Warsaw, 20th January 2020: On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Sollers Consulting, Sollers Awards were granted for remarkable achievements in the field of digital transformation. Zurich Germany, PZU, Warta, Beazley, Generali Poland and AXA Direct Japan were recognised for outstanding projects.
As a part of the celebrations of the 20th anniversary of Sollers Consulting, six digitalization projects were singled out for the Sollers Award. The laureates accepted awards in the categories of “Transformation”, “Operational excellence” and “Agility”.
“In the 20 years of our company’s history, we have accompanied many transformation projects in the insurance industry around the world. With the Sollers Awards we want to honour insurers who are driving innovation and bring about remarkable changes,” says Marcin Pluta, Managing Partner at Sollers Consulting.
Zurich Germany was recognised for its pioneering work in the field of digital transformation. The company was one of the first major insurers in Germany to recognise the importance of modernising its IT core to keep up with market trends and changing environments. Zurich has demonstrated how a modernised core system helps an insurer to follow new business models and connect to digital ecosystems. The award was accepted by Dorothée Appel, CIO and CDO of Zurich Germany. “We would like to thank you for your trust and are proud to be supporting Zurich in its digital projects since 2015,” says Michał Trochimczuk, Managing Partner at Sollers Consulting.
PZU, the leading insurer in the CEE region, has very early transformed into a modern and innovative insurer and set international benchmarks. “The comprehensive transformation was implemented in a highly agile manner,” reports Grzegorz Podleśny, Partner at Sollers Consulting. “Two of the success factors of the project were a clearly defined objective and criteria for measuring performance. Business and IT worked closely together. The business transformation laid the foundation for further extensions and capabilities,”, says Podleśny.
Beazley’s transformation in the London market is setting the pace for an industry that is in urgent need of change. The agile transformation of the claims business is turning Beazley into a digital leader at Lloyd’s and in the London markets. The modernisation of their claims management has been extremely lean and has been kept at a healthy size. “What we are even more proud about Beazley is that the success in their transformation in claims is a part of a broader agile change led by their CIO Ben Spencer,” explained Grzegorz Podleśny. Beazley has proven to be ready to go into agile and has been a brilliant example of the added value of business and IT working hand in hand. Ben Spencer accepted the award for the “Agile Claims Transformation in the UK” on behalf of Beazley.
Generali Poland was honoured for the first agile transformation in Poland. The award was accepted by Piotr Bułka, CIO at Generali Poland. “In 2012 Generali took over a part of Groupama and formed a new company. It was a greenfield operation with all the opportunities and risks involved”, explains Pluta. The agile and lean approach enabled Generali to achieve business benefits. Many agile principles originated from the project and are being applied in the company.
Warta, the Polish Talanx subsidiary, represented by Agnieszka Antol, Senior Head of the System Development and Maintenance, received the award for the fastest transformation of an established insurer’s claims business. “It was amazing to see how the agile principles were implemented in a complex organisation. The project had a very good return on investment and led to large productivity gains”, explains Trochimczuk.
The agile business transformation of Axa Direct Japan was recognised as an outstanding achievement. The consistent implementation of an agile project is unique and trendsetting for the market. “The adaptation of agile methods is still in a relatively early phase among Japanese insurers and there are challenges to overcome. ADJ has led the way in this respect, which is very challenging but also rewarding,” says Trochimczuk. Yuji Futamura, Hideyo Shimojima and Genta Hatakeyama, Senior Managers at AXA Direct Japan, accepted the award.
“The Sollers award recognises extraordinary achievements of our customers. The business success of our clients is particularly important to us and this is how we want to be evaluated,” comments Pluta. “Digitalization is not just about using technology and being first. It is a long-term process that requires vision, experimentation, continuous development and the right leaders,” he added. “We look forward to continuing to support our customers in the next 20 years with their future challenges for a better digital future.”