When the UK's largest insurance group needed to sort out its networks it turned to Cable&Wireless, which now dedicates 180 staff to helping Aviva make the journey to a unified IP network that will form a platform for business growth, cut costs and improve business agility.
Aviva is one of the world's largest insurance groups and the largest in the UK. It employs more than 60,000 people serving 30 million customers worldwide. The company has annual premium income and investment sales of £33 billion, and £291 billion of assets under management.
Aviva has grown organically and through acquisition and now has 1200 sites in the UK. The company's acquisition of the RAC in 2005 will expand its reach even further.
As a result of such growth Aviva had seven major legacy data networks and five smaller ones, supporting 60,000 network ports. This complex network of networks underpinned all of Aviva's business.
An Infrastructure for Growth
In 2001, Cable&Wireless signed a seven-year contract worth approximately £350 million with Norwich Union, a major company in the Aviva Group, to manage and develop its voice and data infrastructure across the UK. Since then the two companies have been working closely to deliver a better network for Aviva.
An improved network would help the business by offering greater capacity, so people working at their desks were not waiting needlessly for access to data and shared applications.
It would be more reliable, reducing the disruption caused by network break-downs and so giving the business more confidence in its processes.
What's more, it could enable more cost-effective ways of working, for example by using the network to carry voice calls as well as its data traffic and providing a platform on which to upgrade the company's desktop working environment.