Context

The function underpins the group's solvency, financial resilience and investment returns, spanning capital management, demographic risk, property and credit risk, pricing, and investment management. Despite that criticality it was significantly underserved by technology — relying on end-user computing and tactical point solutions rather than strategic platforms. The result was manual effort, key-person dependency, operational fragility and fragmented data in processes that directly affected solvency.

The challenge

The brief was to define a holistic target state and roadmap, and build a credible case for investment. The difficulty was not technical. Previous attempts had failed to resonate with leadership, leaving stakeholder fatigue and active distrust toward group technology — those outputs had been technology-centric and did not reflect how the function's leaders understood their own organisation.

Access was deliberately constrained: engagement ran through a small number of nominated representatives rather than open access to the business. Success depended on reframing the conversation around business capabilities and operating model — with very little of the business's time.

Approach

1. Capability definition. Existing strategy outputs, org structure, process inventories and architecture artefacts were synthesised into a draft capability model first — so scarce stakeholder time was spent validating rather than creating.
2. Current-state assessment. Systems mapped to capabilities, capabilities linked to strategic priorities, gaps drawn from prior assessments, audit findings and the change backlog. Enablement was plotted against strategic importance, so the weakest areas were shown to be the strategically critical ones — rather than treating all gaps as equal.
3. Target-state definition. Future-state capabilities and the enabling data and technology architecture, co-authored with business representatives.
4. Platform assessment and roadmap. Candidate platforms assessed against the target capability set, people impact modelled across business and technology, delivery sequenced into strategic work packages.

What was produced

• A validated business capability model for the function
• A capability-to-application mapping
• A capability enablement heatmap scoring data and technology enablement per capability
• A target-state capability set traced back to current gaps and strategic drivers
• A target technology architecture spanning core, modelling, enabling and data platforms
• A capability-fit assessment of two leading platforms in the category
• A current-to-target transition view delivered as four strategic work packages

Outcomes

A shared view of the function. One representative became closely engaged during capability modelling because the model brought together, in one place, a view of the entire function she had never seen — despite working across several of its areas. The model proved to be a tool for organisational understanding, not just an architecture artefact.

Business ownership of the target state. Outcomes, dependencies and initiatives were co-authored with business representatives rather than produced by architecture in isolation. Feedback focused on refinement rather than challenge, and leadership stayed engaged throughout — a marked contrast to previous attempts.

A compelling investment narrative. The assessment did not uncover unknown problems; most stakeholders already understood the individual issues. The value came from a single view showing the cumulative impact of fragmented data, technology and operating practices.

Lessons

A model must be recognisable, not just technically pure. On a strict capability view the risk domains would have been grouped under one risk management capability. The business had separate executive ownership for each — collapsing them would have made the model tidier and politically useless.

Sequence validation, don't outsource creation. With constrained access, synthesising a credible draft then asking for validation got further than asking busy stakeholders to build from scratch.

Severity beats inventory. Listing gaps changes nothing. Plotting enablement against strategic importance is what moved the conversation from acknowledgement to investment.

Client identity, programme names and platform names withheld. Described at sector level only.