Case studies
Digital transformation – precise and on point for Swiss Life
Skaylink migrated 6,000 advisors to a central communication platform for Swiss Life Germany in record time
When it comes to our finances or our security in challenging situations, we are particularly cautious. We want someone by our side who we trust and who is reliable. Swiss Life Germany enjoys an excellent reputation in this regard and expects its digital infrastructure to live up to this expectation as well. This is a high standard that had to be met during the digitalization of end customer sales. With Skaylink as an IT partner, the project was a success – it was implemented precisely and right on schedule, just like a Swiss watch.
About Swiss Life Germany
Swiss Life Germany is a leading provider of financial and pension solutions and is part of the Swiss Life Group, headquartered in Zurich. Currently, the Group employs over 10,000 people globally. On the German market, Swiss Life is represented by several brands and offers private customers and companies individually tailored solutions for insurance, pensions, and assets, helping them to achieve financial independence.
The Swiss Life brand has been providing customers with first-class insurance solutions since 1866. The insurance company is headquartered in Garching near Munich.
In addition, Swiss Life is active on the German market with the brands Swiss Life Select, tecis, HORBACH, and ProVentus, and has around 6,000 advisors who provide comprehensive financial consulting based on the best-select principle. The financial consulting company is headquartered in Hannover.
“Our experience has been so positive that we will continue working with Skaylink.”
Getting the project off the ground with Skaylink
Swiss Life Germany chose to work with Skaylink for several reasons. The deciding factors were, first and foremost, the well-founded market assessment, the realistic project approach, and proven expertise in the field of digitalization. “The excellent market assessment and pragmatic approach won us over,” explains Fabian Freyer, Microsoft 365 Project Manager at Swiss Life Germany. In addition, trust had already been established through a previous joint project on cloud infrastructure. In the summer of 2023, both partners jointly embarked on this ambitious project.
The project at a glance
Swiss Life Germany
The challenge:
The digitalization of end customer sales required technological integration of around 6,000 user accounts.
The solution from Skaylink:
Precise, detailed concept planning in close consultation with the customer and a proof of concept (PoC) enabled a high rate of silent migration of users.
Solutions used:
Microsoft 365; Office 365 (E1) with Teams, OneDrive, Web Outlook, Exchange, and SharePoint; security infrastructure with Defender Suite (Cloud Security App, endpoint protection, conditional access, MFA)
The end goal: A central, integrated working environment
Swiss Life Germany′s sales force consists of 6,000 independent advisors who previously worked with different, sometimes isolated IT solutions. The goal of the project was to replace these isolated solutions and bring all advisors together in a unified digital workplace.
To achieve this, Microsoft 365 needed to be centrally provided and managed via the Swiss Life tenant. In the future, the plan is to standardize video conferences via Microsoft Teams and integrate the existing sales calendars seamlessly into Outlook. The aim is to improve coordination between sales and the service center and to make the process more transparent.
Swiss Life Germany sought to use the collaboration and productivity solutions from the Microsoft 365 ecosystem to close existing system gaps and improve collaboration in the long term. “Our goal was to increase acceptance of the processes among our advisors – and therefore to boost overall efficiency,” explains Fabian Freyer.
The ultimate goal was to create a modern, secure, and compliant collaboration platform that meets the requirements of a decentralized sales force while enabling centralized control.
Hundreds of working environments transferred each week
What sounded simple at first turned out to be anything but easy during implementation: There needed to be only one tenant, without any mixing of the individual end customer sales departments. As an expert in financial investments and insurance, Swiss Life Germany is subject to strict regulations, such as obligatory compliance with DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act). Furthermore, the various end devices used by the advisors came with a whole host of technical requirements.
All this, combined with the number of users to be connected and the time frame of around 8 months, made the project unique. Skaylink and Swiss Life Germany had to migrate and standardize several hundred user accounts with their entire digital work environment on a weekly basis in order to stay on schedule. To make this happen, a carefully thought-out plan and a well-coordinated team were needed.
Keeping sensitive data safe and working efficiently – Skaylink makes it happen
Large-scale digitalization projects are the strength of the Modern Work Team at Skaylink. First, our experts developed a well-founded concept for Swiss Life Germany. The technical implementation steps were prepared in such a way that they could be implemented quickly and in large numbers at a later stage. A large project team made up of Swiss Life Germany employees and around 15 Skaylink experts got together in a hybrid project setup to make this happen. The team met regularly online, but also frequently in person. To achieve the best possible results, elements of classic and agile project management were combined. The team put together and prioritized work packages, which were then rolled out one by one.
“The collaboration with Skaylink was very constructive: All discussions were always conducted on an equal footing and in a friendly manner,” Fabian Freyer says of his impressions.
One important work package involved securing the insurance coverage. The key issue here was the classification of existing and newly added data. Compliance with BaFin (German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority) and DORA requirements played a central role in all steps and in all separate areas. Ongoing governance support was therefore also included in the work packages.
Users′ desires and needs were always kept in mind. They need to feel that the new digital environment is easy to use and secure so that they will actively use it. For this reason, the third-party provider MiFID Recorder has been integrated into Teams for video consultations. This ensures that the consulting complies with FinVermV regulations. The BYOD approach and secure connection to the central network also played a major role for the independent consultants.
Many access points, various devices, and a high density of sensitive data required appropriately strict security measures. However, these measures should not block the processes. As a certified expert in IT security and cloud infrastructure, Skaylink was able to solve this challenge to the satisfaction of all parties involved: A comprehensive security tenant assessment determined the current status of IT security measures and identified areas where the project team needed to take action to protect the new environment in the best way possible.
Based on the assessment, the decision was made to implement the Microsoft 365 Defender Suite. Solutions such as Endpoint Security and Cloud App Security have created a secure digital workplace that is on the cutting edge of technology. Conditional Access ensures that all users comply with the rules defined in the network.
With so many users across different work locations, clear identification is the key to security. The team therefore developed a suitable multi-factor authentication (MFA) strategy. This increased the security of user accounts even more.
The project team first used a proof of concept (PoC) to demonstrate that the desired solution was feasible and efficient. Only then did the large-scale, step-by-step migration begin. This meant that the project could be implemented safely and under control, even at high speed.
However, even the best technical implementation is useless if those who are supposed to use the new solutions are not on board. Therefore, active change management is an important part of all modern work projects. Swiss Life Germany provided its own trainers to train advisors how to use the new environment, either on site or online. They helped users set up the new technologies and showed them how to work with them efficiently.
Truly tailor-made in technology and scheduling
Like the technology, Skaylink′s scheduling was also truly tailor-made: The main part of the project was completed as planned at the end of 2024. The 6,000 independent advisors at Swiss Life Germany now have access to a modern, centralized collaboration platform. They can collaborate efficiently in a centralized digital environment. The isolated solutions were replaced by modern, seamlessly integrated Microsoft 365 solutions. By the end of March 2025, all advisors had been fully transitioned to the new environment.
Currently, Swiss Life Germany is driving further innovation with the help of Skaylink: More processes will soon be automated using Power Platform. Artificial intelligence will support advisors in the future with typical questions and tasks. “Our experience has been so positive that we will continue working with Skaylink,” says Fabian Freyer at Swiss Life Germany.
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