Deployment of Global Strategic Solution in
Europe
American International Group is the world's leading
international insurance and financial services organisation, with
operations in 130 countries. AIG's global businesses also include
financial services, retirement savings and asset management. AIG's
financial services businesses include aircraft leasing, financial
products, trading and market making.
AIG Group Headquarters in the United States initiated a strategy
to develop and deploy a Strategic Solution, the 'Strategic Systems
Suite' (S3) to cater for all its insurance business needs
worldwide. The aim of this global project was to decommission the
multiple legacy systems the company utilised throughout the world.
The S3 suite covers commercial lines, personal lines, accident and
health, and claims.
Worldwide development
Initially, a Central Software Development Centre was established
in New Jersey (US), with a mission of developing the core
applications for the suite. To assist with the worldwide
deployment, four Regional Deployment Centres were also established.
One in Manila, to support the core software roll-out and to develop
regional enhancements in South East Asia; another in Miami, to
roll-out to North and South America; a third in Dublin, Ireland, to
cater for Europe; and a fourth in Croydon, UK, to look after the
complex markets in the UK and Ireland.
VISION, in partnership with AIG, successfully implemented the S3
suite intially in AIG Ireland, which was the largest IT project
undertaken by AIG in ten years and the critical part of the global
project.
The systems encompassed a full replacement of both front-end
underwriting and back-end accounting systems (from a suite of
legacy AS400 applications). The project had two main streams of
work - modifying the front-end underwriting and claims applications
to accommodate the business' requirements; and converting the data
from the legacy system to the new S3 database.
Partnership
The project was completed over 18 months and involved VISION
working very closely with AIG business users and management in
Dublin, London and the US. VISION itself divided the work between
the Dublin and Belfast offices.
On successful completion of the project, VISION began
discussions with AIG around the application of S3 to mainland
Europe and followed this with implementations in Poland, the United
Kingdom and Russia.