I have spent my career in the space where business and technology innovation meet, starting at Microsoft and later as a founder, CEO and investor in high-tech companies, and more recently the first Divisional CIO in Allstate’s history based outside of North America. Just over two years ago, I had the privilege of being asked to lead the transformation of our European technology operations. Allstate has operated in the region for more than 25 years, serving as a key component of technology delivery and innovation for all that time. It has always looked to technology to do things better, faster and provide more value. Staying still in not an option, it would be the same as going in reverse, so we adopted a radically new way of working.
Allstate is a purpose driven company: to help protect people from life's uncertainties – which could be a mobile phone damage, identity theft, or a catastrophe damage. Our systems support well over a billion dollars of revenue each week and our customers count on us when it matters most. To support customers, our technology and data science teams have staff across the globe. Under CIO Zulfi Jeevanjee’s leadership, we have fundamentally transformed how those teams operate and deliver products. That change has paid off big time, with our customers loving the new experience, and driving company performance.
Most companies have business strategies supported by technology, but we already made a different and ambitious choice to have a technology-driven business strategy. It sounds subtle, but the difference is immense. This strategy implemented an entirely new operating model, not only for the technology organisation but one that created a ripple across the business. The success comes from putting the customer at the centre of every decision and asking what needs to be true to make it happen. Technology is no longer measured by on-time and on-spec delivery but achieving business outcomes. Annual planning has become a rapid iteration of market discovery and delivery of high value customer outcomes. And, most fundamentally, we empowered our leaders to become true practitioners of engineering and design, with the ability to make crucial decisions and have a clear line of sight to business goals.
READ MORE: Allstate’s Early Tech Talent Meet Up brings together Young Innovators from across Northern Ireland
This was not a small change, but even in the early stages we saw promising results. Teams aligned to problems centred on customer value, creating a desire to eliminate even the smallest friction points and deliver personalised customer experiences. All of this was underpinned by an architectural vision that centred on a simplified ecosystem of clearly defined digital products. That vision provided the North Star to align, empowering thousands of technologists globally with decision authority, collectively increasing speed of deployment, promoting reuse and creating resiliency.
At its heart, our culture was the key enabler, and people rose to the challenge, creating true change. We dramatically simplified our team structures, aligning them to digital product teams and removed bureaucracy. We also embedded the skills directly in the digital product teams to allow them to ideate, design, build, test and operate at all stages of the product life cycle. We streamlined development process to eliminate hand-offs. We introduced a groundbreaking model of peer review and coaching on best practices, that allowed teams to raise each other, establish peer accountability, and operate to mutually agreed standards they developed and own.
The result - we have built a value engine which powers innovation at an unprecedented rate, one that acts and feels like a digital native. That has required bravery and leadership, from product engineers to senior leaders and it brings with it an infectious camaraderie. It is also a journey. Most fundamentally we are a company that is comfortable with the simple question of - what if that was possible?
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