Interview: Antony Hausdoerfer, group CIO, The AA
Course of journey is a vital consideration for everybody at The AA. For group CIO Antony Hausdoerfer, it means ensuring clients have the very best experiences when they’re in a difficult scenario.
“How can we all know what the issue is that clients are having earlier than we ship a patrol, so we ensure that whoever we ship to assist that buyer, we get the proper individual there with the proper expertise within the shortest potential time to get folks again on the highway within the shortest potential time,” he says.
Hausdoerfer is driving that plan for digital transformation at The AA. He joined the organisation as director of know-how and alter in December 2019 and have become group CIO in April 2022. He was beforehand group IT director at Avis Price range Group, and previously in senior know-how roles at Three and Vodafone.
Hausdoerfer loved the problem of delivering IT at Avis, significantly establishing touch-free automobile leases by way of telephone, which proved well timed because the mission was accomplished simply earlier than the coronavirus pandemic. He additionally labored on a knowledge mission that assessed the petrol left in rental automobiles. These tasks gave him an appreciation of how info can be utilized to handle and preserve autos.
As he explored potential new challenges, he was approached a couple of function with The AA – and he was desirous to seize the chance: “I noticed The AA as a prestigious model, and with what I’d discovered round related autos and knowledge at Avis, I believed this could be an excellent alternative to take advantage of this information.”
After he joined The AA, the corporate modified arms and moved from public to personal possession in March 2021. A sequence of adjustments on the senior management stage created the chance for Hausdoerfer to turn into CIO.
“There was rather a lot to do, and with the brand new possession, we had been going to have the ability to make these adjustments, and that potential excited me,” he says.
“We’ve been on a journey, and we’re nonetheless on it, however we’ve made some huge steps ahead by way of the place we’re, significantly by way of knowledge and improved connectivity, in order that our patrols will be nearly as good as potential.”
Using the rollercoaster
Hausdoerfer says his day-to-day tasks embody the IT methods and processes that assist the enterprise. He works alongside different senior executives, together with the chief digital officer and chief knowledge and analytics officer, to make sure The AA is exploiting know-how and data successfully.
“I see all of the know-how capabilities that we offer to our clients, colleagues and the enterprise methods behind the scenes,” he says.
“Our chief digital officer is targeted on the digital channel. We even have a chief knowledge and analytics officer who seems to be at how we get worth from info. My function is to take care of all of the infrastructure and know-how they use.”
His know-how oversight additionally stretches throughout enterprise portfolios. The highway portfolio consists of customer-facing methods, from the second somebody interacts with The AA app or a telephone to report a breakdown, to the passing of that info to a patrol and onto the assist a buyer receives on the roadside, together with managing related insurance policies.
“We’ve been on a journey, and we’re nonetheless on it, however we’ve made some huge steps ahead by way of the place we’re, significantly by way of knowledge and improved connectivity, in order that our patrols will be nearly as good as potential”
Antony Hausdoerfer, The AA
Hausdoerfer additionally oversees the know-how for the insurance coverage portfolio. His crew is replatforming The AA’s insurance coverage capabilities, with the previous few system migrations happening. He additionally refers to his crew’s head workplace programme, which includes managing the providers that assist workers, together with finance methods, different enterprise platforms and incident response capabilities.
“I’ve full accountability for the end-to-end cyber functionality of the enterprise, which retains you in your toes,” he says.
Lastly, Hausdoerfer oversees IT structure. He not too long ago recruited a chief architect and is working to make sure there’s an built-in strategy to structure throughout the organisation. He recognises the disparate nature of his function.
“It looks like a rollercoaster. The possession change introduced an upturn in tempo that hasn’t stopped since I joined. I believe it takes a sure character to thrive with that tempo of labor. There are days when it’s fairly tiring, however you’re delivering a lot,” he says.
“The work has goal by way of what you’re seeing occur on the roadside, what’s taking place by way of buyer satisfaction, the pace with which you get to clients, and the mounted fee together with the highway. So, the work tempo may go away you feeling a bit drained, however you get to ship some nice outcomes.”
Making a distinction
Hausdoerfer factors to some huge achievements since changing into CIO. When it comes to know-how deliverables, he refers to replatforming the agency’s legacy highway and insurance coverage methods.
“Highway and insurance coverage had been operating on the identical platform that was most likely designed for neither. So, we abstracted highway and we put a Pega functionality within the center, with all of the totally different methods across the outdoors, and made it a correct ecosystem, which put the shopper on the coronary heart of all the pieces,” he says.
