Designing a Foundational Digital Experience Platform: When Britam decided to build a digital experience platform to overcome challenges in digital transformation, the group turned to Liferay for a state-of-the-art solution. Dramatically decreased costs, plus increased growth, profit, and user adoption were among the key wins Britam experienced.

1. A Behind the Scene Look at Britam Holdings Limited Digital
Transformation – by Christine Reyes, Liferay, on 27 October 2017
Today, 39% of companies say that implementing a digital strategy across the
organization is their biggest challenge in digital transformation. It can be especially
challenging for companies with multiple homegrown systems that make sharing data
difficult. Breaking down organizational silos is a key part of any digital strategy, but
what do you do when the technology keeps getting in your way?
Recently, our partners at InfoAxon sent us a case study on Britam, a diversified
financial services group that used the Liferay platform to tackle these challenges with
a project it calls Jawabu. The name means answers in Swahili because the project
focuses on getting answers for customers by uniting data and touchpoints across the
company.
The bulk of the Jawabu project was moving Britam’s homegrown portals and public
websites to a digital experience platform. This would allow the company to support
all digital touchpoints with one platform while maintaining a seamless experience for
its users across every site.

2. When transitioning off legacy systems like Britam did, many companies run into
common obstacles around choosing the right technology and managing the
migrations well. Britam used the following three strategies to efficiently implement
its transformation one step at a time.
1. Think Broadly
When choosing a platform for its digital transformation, Britam knew it needed
something that could meet needs horizontally across multiple use cases and contexts
within a single technology environment. This meant that the platform would need to
offer broad capabilities that were reusable across touchpoints, saving on
development time.
By choosing a platform that satisfied horizontal needs (rather than choosing
separate, vertical solutions for each type of site), Britam was able to identify
common applications that were used across its insurance portals and package them
into a single application repository, from which it could draw services as needed. This
automated much of the development process for each site, allowing Britam’s team
to focus more time on creating unique business value for each touchpoint.

3. 2. Decouple Services
As Britam created different touchpoints, including a corporate intranet, a partner
service portal, a financial advisor portal and more, it connected them, so they can
function as a single presentation layer, implemented on top of an integrated services
layer. This approach allows their team to adjust the end user experience as needed
without affecting the underlying services. And, as they continue to build and launch
new features in phases, each site can pull in the relevant services as soon as they’re
available, without needing to update the final UI.
This kind of headless infrastructure makes agility easier for companies that need a
website up now but are still going through significant development phases in the
background. Customers shouldn’t have to see the behind-the-scenes mess. They
should have a polished product to interact with that evolves seamlessly over time.
3. Run the Marathon, Not the Sprint
Though Britam has more than a dozen sites that were a core part of its digital
strategy, it took the time to migrate one at a time to the new platform. This allowed
it to control the pace of its transformation and ensure it didn’t tackle too much at
one time.
The company learned from each new site implementation and was able to roll that
expertise and development into the next project, continuously improving agility.
Once it has a site on the new platform, the team can continue refining the
integration, such as incorporating it into a centralized identity management system.
A New Era of Convenience
Britam’s new digital experience platform has been rolled out with exceptional
success, and in 2015 earned the company the CIO 100 Award for East Africa. Britam
sees this as a new era of convenience for its users, with improved business

4. processes, enhanced structures and state-of-the-art IT systems that position the
company for future growth.
And it isn’t just about upgrading the technology. With the new platform in place,
Britam has revamped the online experience for its customers, financial advisors,
partners, employees and investors. The financial advisors have seen some of the best
benefits, as timely manual processes for creating quotations have been replaced by a
one-click self-service application for customers.
Though Britam began with multiple homegrown systems, it was still able to tackle
digital transformation through a solid strategy that allowed it to control the pace of
change in the company. By focusing on the broad needs of all its sites, it was able to
launch each touchpoint with basic functionality fairly quickly, and then use its
development resources to continue improving each site according to its unique
needs.