IAG New Zealand(MIS100 2010)

By Jess Meyer | Thursday, May 27 2010

2009 ranking: 41

Senior IS executive: Allan Dornan, CIO
Reports to: Ian Foy, CEO
Size of IS shop: 150

PCs: 2000
Mobile PCs: 600
Terminals: 380
Hand-held devices: 300
Total screens: 3280

Industry: Finance and insurance
PC environment: Windows XP, HP, Lenovo
Server environment: HP; IBM; Windows 2003, 2008
DBMS: SQL, Oracle, DB2
Address: Level 11, 151 Queen Street, Auckland
Website: www.iag.co.nz
Key IS projects this year: Legacy platform upgrade; various e-business initiatives; pricing and underwriting enhancements; business intelligence enhancements; server virtualisation.

This year brings with it fresh challenges and energy for IAG New Zealand, as consumer and business confidence grow and the insurance market looks to be turning to a more profitable phase. As the outlook improves some old constraints come to the fore, “We are seeing IT skills shortages re-emerging in the market as confidence returns to the economy. Companies with superior employment branding and those that have maintained headcount during the downturn, will be better placed than those that made knee-jerk reactions and reduced staffing or delayed projects,” says CIO Allan Dornan. Work is well underway on a pipeline of strategic projects, allowing Dornan’s team to continue at pace and achieve stretching business objectives in 2010.

From an insurance perspective, says Dornan, New Zealand is undoubtedly a riskier and costlier place than it once was. “We need to better use what we know about our customers and the things they insure to really understand the risk factors and emerging trends. That is vital to ensure the long-term sustainability of our business.” Dornan calls IT the “manufacturing plant” for IAG’s business and says that his team will be working to support a number of initiatives in 2010 designed to deliver superior customer service, removing duplication of effort and reducing transaction costs.

Key projects include a legacy platform upgrade, enhancements to pricing and underwriting systems, more aggressive implementation of server virtualisation, and development of IAG’s business intelligence solution. Various industry leading e-business initiatives in both the business-to-business and business-to-consumer space will also be undertaken this year.