Outsourcing initiatives need project and programme staff willing to own the problems as well as deliver the solution.
In 2007, Aviva (formerly Norwich Union) decided to outsource responsibility for 12 million Life & Pension policies to Swiss Re. This included 3 million active premium paying policies. The cost savings have been significant, as has been the opportunity to move to a single platform that can respond rapidly to changes in legislation.
Nevertheless, the benefits Aviva has derived are counterbalanced by the sheer complexity of this 3 year programme.
With 12 disparate legacy systems, 1000 staff to transfer and over 40 miles of paper – the business fundamentally depended on its project management teams.
A number of Practicus change practitioners are included in this number: business analysts for process mapping, operational specialists to sanity check the changes and IT consultants to manage technical migrations. These individuals have added signficant value.
Take the case of one of the Practicus project managers involved. Due dilligence over the deal had been extremely deep but the unexpected can still occurr. When this project manager dug down into the cost implications of scanning over 1 billion pages of documentation, she made an important discovery: the resulting cost would be 1000% of keeping the 12 million policies inhouse.
By flagging her findings to the attention of the client, plans to scan documents were changed in time. This is just one example of the many pitfalls that Aviva’s programme encountered and overcame with Practicus to deliver success.
You can gain more information on our work with this organisation and on similar initiatives by contacting us.
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