Scaling a regional organization nationally
The engagement began as an advisory assignment through Paragon and evolved into internal Executive Program Director and Chief Information Officer roles as the scale and complexity of the transformation grew.
Growth had outpaced the regional operating foundation.
Westland was expanding rapidly, driven primarily by acquisitions together with organic growth. The organization was approximately doubling in size every 18 months.
The systems, processes, teams, governance, and operating capabilities that had supported a regional business were not sufficient for a national organization. Some existing capabilities limited the jurisdictions in which the company could operate and contributed to concerns from prospective investors.
National scale required more than additional technology.
- Acquired businesses used different systems, products, underwriting rules, processes, and practices.
- Infrastructure, security, resilience, and workplace capabilities required substantial modernization.
- Fragmented data limited timely and consistent management insight.
- The technology and transformation organization lacked capacity for continued acquisition and national operations.
- Enterprise governance and coordinated program delivery needed to be established.
- HR, customer, digital, and shared-service capabilities needed to scale with the business.
Enterprise strategy, overall solution design, and hands-on execution.
Paul initially joined through a Paragon advisory engagement, then became Executive Program Director and subsequently Chief Information Officer.
He interviewed Westland’s executives to understand the company’s business direction, growth plans, priorities, and constraints. He translated those inputs into aligned transformation and IT goals, required capabilities, a target-state solution, and a sequenced multi-year roadmap.
His involvement remained highly hands-on. Paul worked with business and technology teams to whiteboard integrations and end-to-end workflows, standardize products and underwriting rules, define governance and decision rights, design new capabilities, and write job descriptions for roles that did not previously exist.
He built the transformation organization, established Westland’s first enterprise PMO, designed the overall solution, worked through important implementation details, and remained accountable through execution.
An integrated strategy—not a collection of independent projects.
Executive inputs were translated into transformation and IT goals, capability requirements, a target-state solution, investment priorities, and a sequenced roadmap. Foundational risk and operating constraints were addressed first, followed by national standardization and the data, digital, customer, and automation capabilities that depended on them.
Establish scalable foundations
Modernize infrastructure, security, continuity, workplace technology, communications, and national connectivity.
Create governance and delivery capability
Establish enterprise governance and the first PMO while growing the technology and transformation organization from approximately 12 to 140 professionals.
Standardize the operating environment
Consolidate products, underwriting rules, processes, and operating practices across acquired businesses.
Modernize enterprise capabilities
Introduce national platforms and capabilities across insurance operations, HR, cloud, workplace, security, data, customer channels, and shared services.
A scalable national operating foundation.
National operating capability
Westland expanded from a primarily British Columbia organization to a presence in every Canadian province.
Growth supported
The company grew from approximately 700 to 2,400 employees during the four-year period.
Transformation capability established
The technology and transformation organization grew from approximately 12 to 140 professionals, supported by enterprise governance and the first PMO.
Complexity reduced
Products, processes, operating practices, and underwriting rules were standardized, reducing underwriting-rule complexity by approximately 80%.
Risk and resilience improved
Cybersecurity, infrastructure, business continuity, workplace technology, and national operating capabilities were substantially modernized.
Better management insight
Enterprise data and analytics created a more consistent foundation for evidence-based decisions and future automation.
Facing similar growth or integration complexity?
We can begin with where the organization is going, what leadership already knows must change, and what else may be required.
Start a Conversation