Designing and Implementing SAFe at Aegon 

AEGON

Designing and Implementing SAFe at Aegon 

The Challenge

Aegon has been a forerunner in agile work since 2010, scaling up over 100 teams during this time. However, to better facilitate agile and DevOps teams, align priorities as a whole and place responsibility as low as possible in the organization, Aegon needed to make some big changes. For one, the organization needed a target operating model, where entrepreneurship, (scaled) agile working and controlled business operations are central. This would mean they could deal more effectively with the unpredictability in the market and leave Aegon in better contact with its customers. This is where Eraneos came in.

“We have made huge strides in scaling up agile working in both teams and management, taking the lead in organizing the collaboration differently with controlled business operations, without losing sight of the human aspect.”

Anke Schlichting, Chief Technology & Transformation Officer at Aegon NL

The approach

By collaborating with Eraneos, Aegon had access to our knowledge and experience of transitions and transformations, alongside expertise in the field of scaled agile and change management. We arranged for the restructuring of Aegon to happen in three parts:

  • Transition: the joint establishment of a target operating model where the translation was made into value streams. This had a product/market focus to enable shared services with the right governance, organizational structure, functions, agile processes, and supporting tooling. 
  • Quality by design: the optimal design and implementation of controlled business operations with a (scaled) agile working method, ensuring all requirements and frameworks were safeguarded.
  • Transformation: the implementation of value streams and assurance of the new working method and management, where the focus was on mindset, behavior, culture, and leadership. This, it was hoped, would increase agile maturity, IT maturity, and risk maturity.

Aegon is an international insurer that enables customers to make conscious choices for a healthy financial future. Whether it concerns pension, mortgage, investments, banking, or non-life insurance. Aegon has grown into a company that operates in more than 20 countries within and outside Europe, with headquarters in The Hague. Aegon is in the top 15 largest insurers in the world and Aegon NL is the second largest insurer in the Netherlands. Aegon is also the proud parent company of TKP, Knab, Nedasco, and Robidus.

The result

Through the collaboration with Eraneos, Aegon was able to see a variety of quality improvements, including more attention to expertise, 10% less coordinating work, 40% more focus on achieving goals, and the set-up and existence of six value streams. There were also better flow and alignment in priorities and dependencies within all layers of the organization.

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2 nd

Largest insurer in The Netherlands
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10 % less

Coordinating work
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40 % more

Focus on achieving goals

Let’s create sustainable change together.