“We centered on buyer satisfaction and bettering retention, so having the ability to give higher providers and presents to our clients, in addition to delivering higher commercials. We confronted a major knowledge migration to get three million clients on the brand new system. Nonetheless, we made that change and we’ve achieved the business outcomes we had been in search of.”
For insurance coverage, The AA companions with know-how specialist CDL, which presents a platform-as-a-service functionality to assist improve buyer experiences. “That partnership permits us to give attention to creating extra related merchandise for our clients which are beginning to minimize by within the wider market,” he says.
Hausdoerfer has additionally overseen enhancements to colleague experiences, which incorporates The AA’s roadside patrol groups. His crew thought-about the varied IT components essential to success and determined to take a contemporary strategy to know-how procurement.
“We went down a leasing mannequin. We’ve simply changed everybody’s desktops, giving them significantly better capabilities. We’ve additionally completed work by way of connectivity for the patrols and different capabilities to create a giant swing in colleague satisfaction, so folks really feel they’ve the instruments to do their jobs,” he stated.
“That upturn in satisfaction was one of many greatest swings in final yr’s worker survey. Beforehand, there have been challenges by way of how folks perceived their know-how. It’s a journey that’s by no means full. However we’ve made a giant distinction, and that’s one thing I’m pleased with as a result of it impacts everybody who works at The AA.”
Connecting roadside patrols
Hausdoerfer can be embracing pioneering areas of know-how. Roadside restoration patrols are sometimes referred to as to distant areas, the place the groups face troublesome terrains and restricted connectivity.
“They’ll’t ship the very best buyer outcomes in the event that they don’t have connectivity,” he says. “We have to know the place they’re to allocate the following most relevant job. We have to share info, akin to buyer location and particulars, the automobile, and the potential drawback.”
The organisation needed to maneuver past its current answer, which operated on a SIM-only foundation utilizing 3G and 4G networks. The reply got here by way of telecoms big Ericsson, utilizing a mixture of major and backup SIMs that faucet into wider frequencies on any spectrum.
The AA started implementing the answer in 2022. Hausdoerfer took simply over a yr to roll out the know-how as a result of his crew needed to construct a transparent enterprise case. His organisation began with a pilot of 350 patrols unfold throughout the nation, 50 of which had the worst connectivity experiences.
“We may see in a short time, partly by the suggestions, however then additionally by the info, that our groups had been getting vital enhancements,” he says.
“We had one patrol working on a difficult topology within the 60% connectivity vary. They reached 90% immediately after we gave them the potential. These outcomes made it clear that this was the very best answer.”
Earlier than implementing Ericsson’s know-how, the typical connectivity fee for patrols was about 89%. In the present day, The AA presents 98.5% high-value connectivity. That functionality means the organisation can take a extra proactive strategy to patrols, pushing buyer and automobile knowledge to groups shortly and effectively.
“The flexibility for us to serve clients successfully is now vastly improved,” he says. “We’re exploring extra methods to get worth from the info for our clients and probably for different organisations. That work needs to be consistent with our duty to clients by way of knowledge safety. However there are various things we’re exploring.”
Taking a proactive strategy
Hausdoerfer will proceed to search for methods to spice up inner operations and buyer experiences. He paints an image of The AA’s data-enabled strategy 24 months from right this moment.
“It will be a personalised service that satisfies the shopper,” he says. “That’s easy to say however arduous to realize. We’re specializing in the truth that drivers face totally different issues. So, how can we personalise our service to provide clients what they want, in the way in which they want it, by the channels they need to use?”
The AA can be exploring how synthetic intelligence (AI) can enhance buyer experiences. The corporate’s inner innovation crew has developed a car-health assistant referred to as Vixa. Utilizing Databricks know-how and internally developed algorithms, the system takes a proactive strategy to automobile upkeep.
“We will begin to see patterns with how your automobile is performing as a related automobile to pre-empt a problem earlier than it occurs. We’ve received excessive accuracy now by way of our battery mannequin, which seems to be on the efficiency of your battery primarily based on a number of components, together with issues like climate circumstances and different elements,” he says.
“We will precisely predict whether or not you’re going to have a battery failure subsequent time you attempt to begin your automobile. We will advise you that you just’re prone to have a battery failure until you’re taking corrective motion. It’s nice that we reply when there’s a breakdown. But when we might help you keep away from having a breakdown within the first place, that’s even higher.”
