By Denise Wipert In 2003, the founder of Aon Corporation made a promise to stockholders to reduce costs by $200 million. With an information technology budget among the highest in the industry, IT was an obvious place to look for savings.

The Aon situation

For many years, Aon’s business units drove their own IT spending, which resulted in a non-standardized, multiple-platform environment that was increasingly costly to maintain. New audit and regulatory requirements made compliance difficult and expensive. Among the challenges faced by Aon in 2003 were:

• Duplicate application systems
• Server sprawl
• Disparate and decentralized environments
• High overhead.

Aon looked to Computer Sciences Corporation to provide the standardization and discipline needed to bring costs down. CSC brought key talent and strong teams to Aon. Of the top 150 managers at CSC, more than half have worked for Fortune 500 companies.

“CSC has a strong track record for large outsourcing contracts and they will help us achieve an IT outsourcing solution that offers benefits for Aon, our clients and shareholders,” said Patrick Ryan, Aon’s founder.

CSC’s innovative solutions

Under a 10-year agreement, CSC runs and manages voice communications, Web hosting mid-range servers, mid-range servers, and data networks, and also provides desktop, help desk, and other IT support services for Aon’s U.S. insurance brokerage and consulting business units. While Aon has the final say in IT strategy and infrastructure architecture, CSC created a three-component solution to reduce costs and improve operational excellence.

IT outsourcing and consolidation The outsourcing and related consolidation of data centers and help desks, the first component, is designed to produce an estimated $400 million in savings over 10 years. Many of Aon’s IT professionals have transitioned to CSC, providing support for ongoing services while transforming the organization to the new business model. Ryan said, “CSC shared Aon’s commitment to a smooth transition for our IT professionals and the processes they manage.”

To meet Aon’s business needs, CSC focused on:

• Reducing physical infrastructure of the field/print environment

• Consolidating applications and bringing together disparate environments

• Streamlining processes to provide for systematic repeatable, consistent, documented processes to optimize the project delivery approach

• Creating appropriate outsourcing solutions

• Reducing cost

This work allows Aon to focus on strategic IT functionality that will add value to the organization and its clients.

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