Norwich Union Picks IBM for Business Consulting Services

One of the leading UK life insurers, Norwich Union, has signed a two and a half year contract with IBM to provide program transformation expertise for its business services division.

"The deployment of effective innovation and program delivery is critical to our ability to drive forward competitive advantage," said Cathryn Riley, business services director, Norwich Union Life.

A team of specialists from IBM Business Consulting Services will work with Norwich Union Life to transform its business services division which consists of internal consulting, application development and maintenance.

The project will enhance business services' ability to deliver quality services to the rest of the Norwich Union Life business. It will also enable business services to help lead the broader transformation of Norwich Union Life, provide enhanced customer service and be more responsive to market changes and needs. Financial terms were not disclosed.
"In this highly competitive environment it is no longer enough to simply focus on integrating isolated process optimization initiatives," said David Dockray, managing partner for IBM Business Consulting Services.

The business services function provides Norwich Union with services including the delivery of complex programs, the provision and maintenance of IT systems and the delivery of innovation through business consulting. As part of the assisted transformation initiative, specialists from IBM Business Consulting Services will work with business services on a number of work-streams:

Winning and Capable Team -- a change program to transform business services' culture, organization design, people management, skill development and resource deployment capabilities to enable it to meet the highest standards and achieve PCMM level 3 certification.

Once successful it will become one of the first UK organizations to achieve this.