Mackie says, “I say to my team, I have never been involved in a large-scale transformation project that has gone smoothly, because the reality is that older systems are complicated – they are difficult to connect to, the experience required to maintain and enhance those is very different to the newer technology.” The focus for Allianz is to create go-to-market platforms that help improve the experience for brokers and customers and for our teams, and Mackie says it’s useful to run the old and the new together until the former is redundant. “We keep the older legacy systems around, but we minimise their use as much as possible until it gets to a point that we’re able to replace them completely.” Mackie says the number one initiative within Allianz at present ties back to that need for an integrated, holistic approach to data and tech. “Platform connectivity is our number one initiative at the moment – how do we connect the systems together so that the broker has a seamless experience when quoting with Allianz, and we automate as much of that as possible, and over time, optimise that experience.” Understanding the true value you’re unlocking The implementation of technology platforms can be significant – both in terms of cost and time. And it’s important to take the time to ensure that what you’re doing will deliver the right benefits for the business.
“The first was that we needed to ensure there was enough business value to unlock, and the second was the technology cost – if you’re deploying complex products on older systems, the cost of that transformation and change now is significant, and sometimes more significant than the value that you’re going to unlock. “It’s then easy to get stuck in this challenging environment where if you don’t do it, you will not be able to stay relevant. If you do do it, you need to significantly rethink how to do it, because if you do it the same way you did it five or 10 years ago, it will not make financial sense, and no one will buy in.” In the specific example of the farm product, Allianz focused on the product design – what would give customers better outcomes, and create a more efficient, nimble product for the future? The redesigned farm product reduced 12 sections of information required to five, without changing the coverage. “The customer still gets what we provided them before, but the way that we do it becomes so much simpler and more cost effective. It literally took years to solve that problem, and get to the point where we knew, with confidence, what we were implementing was future fit.” “Platform connectivity is our number one initiative at the moment – how do we connect the systems together so that the broker has a seamless experience when quoting with Allianz, and we automate as much of that as possible, and over time, optimise that experience.”
Mackie says the first hurdle is to understand the value you’re unlocking.
And that future focus is essential when designing, creating, and implementing digital solutions, says Mackie.
“Business leaders need to understand how all of it comes together to unlock business value. Within the broker area, it really is becoming critically important to unlock value and find those efficiencies and insights.”
“Some of the new technologies we’ve implemented will connect, behind the scenes, to an old system – while in the future, it will connect to a new system,” he says. “Of course, the customer doesn’t need to see that, but it’s about understanding the design that we’re implementing now, and how it will be integrated further with new technologies in the future.”
1. https://offers.hubspot.com/apac/business-growth-australia-2025 2. https://www.salesforce.com/au/news/stories/connectivity-report-announcement-2024/
“We’d talked about launching a new farm product for a long time and people were beginning to doubt whether it would happen at all, but there were two key issues,” he explains.
A NIBA Brokers’ Guide: to leveraging technology in insurance 39
Made with FlippingBook Digital Publishing Software