Allianz Australia – Global Top 10 intranet site for 2006

Sydney, 30 January 2006.

Allianz Australia’s employee intranet has been selected as one of the 10 best intranet sites for 2006 in a global review of hundreds of sites by respected web strategists, Nielsen Norman Group.

As the only Australian winner, we’re pleased to be waving the flag for Australia, in particular, the innovation and design skills of Allianz Australia’s employees, “ said Nicholas Scofield, Allianz Australia’s General Manager for Corporate Affairs.

Allianz Australia’s intranet site was selected because of its functionality, easy to understand content and user-focused approach. The intranet and its content management system were built in-house to ensure ease of use and flexibility in making changes quickly.

Rather than making employee information needs fit the technology, the Allianz site is designed and maintained by its own employees to meet their information needs and those of Allianz Australia’s customers.

Through employee focus groups, Allianz found that staff wanted their intranet to be a practical, everyday work tool encompassing a consistent look and feel, simple navigation tools, short cuts and company news.

“The simpler the better. For example, the Home Page contains a ‘Quickstart’ menu that each employee can personalise to provide direct access to the web pages that are most important to them, ” said Mr Scofield.

The bottom-up approach to intranet design enabled Allianz to produce a cost effective business solution with an emphasis on internal communication.

The design principles underpinning the Allianz intranet have also been successfully transferred to the company’s external web channels including its business-to-business Partner Portals (branded “Workbenches”) for business partner insurance transactions and Sunrise Exchange Allianz products (electronic quote-and-bind facilities for insurance brokers).

“Business partner and insurance broker feedback tells us that our systems are intuitive, easy to learn and equipped with good quick-find tools, “ said Mr Scofield.

“Ensuring more than 3000 employees dispersed throughout Australia and New Zealand receive a consistent corporate message could be tough,” said
usability expert Jakob Nielsen, principal, Nielsen Norman Group.

“Designers at Allianz Australia Insurance, however, tackled the problem by making their intranet the vehicle of choice for corporate communications and strategy, and employing clear design and writing.”

About Allianz Australia

Allianz Australia is one of the largest general insurers in Australia and a leading private workers’ compensation and third party motor accident insurer. Allianz Australia has approximately 3200 staff and operates in Australia and New Zealand. The company delivers a wide range of personal, commercial and corporate insurance products and services. We are proud to be of service to over 2 million policyholders.

Allianz Australia is a wholly owned subsidiary of the worldwide Allianz Group, which operates in over 70 countries and services around 60 million customers globally.

Allianz Australia offers a wide range of insurance products and services including car insurance, home insurance and Life insurance.

About Nielsen Norman Group
Nielsen Norman Group (http://www.nngroup.com) is a user-experience research firm that advises companies on how to succeed through the human-centered design of products and services. Nielsen Norman Group principals Jakob Nielsen, Don Norman and Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini are each world-renowned experts in usability and human use of technology. Besides authoring books and evangelizing about user experience, they and the other user-experience specialists at Nielsen Norman Group offer high-level strategic consultation on usability of websites, consumer products, software designs and anything else that needs to be easy-to-use.


Media Enquiries:
Allianz Australia Limited
Nicholas Scofield, (02) 9390 6596, nicholas.scofield@allianz.com.au

Nielsen Norman Group
Darcy Provo, Antenna Group, darcy@antennagroup.com, 415-977-1920.