The company

Latrobe Health Services is an Australian-owned not-for-profit private health insurer with more than 81,000 members across Australia. Founded in 1950, Latrobe Health pride themselves on providing quality cover for their members, and exceptional service when their members need them.

We spoke to Kamran Channa, CIO at Latrobe Health Services on how AC3 was able to help Latrobe become an organisation ready to adopt modern technologies after migrating to Microsoft Azure.

The challenge

“We were facing a challenge which was predominantly linked to our fast-decaying IT environment. It hadn't been invested in to for over 10 years and quite frankly, we were very much incapable of supporting the modern ways of working.”

To bring Latrobe’s long-term vision to fruition, a complete re-architecture of its core IT environment was required. All of its systems from the legacy on premise environment needed to be migrated to the cloud. “This also included a replacement of our corporate network and complete redesign and re-architecture of our remote access platform,” says Channa.

Other areas that needed to be improved included security and compliance against the APRA (Australian Prudential Regulation Authority) standards to which insurers are subject, as well as productivity and efficiencies.

The solution

When undertaking the RFP process, Latrobe liaised with five organisations. Channa says that, while it continued to work with three of them over the course of the RFP, one stood out above the rest. “AC3’s engagement, AC3’s solution, architecture design and maturity of response were a clear standout,” he explains.

Latrobe had a number of criteria that needed to be addressed by a potential partner, but one of the most fundamental was cultural alignment, he adds. “AC3’s response was one that met our requirements most comprehensively. And we felt that its operating culture was much more aligned with our organisation.”

Having that alignment meant the removal of many barriers for successful project execution.

“The solution involved a complete re-architecture of our core IT environment. Migrating all of our systems from the legacy on-premises environment over to Microsoft cloud.

“It also included a replacement of our corporate network and also complete redesign and re-architecture of our remote access platform,” he says.

The results

“At Latrobe Health Services we value honesty, integrity and transparency,” says Channa.

“We felt that over the course of the engagement with AC3 we received the same levels of integrity and honest advice from AC3 that we would offer to our customers.""

“AC3’s project managers worked really closely with the Latrobe project managers and the communication back and forth meant that we were able to effectively manage the change,” he says.

“The implementation was smack bang in the middle of the pandemic, the lockdowns, and sustained remote working arrangements didn't work in our favour. Despite all of that the execution of the project was undertaken very well.

“Our staff did embrace the rapid shift from the old ways of accessing applications to the new ways,” says Channa.

“I’m very happy to report that now we have 100 percent of our workforce able to work remotely.

“Productivity certainly has improved greatly. And in the ever-evolving world of cyber security, we are much more confident that our environment is now far more secure than it was in previous years,” he adds.

“Latrobe Health Services is now an organisation that is ready for adopting new technologies.

“Through the process what we learned was that public cloud-based technologies are far more advanced and mature, and there’s no reason a modern organisation couldn’t consider a public cloud-first approach.”

“I would highly recommend AC3’s services to any organisation that operates within the financial services industry,” he concludes.