LV Insurance: why we decided against using a system integrator for our IT transformation
'We didn't want to be two steps away from the action,' says delivery director Gavin Drescher
For the past two-and-a-half years, mutual insurance firm LV has been undergoing a major transformation, moving from mainframes to a mix of managed services, a new internal data centre and cloud. During this period it also underwent an internal restructuring, selling a stake in its general insurance (GI) business, consolidating existing products, launching new home and motor policy options and creating a new management information system.
With so many interdependent moving parts, a multimillion pound budget, and with a number of external suppliers playing key roles, most companies of LV's size would have brought in a system integrator to coordinate the programme. However, LV decided against this course of action.
At the start of the process it brought in new skills to cover gaps in integration and supplier management and that done management felt confident they could coordinate the programme from within the company, said delivery director for general insurance Gavin Drescher.
"We didn't use a systems integrator which classically a lot of our competitors might choose to do. We were confident in our personal experience and that we could manage."
That said, the firm did bring in a few specialist skills from EY and a number of boutique service providers, and it also relied heavily on its core suppliers Guidewire, Communisis, SSP and Hexaware to cover much of the infrastructure, document management integration and testing, but keeping the decision making in-house was a crucial part of the overall strategy, Drescher said.
"For the leadership team [the transformation programme] is fundamental to taking the business forward, so we didn't want to give that away. That was the real driver it was about control and outcomes," Drescher said.
"We didn't want to be two steps away from the action, we wanted all the leadership team close to the action throughout the transformation, and that sent a message of commitment to the teams working on it, and also to the executive: this is our baby to deliver."
While SIs can be expensive, Drescher insisted that financial considerations were not behind the decision to retain control of the transformation in-house.
"SIs are excellent in many ways, I'm not knocking them, but in my experience they have slightly different interests, other commercial interests, so that was the reason rather than the money."