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When Bill Nguyen moved back to Vietnam from France 12 years ago, he had a solid IT background with him, but he never thought of using it for the insurance industry. Call it luck that as he scanned through emails from headhunters “out of curiosity”, he found an invite from AIA Vietnam. He joined the company in October 2016, and is now about to celebrate his fifth anniversary as Chief Technology Officer.
Bill’s role revolves around one mission: making life insurance technology-friendly, not just to customers but to AIA Vietnam’s own employees. What used to be a 50-person IT department when he joined the company is now a bustling “Service Delivery” department with about 150 experts — engineers, data analysts, developers, etc — a significant accomplishment for a man who used to believe that the insurance industry is not “attractive at face value” to people looking for jobs.
“Now I can say that it has become easier to attract people to join the industry, with all the amazing transformation it has undergone over the years. It is now on par with start-ups in terms of the use of technology,” shares Bill.
An industry ripe for transformation
The digital transformation of AIA Vietnam, or the insurance industry in general, started just very recently, quite late compared to how other sectors harnessed the power of technology a decade or so ago. When he first met the company’s IT staff, they were using old computers, with everyone working in silos.
Focused on his mission, Bill changed the foundation of the company, improved the workforce and upgraded its technology. As a result, AIA Vietnam became the first AIA market to have most of its data on the cloud.
Such a revolutionary move in an otherwise traditional sector has allowed AIA to look for ways to service customers, catering to their unique needs and circumstances. Since resources are now easier to gather, analyze and use, Bill’s mission to make life insurance tech-friendly is now accomplished. Shifting the spotlight from policy to more customer-centric (which Bill believes the insurance industry should be) has succeeded.
What’s next? AIA Vietnam has already achieved so much within a short period of time. But Bill said he’s aiming for something bigger — to become a digital leader in the industry. Building AIA Vietnam’s own telemedicine infrastructure, maybe? Well, that’s already in the works.