Centrilogic & Wilton Re – Partnering in a cloud-first digital transformation
Wilton Re
Wilton Re is a leading North American reinsurance company specializing in the acquisition and management of in-force life insurance and annuities businesses. As industry leaders, Wilton Re understands the importance of partnering with clients to build trust and deliver services from a place of commitment and integrity.
After 15 years of evolving and growing the business, Wilton Re’s IT team determined that modernizing the company’s IT strategy from an infrastructure and operations perspective was necessary to support the company’s overall goals and objectives. By leveraging advances in cloud computing and moving from an on-premises data center model to a cloud-based model, Wilton Re could accelerate the delivery of technology, reduce the complexity of the existing infrastructure, and harness the efficiency, scale, and innovation available in the public cloud. The adoption of modern technologies could also help the company overcome day-to-day challenges, improve customer satisfaction, and mitigate financial and security risks. To bring this strategy to life, Wilton Re needed to partner with a cloud solutions provider that had a proven track record and was committed to working closely with them throughout their digital transformation journey.
The Search
The priorities were clear. Wilton Re wanted more than just a vendor. It wanted an agile collaborator that could understand the company’s unique challenges and opportunities, share accountabilities, and work in parallel with them to define and facilitate the next important phases of the company’s digital transformation. A large part of the company’s transformation consisted of the migration and modernization of important applications and data in the Microsoft Azure cloud.
Adopting the cloud also provided inherent advantages in terms of immediate access to both innovative technologies and security-related controls pertaining to access, rights management, strong governance and compliance monitoring.
Additionally, leveraging the cloud would help the internal IT team focus more on strategic efforts to drive the business forward in the digital economy.
The ideal solution provider would deliver the platform and provide continual strategic and technological guidance, evolve alongside the internal team, and future-proof the company’s IT roadmap and operations. Another key consideration was working with a partner that would be open to a platform/product mindset for delivery of a variety of cloud services.
The Selection
Wilton Re selected Centrilogic based on its proven track record, longstanding partnership with Microsoft, and demonstrated expertise in the Azure cloud. Centrilogic brought the capabilities needed to support Wilton Re’s legacy datacenter solutions and future-state public cloud initiatives.
“Our team is small, and we like to keep it that way. We lean on the expertise of our partners, across our business, to bring the right knowledge at the right time.”
—Emily Robertson, Vice President Information Technology, Wilton Re
Shared goals. Shared results.
Centrilogic and Wilton Re collaborated on developing and refining the company’s multi-phase digital transformation strategy. The first phase involved a lift and shift of Wilton Re’s legacy matrix to the Azure cloud, enabling the company to transition away from dated process and systems and set up a flexible, scalable IT framework.
“With the integrated Azure platform, we’ve rationalized a lot of third-party products and eliminated a ton of complexity and cost. But it’s not a one-and-done kind of process. It means that we need significant vendor support to get the most from those Microsoft products and capabilities.”
—Sue Paternoster, Chief Information Officer & Senior Vice President, Wilton Re
As part of the lift and shift, Centrilogic ensured that Wilton Re could go cloud-native—using the features and built-in capabilities of the Azure platform. This liberated Wilton Re from the complexity and hands-on management of its former patchwork of applications, processes, and third-party augmentations. Centrilogic was able to deliver a simpler, integrated, more robust solution. Wilton Re now benefits from:
- Digital workspace and collaboration: A move to SharePoint Online improved collaboration with internal and external stakeholders, resulting in better information sharing and cross-functional teamwork.
- Database modernization: A distributed database architecture on Azure has resulted in faster backup and restore operations, strengthened disaster recovery and business continuity processes with Azure Site Recovery, and an improved ability to mitigate and respond to cyber threats such as ransomware.
- Shifting to cloud-based Infrastructure-as-a-Service: Wilton Re now benefits from better performance and security, improved scalability and flexibility, faster releases, and an overall reduction in operating expenses on the Azure cloud.
- Meeting evolving regulatory compliance: The agility associated with Azure cloud services allows Wilton Re to comply with constantly changing regulatory requirements faster and cheaper, with better access to audits, logs, and compliance reports.
Today, Centrilogic supports Wilton Re in three main ways: managed services, strategic projects, and staff augmentation.
“We serve as an integrated partner to Wilton Re, ensuring we have an all-encompassing view of their environment and a full understanding of their strategic initiatives. We provide an end-to-end solution that solves their technology challenges, enables their digital goals, and supports their overall business success.”
–Doug Tracy, President, Centrilogic
Shaping Future Success
When engaging with vendors and solution providers, Wilton Re insists on a partnership model to ensure that priorities are shared and that day-to-day operations run smoothly. As this relationship matures and Centrilogic continues to leverage its considerable expertise in Microsoft 365 and Azure, it is proving daily that it can help drive Wilton Re forward.
By taking shared responsibility for Wilton Re’s IT infrastructure and accountability for the results, Centrilogic has become a proactive strategic advisor. It goes beyond the bi-weekly checkpoint meetings. Centrilogic is an always-on resource providing strategic recommendations and identifying new innovations such as cloud-based application development, use of cognitive and generative AI in data analytics, and advanced cloud-native data security. As a cohesive, agile team the two companies collaborate on managing Wilton Re’s day-to-day operations or shaping the company’s strategy for the next year and beyond.
The Digital Transformation Continues
Wilton Re and Centrilogic are undertaking a series of projects together to further progress the company’s transformation journey:
- Data platform and strategy: Development of a multi-year plan to define the strategy and delivery of Wilton Re’s data platform using Azure native architecture platforms such as Synapse and Data Factory, positioning Wilton Re as a more data-driven organization.
- Transitioning from IaaS to Azure PaaS and Serverless architecture: Adopting PaaS and Serverless models to reduce the burden of managing servers and infrastructure, which will enable faster and more efficient development, deployment, and management.
- Azure OpenAI and Microsoft Copilot: Preparing Wilton Re to use Microsoft Copilot and Azure OpenAI Services, followed by the development and implementation of custom copilots throughout the business to transform productivity related to specific use cases.
“I appreciate how the Centrilogic team continuously offers insights and recommendations for how we can be better together. And when we inevitably hit issues along the way, the spirit of collaboration and working as a team to develop solutions is something we can count on day in and day out” —Emily Robertson, Vice President Information Technology, Wilton Re
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