M&G realizes growth amid disruption with Oracle Cloud
Using performance management and scenario planning, the global investment manager navigates market volatility and pandemic-related uncertainty.
“Adopting Oracle ERP has enabled less manual work, faster and better reporting, and greater insights that allow our talent to be more focused and become true partners to the business.”
Business challenges
M&G is a British company headquartered in London with a more than 170-year history in the savings, investments, and heritage industry. Following its demerger from the global financial service company Prudential, M&G merged the UK and European savings and investments division of Prudential with M&G Investments, an international asset manager.
The combined business currently operates a portfolio that spans 28 markets and 22 locations in Europe, Asia, and the United States. The company also has £339 billion worth of assets under administration and more than 5,000 employees working across three core brands: M&G Real Estate, Infracapial, and Ascentric.
The company aimed to digitally enhance its systems, tools, and services while expanding its market share, distribution network, and services portfolio to onboard independent financial advisers and their clients. M&G was also interested in creating a more connected financial ecosystem, with easier access to centralized key data and insights, flexible business models, and more seamless processes.
The company also needed to design more efficient financial and human resources allocation and operations in compliance with the new International Financial Reporting Standard 17, which requires increased transparency in financial statements, and that insurance contracts are aligned in terms of revenue, costs, assets, and liabilities.
M&G’s key objectives highlighted the need for automated processes and the adoption of a lighter, cloud-based technology infrastructure that could support its growth ambitions and keep its operational costs low. The company’s digital transformation goals were also a way to offer customers products that could help protect investments from market volatility and provide new opportunities for investment.
We've already seen in the last 12 to 18 months that the speed with which we are administering certain payments is far faster today. And that enhances customer experience.
Why M&G chose Oracle
As opposed to other solutions available on the market, Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) offered M&G a complete solution that met its exact needs for a seamless package that would not require any patchwork or excessive integrations.
Additionally, the strong business relationship M&G developed over the years with Oracle made for a compelling argument when choosing a software partner to help the company execute its strategic goals.
Results
Oracle Cloud ERP empowered M&G’s finance team to improve decision-making, maximize the value of data, and increase business performance.
As part of the financial transformation agenda, M&G achieved its flexibility, security and autonomy goals, increased transaction speeds, and offered customers an enhanced overall experience.
The organization also ensured that the latest IFRS 17 standards were interconnected and fully integrated with the transformation of the company’s other finance processes and systems, which required a substantial financial upgrade, talent involvement, and data access.
With Oracle Cloud ERP, M&G benefited from a complex perspective of the company’s resources and operations, while Oracle Financials Cloud—with its intuitive dashboards and integrated ledgers—allowed for enhanced business oversight and an optimized user experience. Prebuilt connectivity from Oracle Integration accelerated its modernization initiatives.
In addition, Oracle helped strengthen the digital capabilities of its employees and embrace a more flexible, innovation-oriented working environment. The performance management and scenario planning capabilities offered by Oracle Cloud EPM, paired with financials and rich data, were among the key capabilities that helped M&G balance market volatility, pandemic-related uncertainty, and business complexity.
Partners
IBM Consulting was chosen by M&G to help them transform their finance function using IBMs Insurance Industry Cognitive Enterprise Business Platform, which brings speed, agility, flexibility, and mobility to a complex financial environment—Oracle Cloud was seen at the best fit solution to enable this Business Platform. As an Oracle Partner of over 34 years, IBM has more than 10,000 dedicated Oracle consultants who have helped clients successfully complete more than 6,500 Oracle projects to date. IBM Consulting offers Oracle services and consulting to clients at each stage of their investment—from consulting to implementation to management.