Arizona State Retirement System drives digital transformation to enhance member services

Dave King, CIO, builds on automation success to deliver continuous improvement for all stakeholders

Arizona State Retirement System (ASRS) provides retirement security to the state’s public servants, including teachers, municipal workers, and other government employees. Serving more than half a million members, the agency administers plans including pensions, long-term disability and retiree health insurance.

Now Assistant Director and CIO, Dave King has helped drive the organization’s digital transformation in many different roles during his 20-year tenure at ASRS.

“I joined as a systems analyst,” said King. “One of the things that I’ve loved about working at ASRS from the very start is the fact that we’re providing people the security of defined benefits throughout their retirement – something that’s increasingly rare nowadays.”

Cutting operational costs to boost member retirement funds

Every dollar that ASRS spends is a dollar that it cannot give to its members in retirement – so cost-efficient operations are a top priority. When King took over the delivery of member services, one of his first objectives was to transition the organization from labor-intensive paper processes to streamlined digital workflows.

“When I became an Assistant Director 12 years ago, around 80% of all transactions were initiated by paper coming in through the mail,” recalled King. “We already had effective digital journeys in place for retirement applications, refund requests and beneficiary changes, but few members were using them. My goal was to get the word out about the benefits of those digital services. In just five years, we flipped our previous ratio of digital to paper processes on its head: more than 80% of journeys are now completed online and only 20% on paper.”

"In just five years, we flipped our previous ratio of digital to paper processes on its head: more than 80% of journeys are now completed online and only 20% on paper.”

- Dave King, CIO, Arizona State Retirement System

Moving to the next phase of the digital transformation initiative

After steering ASRS to digital success, the new challenge for King and his team is to ensure reliable, secure service delivery for the organization and its members going forward.

“We’ve gone from a period of constantly releasing new digital capabilities to a period where we’re now managing and incrementally improving those services,” said King. “Info-Tech's CIO Business Vision program and CEO-CIO Alignment program have been extremely valuable in helping us understand how our stakeholders have perceived that change, and where we need to focus our attention now.”

Info-Tech's CIO Business Vision program is a low-effort, high-impact diagnostic that delivers actionable insights into the organization's satisfaction with core IT services. The CXO-CIO Alignment program helps organizations like ASRS to gain insight into business needs by understanding the CEO and COO’s perspective, and to determine how IT can best support the top priorities.

“Info-Tech's CIO Business Vision program and CEO-CIO Alignment program have been extremely valuable in helping us understand how our stakeholders have perceived that change, and where we need to focus our attention now.”

- Dave King, CIO, Arizona State Retirement System

Gaining deeper insights into satisfaction with IT services

The Info-Tech diagnostics allowed King to ask direct questions about the organization’s satisfaction with IT services. For example: "Is IT focused on the right things?" "Do you agree with the way IT is doing their work?" and "What value does IT provide for you?" Thanks to the CIO Business Vision program, ASRS gained valuable insights into the current priorities for its stakeholders.

“If I’m hearing from users that our systems are not as valuable as they used to be, what does that really mean?” King said. “I wanted to get to the heart of the feedback, and that’s exactly what Info-Tech diagnostics have helped me to do.

“For example, the surveys highlighted an opportunity to bring the benefits of automation to member journeys that aren’t covered by our existing digital workflows. By building solutions for these edge cases, we can save our personnel – and our members – a significant amount of time, and further boost our operational efficiency.”

Preparing for a cloud-based future

By completing the Info-Tech IT Management & Governance Diagnostic program, King also gathered valuable feedback from his own management team. The IT Management & Governance Diagnostic helps leaders determine which processes their team believes need more attention, allowing more effective allocation of time and resources.

“It was very encouraging to see that my team believes that IT is working on the right things and – crucially – that we are effective at delivering those things,” said King. “Another useful learning from the diagnostic is that some people felt accountable for too many areas, which can increase the risk of burnout. Thanks to insights from Info-Tech, I can keep workload evenly distributed and help retain our top talent.”

Looking ahead, King is helping ASRS take the next step on its digital transformation journey, which will see the organization move its entire infrastructure to the AWS cloud.

“Info-Tech diagnostics are very, very easy to administer, and we got excellent engagement from our managers in the various business areas, from supervisors to senior managers,” said King. “As a next step, I plan to compile all the diagnostics in a presentation to our director and our board, which will help us to paint a clear picture of where we are now and where we can focus our attention to do the most good for our people and our members.”