"We are, in effect, re-using intellectual property. We can leverage what we have done for one business unit to fulfill requirements coming from another," said Henry Ma, IT general manager and chief architect of Ping An.

"We've long recognised the business benefits of a more adaptive and flexible IT infrastructure, and therefore established an integrated IT infrastructure to support our rapidly expanding businesses," he said.

Ping An's customers across its multiple business units include 40 million life insurance contracts to more than 10 million property and casualty insurance contracts. Car insurance policies alone grow by more than 30,000 contracts a day.

The integrated technology platform was founded to present one customer interface to this diverse base and to increase and manage the many cross-selling opportunities.

Integrating enterprise systems