Allianz tech 'transformation' exposed as offshoring drive

A “transformation” of Allianz’ global technology function has been exposed as an offshoring and cost-out drive that, in its Australian operations alone, impacted about one-third of staff over the past three years.

Speed2Value is positioned publicly as a "transformation" focused on "innovation and operational excellence" for Allianz Technology or AzTech, a global IT services and technology provider for the Allianz group.

This contrasts with an unfair dismissal decision in Australia that casts the initiative as a way to do IT work more cheaply offshore.

“The Speed2Value initiative is an ongoing, global initiative focused on transitioning certain in-house roles and functions out of high-cost jurisdictions and into an offshore or outsourced model,” the decision states.

“This includes engaging services through offshore or onshore third-party professional services firms, and, in some cases, offshore Allianz group entities engaging employees in lower cost jurisdictions outside of Australia.”

In Australia, the impact of Speed2Value is stark.

“Since the commencement of the initiative, AzTech’s direct employee headcount in Australia has decreased from 515 in March 2023 to 329 in March 2026,” the decision states.

An Allianz Australia spokesperson declined to comment further when approached by iTnews.

The nature of the Speed2Value “initiative” is exposed by an ultimately unsuccessful bid by an analyst programmer to challenge their redundancy - as portions of their workload were outsourced and offshored to India-based HCLTech.

In a letter to his former employer, the analyst programmer challenged the redundancy, arguing the team he was part of remained "very busy" and that the offshore resources were not at the same level of capability or skill.

"I understand the offshore team will take over my projects. However, they lack the capability to create [document] templates from scratch," he wrote.

"They have only been able to maintain and modify templates created by myself and other ... team members."

He added that he'd invested in building expertise in a niche tool used by Allianz, and had chosen Allianz over other "potential career paths" based on assurances that his role "would be stable" and would lead to exposure to "other tools."

The Fair Work Commission found it “understandable” that the analyst programmer “felt very aggrieved” at being made redundant, in part because he moved interstate to chase the role, but that his redundancy was genuine and would not be overturned.

“AzTech submitted that it no longer required [the] job to be performed by anyone because of changes in the operational requirements of its enterprise arising from the Speed2Value initiative,” the decision states.

“AzTech submitted that as part of that initiative, [the] role was eliminated and has not been replaced within Aztech’s enterprise. 

“AzTech submitted that to the extent the functions associated with [the] role are still required, they have been wholly outsourced to an offshore contractor, HCLTech, a third-party contractor providing document management services for the Allianz group, based in India.”

The Fair Work Commission found the redundant position was “no longer required … to be performed by anyone”, due to “changes in the operational requirements of AzTech’s enterprise arising from the Speed2Value initiative.”