Super cloud for Oz pension funds
IQ BG launches community cloud
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IQ Business Group is hoping to attract Australia’s superannuation industry to a cloud solution, with the launch of its iqCloud platform.
The solution has been crafted to comply with the industry’s regulatory requirements, including security and privacy, risk, and audit rules.
Running at Sydney and Melbourne data centres, iqCloud is based on the company’s iqBoard corporate governance software. The company says it intends to roll out the cloud offering to other sectors already targeted by iqBoard.
The solution is based on Microsoft technologies including SharePoint and SQL Server. All processing is within Australia, and IQBG says it also offers a business continuity plan, disaster recovery plan, and an SLA covering service uptime.
A mobile device management solution in the system currently supports iPads, with the company saying it hopes to add other mobile devices in the future.
Ultimately, the full suite of solutions – including claims processing, data quality analysis, archiving and business reporting – will be rolled into iqCloud.
The launch is part of the growing move in Australia towards cloud platforms tailored to vertical industries. The nascent “community cloud” sector so far favours high-margin specialties like the finance sector and the pharmaceutical industry. ®
COMMENTS
Dear "Anonymous Coward",
The reason companies are bothering with a solution like this is that:
- it offers tremendous productivity improvements around the secretariat processes of managing Boards and Committees
- how a company manages it's Board meetings is not a high priority point of differentiation for the company
- the Superannuation industry is highly regulated and most existing "cloud" providers do not meet the stringent requirements
These are just a few reasons why it makes sense to utilise the "cloud" model of shared infrastructure and a solution such as iqBoard. It would be much more expensive for Superannuation Funds to do it themselves.
Just because there are compulsory inflows to Superannuation is no excuse for companies to be flagrant in their spending.
Regards
Graham Sammells
CEO, The IQ Business Group
Don't see the point
I can't understand why anyone would bother. The Australian superannuation industry is massive with seemingly never-ending inflows of cash due to the 9% compulsory contribution (that may well be increased in time to 12%) and is therefore capable of rolling its own (either in house or customising) rather than clouding it up with unknown consequences and no point of differentiation. This is what is offered...
The iqCloud is able to offer a number of IQBG solutions:
iqBoard -Trustee and sub-committee Board Papers and Meeting Management
iqClaims - Case Management for Insurance Claims
iqDQ - Data Quality Analysis and Management
iqArchive - A data archive solution for legacy systems
iqSBR - A Standard Business Reporting translator
No real information could be found on the sight by searching for these "offerings" other than that iqBoard is built on Sharepoint. Great, can't wait.
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