Digital Transformation at Sun Life: A Modern Financial Services Institution
Sun Life, a Canadian-based organization known for traditional insurance, has made significant strides in digital transformation to become a fully diversified financial services institution with US$1.4 trillion in asset management. With 45% of its revenue coming from asset management, Sun Life now offers a comprehensive portfolio of health and insurance products for consumers and institutional clients, along with virtual healthcare, personalized financial planning, digital payments, and as-a-service advice.
During a session at the SAP and SAP Fioneer for Financial Services Forum Americas event in Boston, Massachusetts, Dariush Shoja, vice president and corporate CIO at Sun Life, highlighted the company’s digital transformation journey. Using SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Sun Life is digitizing its entire business to provide personalized and high-value services throughout the customer lifecycle.
Shoja emphasized the importance of embracing a digital mindset in the finance industry, noting the challenges of change management. He stressed the need for organizations to start at the top with support from leadership to drive digital adoption and leverage state-of-the-art technologies like generative AI.
Sun Life’s modernization efforts have focused on moving to cloud-based platforms to enable growth and efficiency. By connecting data across geographies and business units, the company has improved financial management and decision-making processes. The shift to automated dashboards and analytics has provided faster access to insights from complex data sets, driving informed decisions and operational efficiencies.
Innovative thinking and the use of AI have played a key role in Sun Life’s transformation. Shoja highlighted the benefits of AI in saving time for financial services, particularly in areas like quarterly accrual management reporting and reconciliation. Sun Life has partnered with companies like SAP to leverage AI solutions and enhance its finance modernization journey.
Overall, Sun Life’s digital transformation journey showcases the importance of embracing new technologies and strategies to drive growth and innovation in the financial services industry. With a focus on digitalization, data connectivity, and AI integration, Sun Life is positioning itself as a modern and forward-thinking financial services institution.
