BPM Strategies - March 2008 - (Page 19) Business Architecture Provides a Blueprint for Change and Innovation By Elliot King tate Farm Insurance was founded in 1922 by retired farmer and insurance salesman George Jacob "G.J." Mecherle, who had a simple idea. He knew farmers drove less and had fewer accidents than people who lived in more urban areas. Consequently, he thought they should pay less for automobile insurance. When the insurance company that Mecherle worked for at the time didn’t agree, Mecherle set up his own company. The philosophy of offering insurance at a fair price, coupled with a fair claims process, remains central to the company’s operation. Of course, its advertising slogan about being like a good neighbor is one of the best known. Today, State Farm insures more cars than any other company in North America and is the leading U.S. home insurer as well. More than 17,000 agents and 68,000 employees serve over 75 million policies in the United States and Canada. Through its multiple business units, the company provides its customers with a wide array of financial products and services. Julie Decker has been at State Farm for 21 years. During that time, she spent considerable time working in IT, and has been involved in many aspects of systems organization, including coding, model-driven S development, project management and facilitation. In 2003, she became active in what is called portfolio management, where her responsibilities included putting into practice a process for formally tracking investments in IT from the time a business decision to go with a specific system had been made, through its execution. Her role was to help spread the idea of portfolio management to the business units at State Farm. Through her experience working with information systems, Decker was able to witness the challenges involved in aligning the business and IT. “I knew there was a missing link,” Decker said. A company would not build a skyscraper without a blueprint. Business architecture is designed to generate a cross-functional blueprint of an enterprise’s operation. While she was working in portfolio management, the concept of business architecture began to emerge. Decker was named director of business architecture, working in State Farm’s Business and Technology Integration office. She is responsible 19 March 2008
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