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IBM uses its expertise to implement transformational change within fintech, partnering with clients on complex organisational and technological challenges.

A consultancy business is only as good as the knowhow it can impart onto clients. So it speaks volumes that, when asked what sets IBM Consulting apart, Lee-Han Tjioe, General Manager for Hong Kong and Macau, points to its expertise.

“We have both business consulting and technology consulting in our scope,” LeeHan says. “We have business consultants that help clients with strategy, new propositions and defining or optimising business processes. That’s one part of our practice. The other part is advising on specific technology topics. We have consultants that are very specialised in key technologies like AI and Hybrid Cloud that can help clients achieve major, technology-enabled operational improvements.” required business model changes enabled by modern digital solutions which, without reliable partners, would be hard to scale at pace.

An example is IBM’s strong partnership with insurance company AXA, which has endured for many years. Initially, AXA had their applications managed by providers worldwide but was looking to consolidate, recognising that it was hard to achieve consistent levels of service as well as cost effectiveness. AXA brought in IBM to manage those applications and help them innovate.

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IBM has been a trusted advisory and delivery partner for decades, developing into an ecosystem provider with recent corporate acquisitions to expand its AI and Hybrid Cloud skill sets and support clients with implementing differentiating industry and technology solutions. Today, IBM works collaboratively with companies to achieve

“Our partnership with AXA means we are delivering multi-year support for the business-critical applications that AXA has,” Lee-Han continues. “Those applications are supporting distribution, sales, and key internal operations. We have transferred knowledge of 60 applications within four months and now support about 100+ applications. This is the foundation for our partnership with AXA. We are now helping with further accelerated deployment of APIbased services on AXA’s digital platform to meet rapidly developing market needs.”

GARY HO

TITLE:

CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER HONG KONG AND MACAU

INDUSTRY: INSURANCE

LOCATION: HONG KONG

AXA Hong Kong and Macau is a member of the AXA Group, a leading global insurer with presence in 50 markets and serving 95 million customers worldwide. As one of the most diversified insurers offering integrated solutions across Life, Health and General Insurance, our goal is to be the insurance and wellness partner to the individuals, businesses and community. At the core of our service commitment is continuous product innovation and customer experience enrichment, which is achieved through actively listening to our customers and

GARY HO CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER HONG KONG AND MACAU, AXA

Having large data-sets gives businesses an opportunity to understand their users, and then enhance customer experience, thereby boosting satisfaction from a scientific point of view.”

Data, scientific approaches and technical sophistication are all potentially linked to human wellbeing. “For example, from existing AXA user-insights, we may offer customers personalised recommendations that could explicitly fulfil a particular individual user’s needs, ultimately increasing customer conversion rates and driving revenue growth,” Ho explains.

“But of course, achieving this is no easy task,” he acknowledges. “First and foremost, a solid data foundation is crucial to this journey. Without it, it’s almost impossible for any organisation to turn their data into an asset. “

“Second, while there is a tremendous amount of data distributed in several data warehouses, not all data is clean nor is it all correct. We could see some of that data as dirty or noisy – which would potentially impact the data model accuracy and the final prediction results. As it turns out, we might spend much more time and effort on data cleansing and pre-processing than expected. “

Delivering agility through technology

Brian Kealey, GM and VP for MuleSoft Asia, talks technology and cutting edge solutions for the global insurance industry

MuleSoft, acquired by leading software company Salesforce in 2018, is the only unified platform for integration, APIs, and automation. MuleSoft makes it possible for IT and business teams to create seamless digital experiences faster than ever before. The core aim of MuleSoft is to help organisations through their digital transformation journey by enabling greater speed, agility, and efficiency. Brian Kealey, GM and VP for MuleSoft Asia, leads the MuleSoft business across Asia, which covers the Greater ChIna Region, Southeast Asia and India.

