The Enterprise Change Practice Strategic Maturity Journey – Allianz Case Study
What does it take to lift change management from tactical delivery to an institutional capability that leaders trust and fund year after year? In a candid interview, Allianz Australia’s Head of Enterprise Change, Adam Ryder, opens the hood on a seven year journey to build maturity at scale, including the moments that worked, the ones that did not, and the practical choices that keep momentum. If you are shaping a change practice, the lessons here give you a clear route map, and a few helpful shortcuts, for building something that lasts.
The Context That Shapes the Craft
Insurance is a curious context for change. As Adam puts it, you sell a product customers hope they never use, and you price it before you know what it will really cost. That paradox, combined with the Financial Services Royal Commission, creates a burning platform for disciplined, transparent, repeatable change. The response is not a single methodology. It is a balanced set of pillars that anchor decisions and behaviours every day.
Those four pillars are mindset, skill set, tool set and operating model. Everything the practice does ties back to them. Mindset builds belief and an enterprise view. Skill set builds capability not only in the change team but across leaders. Tool set stays fit for purpose rather than dogmatic. Operating model defines where and how the function shows up so it has a real seat at the table.
Designing a Funding Model that Enables, not Constrains
Funding is often the silent handbrake. Allianz started with a user pays model. Project leaders requested support, the practice supplied practitioners against an internal rate card, and the team swelled to nearly 40. It worked for demand generation, yet created friction in timesheets, split allocations and, most importantly, a perception problem that change belonged everywhere and nowhere. People felt resourced by a project rather than anchored in a home team.
The pivot to a centrally funded cost centre brought control and coherence. It enabled services beyond project execution, and it protected the team through embedment phases when project funds typically dry up. Today the model is hybrid. Core team and core services are funded centrally, with flexibility to place practitioners directly on projects when demand surges. There is no single perfect formula. The constant is fitness for purpose and the courage to adjust when incentives nudge the wrong behaviours.
Where Should Change Live
Allianz has tested three homes for the practice. HR made intuitive sense given the people focus. The Office of the Managing Director offered proximity to strategy, PMO and corporate affairs. IT provides tight linkage to delivery. Each option came with strengths and trade offs. The durable principle is simple and powerful. Place the practice where it receives strong executive advocacy, clear voice and consistent access to decision making. With those in place, funding flows, influence grows and outcomes accelerate.
A Portfolio of Services that Reflects Enterprise Reality
Seventy five percent of the practice’s work remains change execution, the hands on support to programmes and initiatives across the formal portfolio and BAU. That is the backbone. Around it are three services that expand impact.
- Change advisory and benefits, including initial impact sizing, scoping and resourcing estimates, plus enterprise benefits management that links early business cases to realised value
- Change partnering, with dedicated partners aligned to major divisions to strengthen relationships, context and sustained embedment
- Change capability, a leadership course on adapting to and leading through change, delivered to more than 300 people leaders to build organisational muscle
This mix acknowledges that effective change is not a project event. It is an enterprise habit built through advice, delivery support, divisional relationships and leader capability.
Measuring What Matters, Especially Embedment
Measurement sits in two places. At the enterprise level, benefits realisation connects investment to outcomes. At the practice level, the focus has shifted to embedment. After a leadership prompt to do more here, the team examined where time went, lifted skills for designing embedment plans, and invested in external education to sharpen practice. Progress is real, yet the journey continues. The honest take is refreshing. Measuring the effectiveness of change, linking it to embedment and then to benefits, requires patience and persistence, not just dashboards.
Building the Team and the Pathways
Demand patterns originally pulled mostly experienced hires into the practice, which is common when projects seek immediate impact. The current structure keeps titles simple and pathways visible, from Change Analyst to Senior Change Manager, with leadership roles across the top. Around 70 percent of the team is permanent, the remainder fixed term employees who receive the same core benefits. Daily rate contracting is deliberately absent to strengthen identity and belonging in a home team. There is still more to do to codify progression criteria and create entry ramps for internal talent who raise a hand. The transparency about trade offs is useful for any leader designing a pipeline.
What Comes Next
The next lift in skill set is multi service delivery. Practitioners already support an average of 2.1 initiatives at a time. The emphasis now is advisory mindset, strong consulting craft and the adaptability to operate across capital A Agile delivery. On tool set, the practice resists being captured by a single framework. It has trialled several options for a single or enterprise view of change, from spreadsheets to specialist platforms, and continues to evaluate what truly fits the organisation.
AI is another frontier. Expect pragmatic adoption in analysis, training needs assessment and planning accelerators. Think of AI as a force multiplier that drafts quickly so practitioners and leaders can refine and tailor. On mindset, the practice is actively discouraging over servicing. Not every piece of work needs heavy change management. Defining light versus heavy support and sticking to it protects capacity and builds ownership where it belongs. The operating model will keep evolving as funding, sponsorship and portfolio shape shift.
Six Lessons You Can Apply Today
- Hire for diverse thinking and experiences, your stakeholders are diverse and your practice should match
- Be patient, maturity takes longer than your first slide suggests
- Expect challenge, and use every challenge as a chance to demonstrate value rather than defend turf
- Design for flexibility, keep funding, services and staffing adjustable so the model does not become the constraint
- Connect closely to the portfolio pipeline, anticipate demand so you can scale thoughtfully
- Embrace new thinking, stay method neutral and learn from others while you refine what works in your context
Actionable Takeaways
- Anchor everything to four pillars, mindset, skill set, tool set and operating model
- Start funding with what you can influence, then move to central where it enables services and embedment
- Place the practice where advocacy is strongest, not where it looks tidy on an org chart
- Build a services portfolio beyond execution, advisory, partnering and capability create enterprise reach
- Treat embedment as a discipline, measure it, teach it and resource it, then link to benefits
- Keep tools fit for purpose, avoid dogma and choose what truly helps people deliver
- Define light versus heavy support, protect capacity and build line ownership
- Keep the career ladder simple and visible, create real belonging in a home team
Why This Matters for Your Practice
If you are building or reshaping an enterprise change function, these choices show what strategic maturity looks like in the real world. The combination of executive advocacy, a central funding spine, a services portfolio that reaches beyond projects, and a disciplined focus on embedment adds up to a practice that partners with the organisation rather than chases it. The tools will evolve. The model will flex. The pillars hold steady.
🎬 Members can watch the webinar on the MEMBER HUB
🤔 Not a member yet? Now is a great time to JOIN HERE NOW
