Indexia Group
10.11.22
Number of employees
3000
Sector
Insurance and Distribution
AirSaaS users
20
Favorite feature
Decision-making tool
Four months into the deployment of AirSaas, it's time for Sylvain Bourdette to make his first review of the tool. Indexia Group's CIO, who is always on the move, talks to us about the challenges he faced and the various solutions he came up with.
An avid rock climber, this CIO of a 3,000-strong group based in Roman sur Isère was the leader of the pack when it came to implementing a modern project portfolio tool.
Before AirSaas was implemented, an Excel spreadsheet listed the 80 existing projects within the IT department.
The issue was that, with so many small projects and so much data being added, the file quickly became impractical. The addition of data gradually made the tool obsolete. In addition, project prioritization meetings with the business units were becoming increasingly difficult to organize, as they were partly based on this Excel tracking file.
Indexia is historically an affinity insurer that has become a service operator and a "retailer". Its key figures tell the story of the transformation: 3,000 employees, eight million customers, 2,500 partners and an estimate of €1.26 billion in turnover.in 2022.
Since its launch in September 2020, their brand Hubside.Store, specialist in new and reconditioned multimedia, has already opened 120 sales points. An exponential growth which allowed it to join the prestigious French Tech 120 promotion.
“When you have 80 projects in parallel, you need to have synthetic views. To have the right information immediately, to know what will go into production in the current month.”
With a lot of small projects that can drag on for a long time, the tracking table used previously had become unsuitable.
“We wanted to have more and more information so we added more and more columns, statuses, weather forcasts, dates, and comments… and in the end… it became unreadable, unusable” confides Sylvain Bourdette.
When the DSI was looking to establish progress reporting, he had to create filters here and copy-paste to put the information in a PowerPoint there.
“We spent hours on this file!" Sylvain recalls, “And in the end, it was never completely up to date nor with the correct status”.
“The challenge of having a clear and up-to-date status of projects is completely met with AirSaas!” Sylvain Bourdette immediately emphasizes.
“Where before, project managers could see updating the Excel file as a burden that did not bring them anything, now the fact of having installed AirSaas gave them a tool adapted and used on a daily basis.”
More than a reporting tool, AirSaas has become a value-centered project management tool within Indexia’s IT department. Project managers can centralize their notes and documents there, record the decisions to be made and milestones for each project. “They now know where they stand.” For Sylvain, this made it possible to engage project managers in the process, which was one of the goals.
Until now, leading project prioritization meetings with business departments was quite difficult to organize because it was necessary to rely on this famous Excel file which had become unsuitable.
The fact of now having AirSaas and having views by business unit allows you to filter and see all the projects at once. Another significant point was noted by Sylvain: “This also made it possible to clearly put all the other projects underway in parallel before the eyes of the business departments”. To better understand the overall planning of the IT department. In the Excel file, users did not see this simultaneity of all the projects at the same time, of their milestones.
“This allows us to better share the reality of our profession. We have a certain capacity to carry out projects, we are already carrying out three and we cannot do more. This point brings real value to a prioritization meeting. Because it’s visual, it’s factual.”
Airsaas even allows you to recall certain projects in the backlog, which the business units themselves had forgotten...The tool does not forget :-).
All this goes in the direction of better transparency with the units - one of the key values practiced by this CIO “business partner”.
For Sylvain, the success of projects is achieved above all because we have a relationship of trust with the professions. “We cannot have a customer-supplier relationship, in the event of a problem we will look for solutions together rather than finding culprits.”
Today, after only a few months of implementation, AirSaas is in the process of being taken over by the IT Department. The next phase is to open up to certain business users who are the biggest project applicants.
The goal is for them to use it. The idea is to have more factual conversations. According to him, ultimately “the fact that everyone can contribute and put points of attention and decisions in AirSaas is a key factor in limiting the excess of emails and meetings.” He is convinced “this will save us time.”
He emphasizes that this is in the interest of both IT and the business units. For the IT department to be able to log events at any time. And for businesses to have a real-time planning vision. And not “tampered” reporting.
For Sylvain, it is essential that business management knows where to find information on tracking requests. Knowing that they are at their disposal can help strengthen the bond of trust with the IT department. And it doesn’t matter whether they go to see it or not. They know that if needed…the information is there!
If he were to present it to a CIO friend, Sylvain would mention: “being able to generate the steering committee management PowerPoint in one click is magical!”
A long-time project expert, the CIO underlines: “In terms of project management, we have all tried MS Project one day! And MS project is too complicated in our time!”
When asked about the uniqueness of the solution, our interlocutor specifies: “AirSaas is different from other products. It is a tool for healthy reporting and management. With a little more "loose" project management and focusing on the important points, which are the decisions and points of attention, rather than trying to find out if I have a developer who spent a day here or there. That’s not the point actually!”
When Indexia started researching what tools existed, they shortlisted two or three. “It was with AirSaas that we continued because we had the possibility of making a POC very easily.” Beyond the pre-sales feedback, our client told us: “We felt very well supported and we felt that they wanted it to work, that they were passionate about their subject!”
”I like it a lot decision-making and attention points. Because until now, when we had this type of need, we sent an email or we had a meeting.”.
Very often, operating by e-mail did not generate accurate feedback, and therefore no decision-making. Likewise, the meeting did not necessarily have the minimum quorum of people present.
Sylvain tells us that now, He starts all his business meetings by connecting to AirSaaS and filtering all the decisions and points of attention affected and waiting... Before today's topic!
“The fact of being able to trace that in a project there is a need for decision-making before a certain date, that this person must make the decision and that it is organizational, financial or other type of person simplifies governance. Being able to “log” decisions into a project is magical! ”
As a pragmatic IT director, Sylvain confirms this to us: “This is not a question that we asked ourselves in these terms. Common sense allows us to say that the tool brings good things with regard to a bill that is not excessive…I’m not even trying to calculate an ROI”, the results are there!”.
“What would be great is to have a functionality that allows business management or users to vote on projects.”
The idea is to allow contributors to argue by saying:”This project contributes to turnover. This one contributes to such and such a company goal, this one contributes 2 stars... It would be interesting to allow voting. To have a scoring established in some way, to be carried out prior to the steering meetings.”
Based on this consultation, Sylvain plans to hold a business management meeting during which he could share the results of the votes. This would give an initial idea of global prioritization.
A feature that is reminiscent of agile games such as poker planning and buy me a feature.
DSI always on the move. Sylvain Bourdette has around twenty years of experience in the world of IT. A journey from developer to CIO. Position he held for around ten years in the field of telecommunications, notably at SFR and Numéricable.
Currently, he is the Group CIO of Indexia, a company specializing in the distribution of affinity insurance.
A climbing enthusiast, he applies a daily mantra: “anticipate the unexpected and manage the unexpected”.
« On cherchait un outil simple et pas usine à gaz »
DSI adjoint Chambre des Notaires de Paris
“Il y a bien entendu un grand nombre de risques au sein d’une entreprise, dont le fameux risque financier. Néanmoins, le risque IT et le risque cyber sont devenus, en quelques mois, les risques numéro 1 de la liste.”
CIO
