The digitalisation of society is progressing and fundamentally changing the behaviours, needs and demands of customers. The increased availability and sharing of data enables companies to improve the way they develop and offer personalised products and services. The expectation is that a variety of technologies is set to spur a fundamental change in the insurance industry. Examples are blockchain, the Internet of Things, robotics and artificial intelligence.
NN
Group is investing in digital transformation across its businesses. For example,
by building stronger underwriting capabilities and better data analytics - enabled
through convergent technology and platforms. ‘This maximises our efficiency and
minimises the costs of local solutions’, says Robin Spencer, CEO of
International Insurance. ‘We are empowering our teams and are moving to a new,
agile way of working. This is not just an aspiration. We are looking at how to
best become truly agile to reduce time to market and increase customer responsiveness.
CEOs across the international insurance business have decided to move to a “scaled
agile” way of working over the next two years, and we’ll commence with a pilot
in Hungary and Poland in April 2018.
Agile and DevOps
But our digital transformation is more than an agile transformation; it is also a DevOps transformation. ‘This implies close collaboration between IT development and IT operations’, says Amir Arooni, Chief Information Officer at NN Group. ‘Experimenting and learning take centre stage, as they are the basic principles informing DevOps. Over the past 30 years, we have trained employees to focus on one job and one task. Today we want IT professionals to do multiple tasks and jobs, and to do them as a team. Our engineers learn new things, but we all face the same challenge: one of the hardest things to do is to broaden our abilities and not to think in silos. For example, is data security a department that tests software at the end of the process? Or is this the responsibility of the entire development team, so that security is built in – security by design?’
‘The digital world is constantly changing. That’s what makes our work so fascinating.’
Raymond Regensburg – DevOps Engineer at NN
Creating an attractive work environment
Technology is also used to create an attractive work environment for NN employees, in which they can work in the most efficient and effective way. For example, because of the benefits in speed, flexibility and security, NN has opted for a public cloud solution for applications. Arooni: ‘All of NN’s applications in the Netherlands should be in the cloud by the end of this year. Some will be phased out, others will be migrated unchanged, and some will be integrated into new solutions. To make this migration successful, we are teaming up with professionals from well-known international tech companies.’
'I have a lot of room for my professional development here.'
Laura Janssen – Devops Engineer
NN Hackathon
To remain competitive, NN is looking for talented IT professionals with the right mindset - who are creative and who have a sense of what our customers need today and tomorrow. To stimulate ideas and to celebrate our IT craft, we organise a yearly international NN Hackathon.
The second NN Hackathon took place in November 2017, in Amsterdam. More than 150 NN engineers from eight different countries formed 34 teams and worked 24 hours non-stop to come up with IT solutions to the challenges of our company. Watch the NN Hackathon video to see their experience.
Interested in NN as an IT employer? Please visit NN Careers.
Agile and cost-efficient operating model
To secure long-term growth, we invest in making our organisation more efficient and agile. Our operating model aims to further stimulate a culture of entrepreneurship and accountability within NN Group, and is based on clear responsibilities, streamlined decision-making and simplified governance.
Various partners
Over the years, NN has introduced platforms such as agency portals, online policy applications, and web and mobile-based apps for filing claims. It is our purpose to secure the financial futures of our customers. Therefore information security and data privacy are fundamental in our daily business operations.
We work closely with various eco-partners, such as universities, law enforcement, other financial institutions, Team HighTech Cybercrime (THTC) and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) to support our own cyber security initiatives such as the Dutch Cyber Collective (www.nederlandscybercollectief.nl) and other business innovations.
