Following a change of Board personnel, this leading mutual insurance company embarked on a strategy of growth and acquisition. We were engaged to work with the Life Division Board to define the strategy and change agenda for IT for a five year period. The aim was to rationalise systems to reduce costs and mitigate risks whilst also implementing new systems to support growth and improved servicing.

In a joint team of client and Optimos consultants, we engaged on five clear workstreams:

• Assess the current situation and determine the need for change
• Design the target IT architectures
• Develop plans for the key IT change programmes
• Cost and present business cases for approval
• Build subsequent work into the annual operating plans

This was achieved during a period of intense change within both the business, as new acquisitions were brought in and IT, as the existing outsource relationship was terminated and some staff brought back in-house. The resulting applications and technology plans have provided the foundation for activities to reduce costs, improve customer service and launch new products & services into the market.