Our CIO was brought in to aid in empowering growth through a thorough technology overhaul in insurance for a leading short-term broker.
Company Profile
The company stands as one of Southern Africa’s largest short-term insurance brokers. They specialise in offering a broad range of personal and commercial lines insurance to a diverse clientele.
CEO’s Mission
Under the guidance of a CIO in a previous engagement, the CEO and executive team recognised that the company’s infrastructure and systems were outdated and inadequate. Despite significant growth and asset acquisition over ten years, the lack of a permanent technology executive and a coherent technology strategy was hindering its ability to compete with more agile competitors.
CIO’s Objectives
- Manage the business’s day-to-day technology direction and operations.
- Overhaul the entire technology infrastructure to improve communication and cooperation across various branches.
- Consolidate over 20 administration platforms into a streamlined customer interaction system.
- Collaborate with the CEO to develop a technology and product roadmap for growth and competitiveness.
- Introduce IT management governance and standards for internal and external audit compliance.
- Enforce service provision discipline and expectations across all employees.
- Implement and manage a sound IT budgeting framework.
What The CIO Did
The CIO executed several initiatives on parallel timelines:
- Scoped and implemented a new networking infrastructure. Introducing IP telephony with recording services across 30+ locations and 600 staff to meet regulatory requirements.
- Rationalised multiple overlapping service providers across the branch network, inherited from various acquisitions.
- Right-sized internal support staff and identified key support areas previously neglected.
- Selected and appointed a single outsourced service provider for comprehensive desktop, network, telephony, and server infrastructure support.
- Designed and developed an innovative, industry-first distributed customer management platform. This helped in integrating superior user experience, customer relationship management, and integrated insurance administration.
- Negotiated and implemented a comprehensive software license strategy with the largest vendor, marking a first in the company’s history and ensuring compliance.
The CIO’s initiatives in technology overhaul in insurance successfully transformed the company’s operations, enabling it to offer world-class customer service, improve internal communication, and ensure regulatory compliance. By integrating best-of-breed technology and streamlining service provision, the company positioned itself for continued growth and competitiveness in the dynamic insurance market.