Change is not new to the Insurance & Financial Services industry but consumer demand for the pace of change is unprecedented, fuelled by a combination of new digital technologies, social media, and the ever improving user experience offered by digital natives and start-ups.
In this ‘Digital Age’, digital natives and start-ups find this environment natural but for businesses established long before digital (incorporating just about most of the players in our industry) adjusting to this new world takes a little more effort. Business Architecture@AXA exists to anticipate change and help deliver transformation at a quality and pace expected by its customers. To be successful, AXA’s Business Architects need to be forward looking, agile and highly effective communicators. Business Architects are expected to be knowledgeable in any business area they are asked to work in or to learn quickly!
A good example of a challenge facing most organisations is; ‘how do we drive value from the sheer volume of data available in an ethical, compliant and legal way?’ Using the tools and skills at their disposal, Business Architects must understand ‘Big Data’ from many viewpoints:
- How could better and more structured data improve the business?
- What additional information security and compliance risks does ‘Big Data’ bring?
- What technology exists to harness ‘Big Data’?
- Which vendors are leading the market?
- How will richer data add value?
- Do we already have the capability that we can reuse in the business?
- Do we need the capability in multiple places?
- What is the optimal Target Operating Model for managing our data?
In fact, these types of questions are relevant across the organisation for all types of capabilities.
The role of the Business Architect@AXA is to help the business find the right questions and to answer them in support the transformational design that will deliver its vision. But Business Architecture cannot replace the expertise needed in business transformation, no more than an architect, in the traditional sense of the word, can design, source materials and build an entire building on their own. An architect’s role is simply to get the best outcome with the resources available by translating someone’s vision into a reference document (a blueprint) that all other experts work from.
In our ‘Big Data’ example, Business Architecture@AXA is at the heart of building a data target operating model using Information Security, Compliance, Enterprise and Solution Architecture, Procurement and Operations to translate the vision into a business blueprint capable of driving the change that will not just keep pace with customer expectations but exceed them.
Business Architecture plays a vital role in supporting AXA deliver change at the pace expected by today’s consumers. And it doesn’t stop there. As Business Architecture@AXA matures, its vision is to be ahead of consumer expectations so that AXA can spin up and scale the type of agile, innovative change currently only seen in digital natives and start-ups.
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Geoff Grace Business Architect AXA UK Geoff Grace is Business Architecture & IT Strategic Planning Manager, AXA Insurance |
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