iA Financial Group will dedicate half a billion dollars to its digital transformation by 2025.
The insurer laid out its plans at its latest investor day. It also offered some details on how the money will be spent. For example, $220 million will go toward modernizing its back-office systems.
The $500 million is in addition to iA Financial Group's regular investments in information technology. The insurer expects this investment to improve its earnings per share by at least 1 per cent over the next few years.
This investment “is particularly devoted to the implementation of state-of-the-art business platform to modernize and simplify our legacy system and to add specific components to improve the customer and advisor experience. Part of this sum is also devoted to the automation of business processes and increasing the use of data, including the use of artificial intelligence and predictive analytics,” explains Pierre Miron, Executive Vice President, Information Technology.
Threepillars of growth
iA Financial Group's modernization plan also aims to fuel its growth in three areas. The first, which Miron calls “maybe the most important one,” is related to the customer and advisor experience.
“Our digital tools helped outpace the market growth by obtaining a more detailed view of the customer through the use of data. They also improve the customer and advisor experience by providing sophisticated sales tools and self-serve capabilities. Because of this investment, it will be easier to do business with iA, whether it’s a direct connection with a client or to an advisor,” he explains.
The second growth pillar is business efficiency. Through its digital transformation plan, iA Financial Group expects to lower its operational costs by 20 per cent.
“The renewal of our business platform, as well as the process automation component, will make it possible to achieve this gain in efficiency. In addition, part of the strategy is to reduce IT costs by adopting cloud-based solutions and removing old, expensive legacy systems,” Miron continues.
The third area of growth is the people pillar: Having the right talent and skills at the right time. “You can imagine an evolution of the talent pool with the achievement of this pillar with the two other pillars: Fewer clerical staff with process automation and more high-calibre professionals for the use of artificial intelligence and predictive analytics. Finally, we are continuing to search for strategic partners to enable us to speed up certain initiatives.”
The transformation plan is already underway, Miron adds. “The objective is to maintain our strategic position related to the efficiency of our distribution product. We’ve already captured some of the benefits related to this investment. It’s a journey. Everything will not be completed tomorrow. But we know exactly what we’re going to be doing with the $500 million investment, and it’s a real positive return on investment of at least 1 percent.”
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