THE CHALLENGE
Tackling the future head-on is familiar ground for AMP, whether it be helping people gain a long lasting income in retirement, or providing quality advice on insurance, investment or financial planning decisions.
Mid year, AMP re-launched the AMP experience on www.amp.co.nz using the latest EPiServer technology, one of the first Intergen customers to make this move in New Zealand. With one foot firmly in the innovation space, it was strategic for AMP’s Enterprise Solutions Manger, Shirley McIntyre to leverage off this investment and to seek to benefit from adopting the latest .NET architectures across disparate AMP platforms.
AMP wanted to bring their retirement scheme, New Zealand Retirement Trust (NZRT ), on-line. Hosting penalties on the existing platform created urgency and a need to deliver on time.
The experts on retirement were ready to retire old architecture and go leading edge with VisualStudio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 well in advance of its market release. They needed a suitable platform for leveraging future developments while reducing overall complexity.
First in the Market
AMP took up Intergen’s recommendation to future proof with an ahead-of-the market solution utilising Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2005 and SQL Server 2005. As a company well versed in risk analysis, AMP viewed the opportunity as innovation not ‘experimentation’ and went into the project with solid expectations.
“Intergen have an extremely close partnership with Microsoft and through that expertise were able to convincingly demonstrate areas of high business value using Microsoft’s new .NET toolset and SQL Server database. To be the first company to deliver an application based on this innovative framework was exactly where we wanted to be as a forward looking company.” Shirley McIntyre, AMP.
Gaining More Business Value Through a Reusable Framework
The opportunity to create leverage off their investment was a major business driver for AMP in this project.
“There was a lot of business value to be gained by redeveloping the web site solution to bring NZRT on-line. .NET gave us the opportunity to use a common framework based on SOA principles and best practices, and we could capitalise on the implementation of amp.co.nz by bringing all our external facing applications up to one consistent high standard.” Shirley McIntyre.
Leveraging the New Technologies
Using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 allowed AMP to utilise SQL Server Integration Services. This greatly improved the importing and transformation of retirement information sourced from AMP's retirement processing mainframe. Overall complexity of the import and transformation processes was reduced, thus resulting in increased maintainability. In addition, overall performance of these processes increased by approximately 300 - 400%.
A Successful Transition in Six Weeks
Intergen’s Roshan Perera, Lead Developer spells out the leap forward.
“Utilising the latest SOA principles meant the development took 75% less development effort than the original system, an obvious win for the client in terms of cost. Scalability and longevity for future applications by AMP is also crucial. The use of SQL Server Integration Services greatly reduced the complexity of mainframe data input processes and the project was delivered in around six weeks enabling NZRT to exit its platform without penalties.”
Meeting the timeframe showed integrity according to AMP’s Project Manager Michael Coffey.
“They resourced accordingly, and their technical ability and pre-knowledge of Microsoft’s new offering meant they developed exactly what they said they would do. If there were challenges, Intergen absorbed them, rather than passing on costs.”
22,000 Members and 750 Employers use NZRT On-line
As a work-based retirement scheme, being on-line provides instant capability for employees and employers to check balances and manage contributions. The use of banner ads, brand colours and easy usability means a more consistent experience for AMP customers.
"More leverage is planned, with excellent opportunities for AMP to grow their technology footprint." says Shirley McIntyre.
“Now we have reusable components that I can evoke in the future to offer customers further product sets such as our Risk suite and to promote our Adviser force. In summary, we have an energised offering on our web site; and the technology we have delivered these applications on has been future proofed for further expansion and growth”.
Good insurance for the future. More than appropriate for AMP.