IAG New Zealand(MIS100 2009)

By CIO staff | Friday, July 24 2009

2008 ranking: 45

Senior IS executive: Allan Dornan, CIO
Reports to: Ian Foy, CEO
Size of IS shop: 140

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

Industry: Finance and insurance
PC environment: Windows XP, HP, IBM
Server environment: HP, IBM, Windows 2003
DBMS: SQL, Oracle, DB2
Address: Level 11, 151 Queen Street, Auckland
Website: www.iag.co.nz
Key IS projects this year: Complete transition of outsourced services; Re-platform of legacy application; E-business initiatives (B2B and B2C); Insurance product improvements.

A highly competitive insurance market and pressure on costs means high-quality IT service and innovation are critically important to business success for leading insurer IAG New Zealand. IAG New Zealand trades under the State and NZI insurance brands.

Allan Dornan, CIO, says improving business profitability is a key driver for IAG NZ in 2009. “We are undertaking a number of initiatives to improve business performance and reduce IT costs. In particular, we are focussed on reducing the operational costs of IT and getting better value from discretionary investments. IT is supporting the development of a number of business growth initiatives, particularly in the e-business arena.”

Operational and ICT project budgets are down by more than 20 per cent in 2009, and while IT staff numbers remain steady, the number of IT contractors used has slightly decreased. “Funding for new IT initiatives is tighter than previously, which is leading to better quality decision making about which projects get approved,” says Dornan.

In this more cautious fiscal environment, IAG NZ is pursuing product and core insurance system enhancements, relocation of the IAG NZ datacentre to a new energy-efficient facility, and e-business developments designed to improve customer service and drive growth in revenues. Other areas of investment include business intelligence and — like many organisations this year — investment in unified communications platforms and technologies for more streamlined and cost-efficient internal communications.

Echoing other CIOs, Dornan says recruitment and retention of skilled and experienced staff has changed from being a key challenge in previous years to being a more manageable issue, due largely to the economic downturn.