Alex Robinson, information technology directora position roughly equivalent to CIOof London-based Norwich Union, the P&C arm of holding company Aviva plc, got to his position via a different route from most CIOs. He graduated from Oxford University with a major in French and Russian and went to work on Fleet Street for the Observer, one of Englands national newspapers. He started in marketing, moved into writing, then happened to take a course in programming, just for fun. To my surprise, I found I liked it, he says.
He took a job as a programmer with one of the local county councils, migrated into project management and systems analysis, and ended up joining Norwich Union in 1989 as a systems analyst. He left IT in 1994, working on business process reengineering, mostly involving cost reductions. That led back to an appointment as CIO of Norwich Union in 1999. Six months later, in May 2000, Great Britains two largest carriersNorwich Union and CGUmerged to form CGNU. CGNU renamed itself Aviva plc in July 2002 and claims to be the seventh-largest insurer in the world.
The merger had a significant impact on Robinson. My staff more than doubled overnight, he says. Going from just under 500 to over 1,000 people. For an operation with 15,000 employees, that doesnt seem like a lot of IT people, but thats not as lean as it sounds, he adds. The hardware operations, all the way through to the desktops, are handled by Norwich Union Central Services (NUCS), a separate entity. Im actually a customer of NUCS, he says, with a budget of 150 to 160 million pounds. It sounds like a lot, but unfortunately it doesnt go as far you would hope.
So, what kind of automation helps him get his job done? First of all, I have a HP notebook computer, which I take with me everywhere, Robinson says. He also carries an iPAQ handheld. He asserts hes better on a keyboard than a stylus, so he doesnt use the iPAQ very often. At home, hes managed to get along with just one PC (in addition to the notebook), but thats about to change. Im going to install a wireless network, he explains, because his four young children are getting past the point where he can get away with assigned time slots for them.
In addition to de-scribing himself as the home tech-support guy, hes had to work out an arrangement with his wife regarding their re-creational gadgets. Im terrible at taking photos, he says, and his wifea traditionalist who likes all the things she can do with a single lens reflex camerais anti-technology. My [photography] enthusiasm isnt matched by any talent, he says, and her talent isnt matched by any enthusiasm for digital technology. She is responsible for taking the pictures, using film, and he uses his home scanner to create digital copies for relatives throughout England and Australia.
Major European Player
The British operation consists of three main businesses: Norwich Union (property/casualty), Norwich Union Life, and Morley Funds (for the asset management business). Collectively, it has over 200 billion pounds ($320 billion, U.S.) in assets under management and over 28 billion pounds (almost $45 billion, U.S.) in premiums, investment income, and fees.
As an operating entity, Norwich Union is Britains largest property/casualty insurer, with premium writings of about 5 billion pounds ($8 billion, U.S.). It is also the fifth-largest insurer in Europe.
Robinson explains that Norwich Union has an interesting P&C operation. We sell through three primary channels, he says. One is through traditional independent agents. They have about 10,000 agencies, which is a large number, acquired through the various mer-gers and acquisitions that have occurred over a period of years. The second channel is selling through banks and major retailers. And the third is through direct marketing, using mail and call centers.
Although there are six CIOs spread among the various Aviva entities, it was all of Robinsons work with process and project management that he credits as a key element in being chosen to head the post-merger integration efforts. We were fortunate because we got an early agreement on what product set the merged company would carry forward, and the system choices fell neatly out of the selected products. We ended up with products that ran on systems that worked, so the integration challenge was moving business off systems we no longer wanted to keep. The carrier uses CSC policy administration systems for all business except the direct distribution channel, which uses the Huon system. In essence, weve hedged our bet. Both systems run well, both systems do what we want, and both systems have survived some turbulent times, he says.
As to the future, Robinson talks about an inevitable convergence between business and home technology. He asserts the boundaries will begin to blur: The inconvenience of segregating your home life and your business life, in terms of technology, is unsustainable.
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