Old Mutual is a 176-year-old premier pan-African financial services group that offers a broad spectrum of financial solutions to retail and corporate customers across key market segments in 14 countries, with listings on five stock exchanges. The business has managed to stay relevant to the ever-changing needs of their customers through intelligent automation and reinventing its approach to business and customer experience.

The digital workforce has ensured a solid return on investment for Old Mutual by saving the business and its employees time to focus on other tasks, significant reduction in operating costs and a streamlined customer experience. The business has been working with 201 digital workers since August 2021 which has enabled 89 processes to be automated, a highly improved cycle time and digital servicing enablement.

Old Mutual approaches innovation and customer experience as if it were a two-year old startup by allowing itself the room to quickly test, tweak, implement and learn new approaches.

Challenge

As a very large, complex business, naturally challenges arose when Old Mutual upgraded to a digital workforce. These challenges included a major culture shift for employees and dated systems and processes that had not been upgraded for many years.

The way to tackle this was through agility by trialing ideas, learning fast, and being flexible to make adjustments as issues arose. Services also needed to be streamlined and modernized, so customers could access Old Mutual in a way most convenient to them. And these changes needed to be made without affecting the day-to-day activities of customer or employee.

However, Old Mutual quickly realized its shortage of employees with the relevant skill sets to help digitize the customer journey. It needed to add new, knowledgeable staff to work alongside its expanding digital workforce.

Solution

How did they do it? In short, they were smart. Old Mutual ran pilots to test how intelligent automation could be most beneficial based on pain points, which they also spent time identifying.

The implementation wasn’t rushed but allowed for quick failure with key learnings. In addition to systems being properly prepped, employees felt well prepared and inspired and after a series of small successes, they were able to expand quickly.

Since creating a digital customer journey, overall customer experience has significantly improved. Old Mutual has managed to travel the financial journey alongside their customers instead of only having access to their customers at the initial sign up and claim stages.

The strategic partnership between Old Mutual and Blue Prism has delivered relevant technology which enables the team of digital employees to respond to customers’ needs quickly. It has delivered purpose-led technology that has helped bridge legacy environments with newer platforms to deliver consistent customer experience. The technology has also allowed for rapid development and deployment which enables the company to respond quickly to customers’ changing needs or external market forces.

Now, in partnership with Blue Prism, Old Mutual has over 200 digital workers in production, removing many time-consuming and repetitive tasks for employees. Digital workers have freed up 22 million minutes for employees, allowing them to return to their “roots” and increase focus on Old Mutual’s customers.