Doug wants to speak about technology at the AA. He’s been the CIO at AA for about a year.

Will talk about:
1. The history of AA
2. The brand
3. The ICT operating model
4. Recent projects
5. Upcoming things

History
AA in NZ started in Auckland in 1903

Is nationwide now, with 1.2 million members. Grow 5% per year. Have 78 services, and 75 offices the country

Brand
“AA” is one of the most trusted brands in NZ

Some major cornerstone services: motoring services, encouraging domestic tourism, insurance, advocacy of road user views to the government

Major revision in the branding position over the last couple of decades.

Technology
Mapping is a core competency of AA, or at least it was years ago. They decided earlier this year to get back into it, with the purchase of a mapping company. There’s a heap of technology behind the variety of services.

The tourism business is based on an Apple platform (“wash your mouth out”, he says). Print work, web site development, and online bookings.

Road service is a key service, and the main driver for people to sign up. It’s a type of insurance. Have 760K calls per year, and go out to 500K vehicles. The mapping database accepts common place names via IVR, which is very unique in NZ. Econz provides much of the underlying technology. Use Panasonic Toughbooks in vehicles … Expensive, but haven’t found anything better. Connectivity is via the Vodafone network.

Overall, the IT infrastructure is supported by 10 people. They do have tech people in business units, and some outsourced partnerships. Among other things, they use SharePoint 2007 for the web presence, and Office 2007 on the desktop (the latter will go in during November 2007, replacing lots of OpenOffice).

“We are very happy with the recent change to MOSS, and now have a content management system that everyone in the organization can update.”

Finally, anyone know how to solve billing issues with telcos?