ICT Strategy for a State Government Superannuation Fund: A Three-Year Technology Roadmap

In 2010, a state government superannuation fund engaged Desda to develop a comprehensive ICT Strategic Plan covering a three-year horizon. The fund administered multiple superannuation schemes across defined contribution, pension, and defined benefit product lines — each with distinct legacy administration platforms, fragmented ICT governance, and limited alignment between technology direction and the Board's strategic objectives.

The engagement required translating the fund's business strategy into a structured, prioritised technology roadmap: identifying what needed to change, in what order, and why — while accounting for the constraints of a government shared services operating model and a competitive marketplace for superannuation administration systems.

Business objectives addressed

Actionable recommendations

Structured workshops conducted

3 yrs

Delivery horizon (2009–2012)

The Challenge

The fund was operating across several legacy superannuation administration platforms — separate systems for defined contribution accumulation, pension payroll, and defined benefit schemes — with no unified enterprise architecture to connect them. ICT governance was fragmented: technology decisions were made in part through a government-mandated shared services provider, limiting the fund's ability to act on its own technology priorities at pace.

Key pressure points going into the engagement:

Multiple administration platforms with overlapping member records and no single view of client
Web and self-service capabilities constrained by the limitations of the legacy administration systems
No enterprise architecture framework to guide system selection, integration, or replacement decisions
ICT project portfolio managed reactively, with limited governance structure or forward planning
Reporting fragmented across systems — no operational data store to abstract away from underlying platforms
A rapidly evolving marketplace for DC and pension administration systems, requiring an informed procurement strategy

Our Approach

The consulting team reviewed the fund's existing business strategy documentation and ICT management materials, then conducted four structured workshops with the fund's senior management team and its government ICT services provider across September and November 2008. These sessions established business drivers, mapped the existing IT portfolio, assessed the current support and governance model, and identified industry trends relevant to the fund's strategic position.

From this foundation, the team identified seven strategic themes, prioritised the top initiatives for detailed planning, and produced a complete ICT Strategic Plan with high-level implementation plans, indicative costings, and risk management strategies for each priority initiative.

Key Recommendations

Core Administration Platform

Select a technology-leading administration system from the competitive DC and pension administration marketplace. Retain the existing defined benefit platform for DB-only administration pending further market maturity — the DB administration system market lacked a clear technology leader at the time, warranting a deliberate wait-and-see approach. Develop an Administration Platform concept: a set of integrated components (reporting, BPM, web, CRM) built with independence from the underlying administration system, to protect the fund's long-term flexibility.

Enterprise Architecture

Develop a fund-specific Enterprise Architecture (EA) aligned to the government's whole-of-government EA standards, providing the selection and integration framework for all platform components. Adopt a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) with an Enterprise Service Bus as the integration backplane — enabling web, CRM, and reporting to connect across administration systems without tight coupling to any single platform.

CRM & Single View of Client

Select and implement a CRM solution to improve contact centre effectiveness, manage campaigns, and centralise inbound communication channels. Develop a Single View of Client system — a single screen addressing 80–90% of member enquiries, with information grouped by call-handling need (insurance, benefit details, etc.). Back this with an Operational Data Store (ODS) aggregating member data from current and legacy administration systems, providing a mechanism to bridge the data integration gap created by the dual-platform DB/DC model.

Web & Digital

Short-term: adopt a containment approach — incremental improvements to content management, calculators, usage tracking, and educational material. Avoid major investment in web infrastructure until the administration system replacement is resolved. Longer-term: reassess web technologies in conjunction with the administration platform transition, leveraging the SOA to connect new digital services to the underlying systems.

Reporting

Select an ODS-based reporting solution that is independent of the underlying administration systems. The ODS approach addresses both the data accessibility shortcomings of the retained defined benefit platform and the need for a consistent, maintainable reporting environment across product lines. Refine the reporting strategy as part of the EA development to ensure tool selection is well-founded before commitment.

Business Process Management

Map existing business processes in a Business Process Management (BPM) tool. Mapped processes can then be measured for product costing and capacity planning, used for knowledge sharing and training, optimised for straight-through processing (STP), and enforced via workflow — providing a basis for ongoing operational efficiency improvements alongside the technology transformation.

ICT Governance

Establish a Project Management Office (PMO) to oversee the IT initiative portfolio, conduct annual strategy reviews, and involve the shared ICT services provider earlier in technology decisions. Engage an ongoing industry advisor to keep pace with market developments in superannuation technology. Resolve application support fragmentation by consolidating support arrangements for fund-specific platforms.

Outcomes

The engagement delivered a Final ICT Strategic Plan — approved by the fund's executive team and reviewed by the government's ICT governance stakeholders — covering the period 2009 to 2012. The plan contained 17 specific, actionable recommendations addressing seven business objectives, each with high-level implementation and change management plans, indicative costings, and risk strategies.

What the ICT Strategic Plan delivered:

A structured framework to align ICT direction to Board strategic objectives across a three-year horizon
A clear administration system replacement strategy — DC/pension system to be replaced from the competitive marketplace; defined benefit platform retained with a defined integration approach
An Enterprise Architecture model providing the selection and integration framework for all platform components, based on whole-of-government standards
17 prioritised, costed recommendations with high-level implementation plans and risk management strategies
A roadmap for CRM, Single View of Client, ODS-based reporting, BPM, and web — sequenced to work in step with the core administration platform transition
An ICT governance model — PMO, annual strategy review cycle, and industry advisory engagement — to sustain the plan beyond its initial delivery

Why Desda

ICT strategy in the superannuation sector is not a generic technology exercise. The right answer depends on an intimate understanding of how superannuation administration systems work, what the vendor market actually looks like, and how the regulatory and operational context shapes what is viable. Desda brought that combination of domain depth and technology breadth from the outset.

Deep superannuation administration domain expertise — understanding of DC, DB, and pension scheme administration from first principles, not from generic IT consulting frameworks
Vendor market knowledge — informed, independent assessment of the administration system marketplace, including the competitive DC/pension landscape and the rationale for a wait-and-see approach on DB
Architecture and integration thinking — ability to design an enterprise architecture and SOA model that would remain viable across a multi-year transformation, not just optimise for the immediate system selection
Governance and delivery rigour — structured workshop methodology, documented recommendations with implementation plans and costings, and a governance model designed to sustain the strategy beyond the engagement