He says, “MuleSoft’s vision is to connect and automate everything. We help organisations to become more composable and agile by unlocking their assets, the data, and the processes they have, and being able to improve their customer experience through technology.”

Transforming customer experiences

The trend for focussing on the customer experience is a theme dominating all industries, and MuleSoft has taken a different approach to achieving its goal. Kealey says, “We saw that more than 70% of customer experiences in Asia have become digital over the last two years. And we’ve seen the pandemic has massively accelerated how organisations think about digital and how critical that is to their growth.”

Automation is also playing a big part in MuleSoft’s ongoing strategy. “We allow IT to have the security and governance that they need to make sure the organisation is not at risk,” he says. “Now with automation capabilities, we’re providing the only unified platform that combines the power of integration, API management, and automation on a resilient, secure, and flexible foundation, so companies across industries can easily automate business processes and compose new digital-first experiences, faster.”

He concludes, “That’s been the focus for us for the last few years. And we’re continuing to innovate in security and governance and reliability space as well. So very exciting times for us.”

HO CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER HONG KONG AND MACAU, AXA

“To counter this, we have maintained a robust Data Governance Framework (DGF). Within this framework, we’ve established good standards and policies, like regular data cleansing and data quality optimisation. With a modernised and robust data infrastructure, we are proud to say that we’ve broken the silo between data and wider lines of business, to drive our enterprise forward.”

AXA has a Point of Sales System for their distribution partner, iPro, to support the sales journey of its products digitally, with Ho describing the relationship as one where

“iPro helps us to facilitate the sales practices with paperless applications through use of the iPad”.

“We are proud to say that we started the journey of handling our new insurance policies through a paperless process, starting from agency sales to transaction completion in the backend. By using iPro, we can empower our financial planners to increase their working mobility and productivity anywhere, anytime,” he says.

Developing a strong IT team and preparing for modernisation of legacy apps

Meanwhile, AXA is modernising all of its legacy applications to remain in-line with sustainability, efficiency, and digitisation goals.

“We believe the cultivation of a cloud-first foundation will uplift the entire technology support to business,” says Ho, “which could deliver a seamless omnichannel experience to AXA customers and colleagues with business value.”

In order to leverage their data, AXA has implemented Digital Backbone, which can create 360 customer analysis for the insurance company’s financial planners. It allows them to provide timely data to support the selling strategies to AXA

Gary Ho On The Next Steps

“We are also implementing a multi-level cloud programme in AXA to facilitate cloud adoption within the company. When we’re talking about raising our adoption rate to new heights, we have a very aggressive target – nearly 100% cloud utilisation of all applications in Hong Kong.” customers, acting as the facilitator to continuously engage its customers. It can also further analyse customer behaviours to support business vision and strategy at the same time.

At the foundation of the IT systems, of course, is the IT team. The question then becomes how to build a strong IT team that can support the technology strategy at AXA.

Ho says: “It might be a cliché to some, but to AXA, the most important aspect of a strong team has got to be ‘doing the right thing, instead of doing the thing right’. We should develop a foundation for solutions, to make sure we are on the right track, including in terms of architecture design, solution and vendor selection, and so on. This brings out a further question, which is: ‘How can we be sure if we are doing the right thing?’. The team should understand the business strategy of the company, and why we are working on a particular solution. They should think from the perspective of customers, to provide an exceptional experience with the applications they develop. “

“We are making the shift towards a start-up mentality and the principle of courage, in which everyone takes responsibility to contribute to the entire team. We would love to establish a culture with an adventurous ethos, where colleagues are never afraid to take risks and are willing to try something new in the market. All of us should work as an alliance to build a technology-vision that business resonates with, so that business and IT can deliver the most positive outcomes together.”

Looking to the future of digital technologies and cloud computing

When asked about his views regarding the of technology, Ho explains the importance of understanding the reasons behind such moves, saying: “Before we talk about cloud computing adoption, we should understand the reason behind enterprises being so eager to move towards the cloud in the first place.”