Aon is New Zealand’s largest insurance broking and risk consulting company. With over 500 staff operating through a network of 50 branches, Aon offers world leading risk management, retail, reinsurance, wholesale brokerage, claims management, specialty services, and human capital consulting services.
Aon’s main challenge was that its existing IT technology restricted access to business data and relied on partners having to log in twice to access their records. The system was also not as time or cost effective as required, and with a large portion of its partners having disparate systems, Aon needed to unlock its data in a standardised way for easy access by all business partners.
As Shankar Krishnamurti, Gen-i Principal Architect explains, “Aon wanted more of its partners to be able to access their information in real time from one web interface.”
With the help of Gen-i, Aon New Zealand put in place the IBM Websphere Web Services Gateway to provide access to application and business data hosted by Aon Australia. Aon’s business partners in New Zealand can now use these web services to integrate more tightly with Aon’s systems. That, in turn, means Aon can offer its partners a more sophisticated service.
The Websphere Web Services Gateway went live in September 2006 and Aon New Zealand is already enjoying the benefits. “The solution allows the Websphere Web Services Gateway to access the old Aon system, get the information and send it out to their business partner and this provides a very real benefit in terms of customer service,” says Krishnamurti.
Furthermore, as Steve Gawne, Aon’s General Manager – Information & Technology (NZ / Pacific), explains, Websphere Web Services Gateway lets Aon see who is calling a particular service. This means Aon can now offer its business partners different packages based on their usage. “We can now ‘tailor map’ different application and business data to individual business partners,” says Gawne.
In the future, Aon plans to provide tailor-made websites for its partners with data that is prepackaged for those partners. “We have already started prototyping and exploring options for how we would make it available via customised client portals for partners,” he says.