CASE STUDY
In an industry built on risk assessment and longstanding tradition, the digital revolution is presenting both a challenge and an opportunity. Leading the charge at Hollard, one of Australia’ s most dynamic insurance groups, is Chief Information Officer Graeme Wilson. With a wealth of experience in the insurance and technology sectors, Wilson is at the forefront of a major transformation, guiding the company’ s strategic shift towards a more agile, data-driven, and customercentric future.
Wilson’ s role is far more than just managing IT systems; he is tasked with embedding technology across every facet of the business, from underwriting and claims to customer engagement and internal operations. This isn’ t merely about adopting new software; it’ s about fundamentally rethinking how Hollard operates, building a resilient and flexible technological backbone that can adapt to an ever-evolving market.
In this exclusive interview, we delve into the core of Hollard’ s digital journey, the key drivers behind their transformation, including the adoption of cutting-edge technologies like cloud computing and AI – and the challenges and successes of modernising legacy systems, and the importance of fostering a culture of innovation.
How did the initial IT discovery work with Interactive change Hollard’ s understanding of the migration challenge, particularly after your previous MSP’ s announcement?
The migration of any data centre is always going to be a challenging exercise, so the discovery work helped to provide clarity around the challenges and scale of what we were staring into. This helped to shape our thinking around the complexity of the infrastructure, the data volumes that would need to be migrated, and helped to focus our thinking around how to deliver this within the timeframes available. was to minimise the work required over the cut-over weekend, and with that in mind we wanted to start migrating our partners across to our new network without disrupting their business.
We worked closely with our partners, ensuring we provided them enough time to take the proposed changes through their change control processes, followed by the implementation of the changes. Interactive initially assisted with all of this by providing a full-time network engineer to assist with getting the network up and running, and facilitating the various changes required, until we reached a point where we could bring this in-house.
A project of this scale and complexity is not just about the technology challenges, but also about the teamwork and co-ordination required across Hollard and the Interactive team. Everyone was dedicated to achieving common goals which was enhanced by a strong sense of camaraderie.
You mentioned the rigorous testing and scenario planning framework. Could you provide a specific example of a potential risk that this framework identified and how it was mitigated before the go-ahead?
As part of the rigorous testing, we executed multiple go-live dry runs in the environment. This helped us to confirm the correct sequence and duration that the cut-over activities would take. It also identified issues with authentication which helped us be better prepared for what was required during the cut-over.
Hollard Insurance Group Offices, South Wales
There is massive complexity in migrating hundreds of virtual servers with a mix of generations of IT systems. What was the single biggest technical challenge you faced, and how did Interactive’ s partnership help you overcome it?
The biggest challenge was around architecting the network so that we could enable connections between the old and new facilities. This included thinking around the design and implementation of security requirements as well as the connectivity required to our partners. One of our key objectives
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