Suncorp's cloud transformation on track

Suncorp Group's move to a cloud-driven "optimised platform" to underpin its operations is on track and will deliver a "sustainable competitive advantage well into the future", group CEO Patrick Snowball told an investor day event today.

"Over the next two years as we move to our optimised platform, we'll be able to extract ... benefits of $170 million," in addition to benefits already realised from the transformation process begun in 2010, Snowball said.

Suncorp's vision for its "optimised platform" is digitally enabled customer-facing systems sitting atop simplified core administration systems that feed into a data lake that can drive predictive analytics and business intelligence across the group.

"Increasingly our customers want to connect digitally and we're living in a world of both mobility and technological disruption," Snowball said.

"To ensure that we stay ahead of the competition, we've been investing in systems that are digitally enabled to allow our customers and business partners to access us, how and where they want.

"Standing behind our digital frontend we are completing the development of four core administration systems: One policy and one claim system for all our general insurance businesses both here and in New Zealand, a world-class banking system and a new life administration system."

"These core systems will feed our customer, policy and claims data along with HR, finance and management data, into our single, centralised data lake," the group CEO said.

"This will allow us to establish a best in class business intelligence function providing forward-looking, predictive analytics to deliver better solutions and outcomes for our customers.

"All of this will sit in a secure and flexible cloud environment where our lean and agile capabilities will enable us to deliver new services at high speed and lower cost," Snowball said.

"I want to assure you that none of this is vapourware: We set this plan some time ago and have been delivering our projects on time and to budget over the last few years. The basics are now all in place and will be completed by June 2017."

In addition, the upgrade to Suncorp Bank's core banking system, dubbed Project Ignite, is on track for completion in June 2016.

The upgrade will reduce the bank's cost-to-income ratio from 53 per cent to under 50 per cent in the 2017 financial year, according to Suncorp.

"This best-in-class IT system is a key industry differentiator which Suncorp will be the first to implement," Snowball said.

"It gives our regional bank an IT platform better than most of the majors and will give the bank a genuine competitive advantage over its regional peers."