Aware Super’s new chief operating officer, wealth industry veteran Sally Collins, sees the introduction of “agile working” processes to the $180 billion super fund as a key part of her new job.
With the fund having undergone a major digitisation process in recent years called Project Catalyst, which has seen Aware bring its administration processes in-house, Collins sees the next step as revamping the fund’s internal operational processes to allow faster innovation and more focus on helping members in retirement.
While some big industry super funds are starting to appoint chief operating officers to handle the increasing operational demands of their organisations as customers, regulators and politicians demand funds be more responsive to their members, the activities under the COO title can vary from fund to fund.
Already funds such as AustralianSuper (Peter Curtis), Cbus (Nancy Day) and HESTA (Stephen Reilly) have COOs in place, and the $300 billion Australian Retirement Trust has just appointed Kathy Vincent as its chief operating officer in a new round of executive appointments announced in July. Other funds are expected to follow suit.
Vincent’s role at ART includes data, technology and service delivery “to deliver real-time, scalable, digital-first services for members at every life stage,” as well as “transformation”, and ART Life.
Collins’ remit as Aware COO takes in technology, data governance, data strategy, investment operations, strategy, planning and delivery, transformation, finance, tax and procurement teams.
“We have just finished a huge program called Catalyst which brought all the administration in house,” Collins says, in an interview with Investment Magazine.
“It means that 97 per cent of anything we do can be done online as it is now available for members to do in the digital sense.”
Her role now, she says, is to “take the organisation to the next level of performance.”
She says this will involve a top-down change in how Aware is run, from a traditional structure based on specific functions, to a new way of agile working which she describes as “The Aware Way.”
“The Aware Way allows us to work differently to get things done faster and better,” she says.
Agile practices, human-centred design
Collins started in her role in April after two years as chief financial officer of health industry super fund HESTA, and five years as chief operating officer at the Victorian Funds Management Corporation. She says The Aware Way is “a blend of two things: agile practices; as well as what we call human-centred design.”
“It means we work in an agile way to bring about outcomes for our members who are at the heart of everything we do in a faster, more efficient way.”
It is an operational shift, Collins says, which has already been adopted by a significant number of big organisations globally including Amazon, as well as some large Australian companies including the Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, Suncorp and Seek.
The shift in internal operations is aimed at facilitating a much more responsive organisation to meet the needs of the growing number of members moving into retirement.
“We want to have all our business processes lined up to make sure everything we do and every dollar we spend is lined up completely behind delivering value for our members.”
Around 30 per cent of Aware’s 1.1 million members are retirees and it expects the fund will have 60 per cent of its total assets being managed for retired members by 2032.
Collins is a member of the fund’s group executive team, reporting directly to Aware chief executive Deanne Stewart.
Her job as COO is an expanded version of the role of former COO Jo Brennan, who has taken on a new role to optimise Aware’s investment in digital technology and finance advice.
Collins says her new role at Aware “covers all the things I love doing.”
“[Aware was] looking for someone to help invent a new operational model and lead the change in the superannuation and wealth business which is what I have done all of my career,” she says.
“I get to see the allocation of capital – how it gets spent, making sure it is lined up to the strategy, making sure all of the projects are executed and done in an efficient way which is lined up to delivering the best possible value for our members.”
One of Collins’ first moves has been to hire former Deloitte partner Winnie Huen for the new role of general manager, strategy and transformation.
Huen was the partner in charge of Deloitte’s data, analytics and solutions practice. Collins described Huen as a “delivery partner with really terrific experience in execution and also in strategic thinking.”
Making it easier to do business
Huen’s technological experience includes work with artificial intelligence. Collins says Aware is currently looking at how to use AI to “make it easier for members to do business with us.”
“Using AI doesn’t mean that every interaction with a member is with a bot, it means that some things which get done behind the scenes can be done more efficiently using AI,” she says.
“We’re going through a whole process of looking at what we call ‘use cases’ for AI.”
She says this could involve more efficient processing of invoices or “using algorithms to look at our member data to create insights to offer a member a suggestion to do something which will benefit them.”
She sees AI as “an efficiency mechanism” which can allow more targeted servicing of members.
“As we get bigger as a fund, and are able to serve more members, (the use of AI can be) a more efficient way to serve them and do more things for them without adding as much cost into the business.”
Collins believes it will take the next one or two years to change the organisational practices at the fund to The Aware Way.
“I am completely immersed in doing that at the moment so that people really feel engaged,” she says.
Aware’s digitisation process and the transformation of its operational structure, under Collins, to better serve members in retirement highlights the potential differences of super funds in their approach to retirement.
While some funds with a younger membership have not had much focus on their retirement strategy, others – particularly those larger funds and those with an older membership – are investing significant amounts to transform their organisations from “savings banks” to much more member-centric organisations, with more focus on helping them in retirement.
Serving members into retirement
It highlights the point in a recent green paper issued by the Conexus Institute*, which argues that there needs to be a clear division between those funds that are prepared to commit to servicing members into retirement and others that struggle with the challenge.
The paper argues that there needs to be a licensing process for those super funds that do want to offer retirement income products – a move which would see those funds held to high standards, while other funds not particularly interested in moving into the retirement product market are excluded from the sector.
Collins says Aware is looking for growth following its digitisation process.
“The more recent period has been very much focused on the catalyst project, internalising administration and building out the digital offering,” she says.
Having significantly upgraded its digital capacity it now has more scope to expand.
“The focus now is on growing and one of those avenues definitely is inorganic growth through the merger and acquisition landscape.”
“We’re open for business.”
Collins believes it is now well placed to handle the future including helping members in retirement.
“Aware is positioned to be a leader in the digital innovation space. It is really serving members incredibly well,” she says.
“There isn’t anyone on our scale who has got to the point that we have got to in bringing all of those things onto one platform.”
“We believe it is a strong competitive advantage for us because we know there for a number of our peers, they are going to need to do in the next couple of years what we have done.”
“We believe there’s some clear space for us to really win in the retirement space and develop an incredibly innovative proposition and a really strong service offering that will hopefully delight our members and continue to grow the fund.”
*The Conexus Institute is a not-for-profit think tank philanthropically funded by Conexus Financial, the owner and publisher of Investment Magazine.
