Bridging The IT Gap Between Fireman’s Fund and Allianz Life

Scott Senden, VP, application technology, Allianz Life, identifies three key success factors that contribute to Fireman's Fund's and Allianz Life's combined successwithin Allianz of America's shared services IT model.

1. Sponsorship. "Whether it was AZOA [Allianz of America] CEO Chuck Kavitsky, AZOA CIO Oliver Bussmann or Allianz Life CEO Gary Bhojwani, it was important to have support from our leadership that allowed us to move forward with this [shared-services] project. Without this type of executive sponsorship, it would have been easy for the project to unravel."

2. Leadership Principles. "We decided early on to be transparent to our IT employees. We made it very clear with employees to communicate what we knew and when we knew it. This introduced a certain level of risk, but it allowed us to be open and honest about what was happening during the transformation. We believe this philosophical alignment demonstrates our high level of principles."

3. Collaboration. "We took a collaborative approach to making decisions to create one AZOA model. It wasn't the case of one organization driving another."