Letting go and re-learning is first step to embracing the cloud

Behind the spectacular results Old Mutual achieved by embracing the cloud lies a very human story. Getting more customers to engage digitally is as much an age-old tale of trust as it is a modern story of mind-boggling progress made possible by unshackling your business from heritage systems. 

What was so astounding about abandoning Old Mutual’s heritage architecture and moving, wholesale, onto the cloud, was the speed with which it happened. “Our service capabilities exploded quickly and very visibly for customers,” says Johnson Idesoh, Chief Information Officer at Old Mutual. 

Just over 100 000 customers were engaging with Old Mutual digitally in 2019. Today 1 million customers use its digital services regularly, and 1.4 million customers downloaded their tax certificates digitally this year. Between August 2020 and 2021 claims submitted digitally by customers increased 109%. 

Enter the cloud

Within two years of Old Mutual partnering with Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2019, one million customers across key markets in 14 countries engaged with the MyOldMutual Platform – entirely on the cloud. Adoption of Old Mutual’s digital adviser platform in Namibia and South Africa crossed 10 000 unique advisers in September. 

The beauty and speed of the cloud is its geometric ability, says Idesoh. It allows customer recognition using patterns such as biometrics and artificial intelligence, instead of having to rely on existing data. A transaction that would have taken eight minutes on heritage systems a few years ago takes only a second on the cloud. “This has profound implications for scalability,” observes Idesoh. 

Being on the cloud also means that Old Mutual can evolve its services and abilities at the speed of the cloud’s own evolution. Today, for example, “we can do things on the cloud that weren’t even conceivable three years ago,” says Idesoh. Critically, the exponential improvements in customer service and huge advances in solutioning that these evolutions have supported have cost less. In fact, Idesoh is currently predicting that ongoing digitisation of the Old Mutual customer experience up to 2022 will save the business in excess of ZAR 750 million. 

While these new abilities are impressive, they only take on meaning for a purpose-led organisation like Old Mutual when it is understood how all this speed and capacity helps customers meet their own financial and life goals. 

The MyOldMutual customer data platform updates every 20 seconds, ensuring the data of over 13 million customers is always up to date and instantly available. Old Mutual policy holders reporting vehicle windscreen damage now receive a call from an accredited glass supplier within 15 minutes of reporting damage. Today, 80% of customers receive their policies on the same day that they interact with their adviser via the Digital Adviser Platform. The cloud has also enabled Old Mutual to rationalise its seven mobile applications into a single app serving all. 

“This is what we mean by purpose-led technology,” explains Idesoh. “The cloud allows us to hyperscale the technology that is available to personalise services relevant to individual needs.” 

Old Mutual’s adviser platform is similarly enabled by purpose-led technology, reducing the costs of supporting the adviser network while increasing advisers’ access to data, support, and insight. Old Mutual currently has 175 robots, for example, coordinated and operated via the cloud, and supporting over 50 independent processes in the business – all aimed at improving customer experience and outcomes. 

Internally, Old Mutual also now supports a single employee platform, serving every employee in the business across all 13 African markets. Old Mutual’s employee platform provides every employee across the business full transparency and instant visibility on their pay, deductions, tax, leave, medical insurance, learning and all other aspects of employee management and engagement. 

The huge impact of Old Mutual’s industry-leading cloud migration has not gone unnoticed by the market or industry. Old Mutual was named Blue Prism CEO’s Choice in the 2021 Pinnacle EMEA Awards and was also a finalist in the 2021 Global IDC awards. In 2019 it won the Corporate Section of the BCX Digital Innovation Awards. 

While the organisational learning that technology enables is fascinating to witness, “what is most critical is our cultural – and very human – ability to adapt,” says Idesoh. Old Mutual supports agility by, for example, encouraging employees to go on relevant training courses without first seeking formal permission. In fact, to date, over 200 Old Mutual employees from all parts of the business have at least one Amazon Web Services certification. 

“Natural curiosity and commitment to life-long learning are key attributes in the digital age,” says Idesoh. 

One of the members of Old Mutual’s Ping implementation team, currently winning Ping’s 2021 Modern Identity Champion award, has been part of Old Mutual’s digitisation programme since 2000. He has learned continually, and personally innovated new skills, as the business pivoted through nearly 20 years of mainframe iterations to the cloud. Today, “he’s still on the team, successfully leveraging a vast range of cloud-enabled abilities,” says Idesoh. 

And things don’t end here. The cloud evolves daily. It’s impossible to accurately predict the skills that will be required in future. 

One thing is certain, however, says Idesoh. “People who are curious and committed to constant learning will create their own space in our shared future as we co-evolve with the cloud to deliver on our 176-year-old promise of helping customers build positive financial futures,” says Idesoh.