CS Story - Generali 1
35 websites across four languages and three investor types

"Before, we had to update the data of our products, across three separate sites with three separate teams, at the risk of data quality and inconsistency.”​

- Giovanni Ricciolio, Head of Digital Strategy & Implementation​

About

Generali Investments is the main asset management division of the Generali Group. Founded in 1831, they are the largest insurance company in Italy, and one of the largest insurance companies in the world.

With €452.7Bn in Assets Under Management (as of 30 June 2017), they are one of the leading asset managers in Europe. Their investments are largely made up of fixed income bonds, with the remainder in shares, real estate investments and cash. Of the total portfolio, an average of 80% is dedicated to insurance asset management, while the remainder comprises investments on behalf of non-insurance customers (third party, institutional and retail) and unit-linked customers.

Generali consider asset management as not only a cornerstone of the insurance business, but also a function that has a significant impact on the economy, enabling the group to actively influence areas such as environmental protection and respect for human rights and the social sphere.

 

The Challenge

Generali Investments were not just looking for vendor or agency to build a new website, they were seeking a specialist technology provider who they could partner with for the long term. They were looking for a partner who could assemble some of the core elements of their digital transformation plan, with regard to fund data, documents, content and websites into a cohesive digital experience for their investors.

Generali Investments operates across three separate websites – a global dot com site, a fund manager website based in Luxembourg and a retail site based out of Germany. These sites were each being managed internally with their own hosting solutions, infrastructure and maintenance teams, replicated three times. With these teams working in a siloed fashion, not only was there an ongoing costs issue, but the websites became unsynchronised in terms of content, strategy and data. This also led to a poor user experience for investors and a bad return on investment from a digital marketing perspective.

Generali, like many asset managers, suffered from a lack of internal expertise to execute on an ambitious digital project which also detracted from their core business. Outsourcing was the fastest and most cost-effective option to achieve on their objectives.

With a robust digital transformation strategy firmly in place, Generali approached Kurtosys with an objective to design, implement, host and deliver a unified digital experience that would replace their outdated websites across the three operations. The requirements also included creating and facilitating the translation of content to cater for around 35 websites across four languages and three investor types. Fund data, from a variety of sources, including Morningstar data also needed to be piped into fund performance tools.

The new site needed to reflect Generali’s business objectives, synchronise operations across three jurisdictions, act as a content hub and allow for integrated use across their marketing teams.

“Now, with the site implemented, it’s not just a website – but a website platform, with a unified data model. Before, we had to update the data of our products, across three separate sites with three separate teams, at the risk of data quality and inconsistency.”​

Giovanni Ricciolio, Head of Digital Strategy & Implementation​

The Solution

Kurtosys designed and created a fully responsive WordPress multi-site experience, covering multiple countries, four languages and three investor types which currently totals around 35 websites.

Kurtosys designers worked to Generali’s specification to create a modern website which would not only reflect their new content strategy, but would also work seamlessly across all devices and browsers. The site has been designed to be clean, uncluttered and well organised to improve the user experience for investors.

By using WordPress as a CMS, content can now be curated and surfaced across multiple sites without having to replicate anything. Kurtosys helped facilitate with the translation process into other languages, as well as actually create much of the content which has been specifically tailored for different investor types.

An interactive fund explorer was created to house all of Generali’s investments, which totals over 100 funds. Each fund includes an annualised return chart as well as all the fund literature in PDFs, including a ‘download all’ feature. A watch list feature allows investors to track investments without creating an account, a ‘typeahead’ search along with asset class filters allow for quick searches. Data is uploaded into the Kurtosys platform from a variety of sources, including Morningstar ratings direct via Morningstar’s API.

Video content is integrated into the site using the Wistia platform, which can be easily added to any page or post using short-codes in WordPress. Events are also added to the site with users able to ‘add to calendar’ straight from the webpages.

“We wanted to leverage on a provider, able to understand our business within the asset management and services industry and assist us with solution and services, end to end. From hosting, to content services, to technology implementation, to data. We needed a provider to support the full stack. You are the only provider in Europe (that I know), that can provide something like that.”​

Giovanni Ricciolio, Head of Digital Strategy & Implementation

The results

Kurtosys is honoured to partner with such a large European brand in asset management. The website incorporates some of the best-of-breed features available in the Kurtosys platform and is the perfect blend of data and content. With the first phase of the project implemented, further enhancements are expected to appear soon, with more work being implemented around Salesforce integration and extended fund pages.