 1,000 applications groupwide, about 70% of which  
are expected to migrate to the public cloud by the end of 2023. This will result  
in the consolidation of all ITSM processes into ServiceNow. It will further strengthen the company’s digital support services through its IT service desk and enable  
a complete service mapping across all business domains. Munich Re has also recently implemented the rollout of ServiceNow Software Asset Management, leveraging the data now available in the CMDB.

The new CMDB is clean, fresh, and free of customization, providing a clear, strong, usable baseline with out-of-the-box tools delivering major improvements. It’s a massive step forward on the ServiceNow journey we’re taking Munich Re on.
Duncan Docherty | Chief Technology Officer, CloudStratex


Now you know how
work can work better.

Key Client Information:

Munich Re stands for innovative strength and outstanding risk expertise. The company is driving digital transformation in the insurance industry worldwide, breaking new ground in risk assessment and developing new products and services for every new type of risk.

Staff Size:

39,600+ Employees

Location:

Germany

Snapshot Of Problem:

Replace legacy technologies, systems and multiple manual processes, with a single, enterprise-wide CMDB

Snapshot Of Solution:

Launched new. state-of-the-art CMDB providing single-pane-of-glass visibility and automated access to all assets and data sources

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