As AIA navigates the post-pandemic new norm of digitized operations, Umeshi De Fonseka, Chief Technology Officer of AIA Sri Lanka, stated that the company had strong foundational technologies which made for a smooth transition and the acceleration of modernizing the organization’s technology landscape. This enabled them to improve how they engage internal and external customers and to provide a more personalized omnichannel experience. Furthermore, through their contact center and customer platform, the organization continues to implement and expand a variety of automated services, including a completely integrated Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system that provides consumers with 24/7 uninterrupted services in all three languages.

Umeshi is confident that AIA is the only company in the industry to use the latest and most secure technologies to develop its customer portal to provide a seamless experience through multiple devices.  The core of this solution was built following human-centric design principles to make them more intuitive and user-friendly. The launch of the new cutting-edge POS solution is world-class and has revolutionized the way AIA’s Wealth Planners and Bancassurance Executives interact with customers facilitating automated underwriting, real-time analytics, and dashboards to monitor their progress including advanced financial need analyzers with predictive features. This solution has set a new and risen benchmark for the industry and simplified the disruption of insurance.

With the advancement of global technology, AIA has diversified, and Umeshi stressed that the organization has maintained the highest level of cybersecurity in this digital transformation journey while leveraging AIA’s global presence. AIA has made going digital and keeping up with digitalization a strategic focus. To be more specific, Umeshi explains how AIA was able to digitize their entire customer journey within 100 days, including tactical solutions that were later industrialized, from the point of solicitation to policy issuance. “Our cloud, data, and AIA strategies continue to improve the company’s agility,” he said, “even though we are part of a company with a 100-year history!” AIA mapped out plans to continue to accelerate this growth over the next three to four years, concentrating on technology, digital, and analytics.

“Organizations find it difficult to evolve because their structures and business models are designed for their current business,” Umeshi concludes. “Realizing this will pave the way for rapid market disruption,” he continued. “Being effective requires agility, adaptation, and the ability to recognize the need for change.”