Groupama Transforms Insurance with Data

Whether members need to pull up a contract or access benefits, data availability is vital for Groupama. With Pure Storage, the mutual insurance company is boosting performance, ensuring continuity of service, and reducing its energy footprint, all while putting its customers at the heart of its strategy.

With more than 12 million members and customers, Groupama is a leading mutual insurer in France with operations in 10 additional countries through around fifty brands. But beyond the numbers, Groupama cares about people. The company is deeply committed to providing the best possible service to its customers, whether they are farmers, entrepreneurs, or private individuals.

As France's leading agricultural insurer, Groupama makes sustainability a major factor in its technology choices. It’s one of the reasons that the company chose Pure Storage several years ago to renew its storage infrastructure.

“Pure Storage was a challenger in Europe at the time, but its technology leadership and its vision of sustainability made the difference”, says Paviotti.

Over his career, Paviotti has juggled the challenges of meeting precise technical requirements while aligning with corporate strategy. But with the Pure Storage platform and its upgradable Evergreen® architecture, he immediately recognized a rare opportunity to evolve storage in line with needs while limiting material waste, perfectly balancing priorities at Groupama.

Migrating from the old system represented a major challenge. “With 12 million policyholders and 31,000 employees, any interruption could have had a significant impact on our services,” says Paviotti.

Groupama worked closely with Pure Storage and its integrator partner, Stordata, to overcome this challenge. “Pure Storage and Stordata designed every stage of the migration to ensure a smooth transition, minimizing risks,” says Paviotti. “Pure Storage's proactive support played a key role in the success of the project.”

Today, the infrastructure consists of 43 FlashArray//X™ and FlashArray//XL™ arrays with an active-active architecture for high availability and optimum performance. The Evergreen//Forever™ subscription delivers ongoing upgrades that keep the infrastructure modernized without needing to completely replace equipment.

“With Pure Storage, we now have a platform capable of adapting to tomorrow's requirements, without compromising our environmental commitments,” says Paviotti.

The storage environment reflects a vision where technology and responsibility come together. Synchronous replication between the two main data centers, combined with replication to a third for disaster recovery, ensures that data is always available.

“Our end users, whether they are our teams or our customers, feel the benefits of this infrastructure: improved quality of service, faster access to data, and enhanced resilience,” says Paviotti. “In our six years with Pure Storage, we’ve carried out more than 300 innovation upgrades with zero downtime or service interruptions.”

At the same time, Groupama increased its storage capacity fivefold, while reducing its electricity consumption by 40% and its footprint by 60%.

“Beyond performance, working with Pure Storage has changed the way we work,” says Paviotti. “Simplified administration has enabled us to free up our teams to devote themselves to projects with higher value, such as supporting new technologies.”

Groupama's approach is a perfect example of a successful transformation that combines operational efficiency, environmental commitment, and protection of member data, which lead to the company being recognized with the Pure Sustainability Innovator 2023 award.