Aviva Canada eliminates half its tech debt and cuts costs 15% in record time

Remediating 50% of tech debt in less than two years while cutting costs and building for the AI era.

Breaking free from debt

Aviva Canada faced a daunting reality: 80% of its IT estate was buried in technical debt, straining operations and limiting the organization's ability to innovate. With 5,000 employees coast-to-coast managing property and casualty insurance products for millions of Canadians, the company needed a partner who understood both the complexity and the stakes—and who could deliver fast.

Aviva Canada eliminates half its tech debt and cuts costs 15% in record time | DXC Technology Customer Story Video

"The transformation for me really hit that key tipping point when we delivered 50% of our tech debt program. The collaboration with DXC—the day-to-day working through issues—was the real key for that success. It was a team effort, and we really appreciated DXC's involvement in that. Aviva and DXC have had a strong partnership for years, and we're both committed for each other's success. We're committed around building sustainable solutions for our partners, our customers, and we're really committed to investing in the future of technology for this business."

Brett Wilson
Chief Information Officer at Aviva Canada

A smarter modernization strategy

After a 15+ year partnership with DXC, Aviva Canada decided to deepen the collaboration. Rather than a traditional lift-and-shift approach, the two organizations co-developed a strategy grounded in trust, transparency, and pragmatic modernization—not just replacement. Together, they tackled critical challenges: network and storage upgrades, compute optimization, OS modernization, security hardening, and complete infrastructure cloud enablement.

DXC implemented end-to-end observability using Dynatrace, giving Aviva's business teams unprecedented visibility into application performance. They also co-developed a vaulted backup solution to protect against cyber threats—innovation born from real business need.

Achieving the impossible

When Aviva achieved 50% remediation of its tech debt program under two years—ahead of every internal projection—the breakthrough became undeniable. What the industry expected to take years had been accomplished through disciplined collaboration and day-to-day problem-solving.

Results at a glance

50% of legacy tech debt remediated in less than 24 months (ahead of schedule)
15% cost reduction on annual run-rate through operational efficiency
End-to-end observability across infrastructure and applications, unlocking business confidence
Zero surprises in delivery—consistently on time and on budget
5-year partnership renewal in 2025, signaling mutual confidence and success
AI-ready security posture with agentic SOC and advanced threat capabilities

From stable to AI-unstoppable

With technical debt significantly reduced and a modern, cloud-enabled infrastructure in place, Aviva Canada is now positioned to leverage emerging technologies like AI and advanced security operations. The partnership has evolved from remediation to innovation—from stabilizing the foundation to building the future.

As Brett emphasizes: "Both parties need to win for a partnership to be successful." At Aviva and DXC, that's exactly what's happening.