Principal Financial unifies IT to lay foundation for growth
The Fortune 500 company, born an insurer in Des Moines, Iowa, roughly a decade after the Civil War ended, is under pressure to provide customers with an integrated experience, particularly due to its expanded financial services portfolio, including the acquisition of Wells Fargo’s Institutional Retirement and Trust (IRT) business, Kay says.
“What caused us to move much faster to the cloud was aligning our technology assets with the capabilities we needed to enable a modern business strategy,” she says. “The customer had a 401(k) with us, for example, insurance benefits, and also asset management services, and [each] of those units did not know they shared a customer. Customers expect to be treated holistically.”
The multinational operates in 80 countries, has a market capitalization of $18 billion, and employs roughly 20,000. It has traditionally served SMBs and government-based retirement plans from its Iowa and Charlotte hubs, and it has sizable footprints in Chile, Brazil, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and India.
