Forrester’s Technology Strategy Impact Award celebrates technology teams that have mastered the art of high-performance IT. The 2025 APAC winners prove that when technology organizations nail alignment, trust, and adaptivity, they don’t just support the business, they accelerate it.
Congratulations to this year’s winners: FWD Group and YCH Group, and to AIA Group, our 2025 runner-up. Each organization built the technology and business capabilities their business strategy demanded, then executed with the precision and agility that separates market leaders from the pack.
FWD Group: Transforming Insurance Through High-Performance IT
FWD Group is a pan-Asian life and health insurer operating in 10 of the region’s fastest-growing markets. With a bold vision of changing the way people feel about insurance, FWD has adopted a customer-led and tech-enabled approach in its business. Through its cloud-first strategy, AI-powered platforms, and a relentless focus on customer experience, FWD has transformed itself into a high-performance IT organization that is agile, trusted, and aligned to deliver measurable business impact in several ways:
Strategic alignment that drives measurable business outcomes. FWD’s IT team operates as a strategic partner, codeveloping priorities with business leaders and aligning initiatives through robust portfolio management. Platforms like FWD Cube, a digital sales enablement platform, and FWD Opus, an operations management platform, are tightly integrated with business goals, delivering tangible results such as a 40% increase in average active agents and a 13% rise in monthly average APE in Thailand, from October 2023 to June 2024.
Adaptivity through continuous learning and agile execution. With over 22,000 cloud training courses completed and 960+ certifications earned, FWD has built a culture of continuous learning. Their six Centers of Excellence rapidly pilot and scale emerging technologies like genAI, while agile practices and real-time feedback loops, such as the Voice of Customer program, ensure swift responsiveness to market and customer needs.
Trust built on security, resilience, and responsible innovation. FWD’s Zero Trust architecture, ISO 27001-aligned cybersecurity framework, and Responsible AI Standard ensure secure, ethical, and resilient operations. With 100% penetration testing on customer-facing apps and 98% completion of security training across all business units, FWD has earned stakeholder confidence and industry recognition, including the Cyber Security Excellence Award and Cloud Network Security Award.
YCH Group: Redefining Logistics Through High-Performance IT
YCH Group is a Singapore-based logistics company executing a major technology transformation across Asia Pacific. The company operates integrated supply chain solutions, partnering with Y3 Technologies Pte Ltd, through initiatives like Supply Chain City® and SuperPortTM, deploying automation, AI, IoT, and data platforms to modernize warehousing, distribution, and trade finance operations. By integrating robotics-enabled facilities with autonomous logistics systems, YCH is advancing a digitally connected, intelligent supply chain that serves customers across multiple industries in the region. YCH’s key tenets of its high-performance technology strategy that underpins this success are:
Strategic tech-business alignment at scale. YCH’s IT strategy is tightly integrated with its business vision, ensuring that every technology investment — from robotics to cloud adoption — directly supports growth, efficiency, and sustainability. Through structured planning, agile governance, and real-time feedback loops, YCH has delivered transformative business outcomes like a major reduction in order processing time and improved fulfilment accuracy.
Adaptivity through modular architecture and agile execution. YCH’s modular, cloud-native architecture and dynamic portfolio management enable rapid responses to market shifts. From pandemic-era pivots to AI-based demand forecasting, their agile innovation model — including digital innovation cells and Y3’s technological strengths — ensures continuous learning and fast-tracked execution across the enterprise.
Trust built on resilience, security, and results. YCH’s tech organization has earned the trust of global partners by delivering secure, resilient, and high-performing digital infrastructure. With ISO 27001 certification, secured architecture, and 99.95% uptime, the IT team ensures operational continuity and data protection at scale. Their ability to codesign and integrate complex systems was instrumental in securing a regional business expansion with a global luxury brand — a testament to the IT team’s role as a trusted enabler of growth, innovation, and long-term partnerships across the supply chain ecosystem.
AIA Group: Scaling Innovation With Purpose And Precision
Our runner-up, AIA Group, is the largest independent publicly listed pan-Asian life and health insurer and has undergone a sweeping digital transformation across its 18 markets through its Technology, Digital, and Analytics (TDA) program. With over $800 million invested since 2020, AIA has built a future-ready technology foundation that is now powering one of the most ambitious genAI strategies in the insurance industry.
Enterprisewide alignment with strategic growth drivers. AIA’s TDA program is embedded at the core of its corporate strategy, directly supporting its mission to help people live healthier, longer, better lives. With senior leadership accountability, shared KPIs, and a centralized governance model, AIA ensures that every technology initiative — from AI-powered underwriting to digital distribution — is tightly aligned with business outcomes.
Adaptivity through cloud, talent, and genAI at scale. AIA’s cloud-first strategy has enabled 90% cloud adoption across the Group, laying a strong foundation for agility and innovation. Infrastructure automation has accelerated technology deployment by 90%, significantly boosting operational efficiency. With over 14,000 hours of learning logged in 2024 and the launch of the AIA Tech Academy in 2025, AIA has built a future-ready workforce capable of scaling genAI across the insurance value chain — from customer service to software development.
Trust anchored in responsible AI and cyber resilience. AIA’s Responsible AI Standard, Group AI Council, and over 9,500 data quality rules ensure ethical, secure, and transparent AI deployment. With ISO 27001 certification and 99.9% system availability, AIA has earned the confidence of customers and regulators alike — enabling 85% of customer interactions to flow through straight-through processing and delivering over $180 million in annualized efficiencies.
Congratulations to all three companies and thanks to all of the companies that submitted entries this year. Hope to see you all at Technology & Innovation Summit APAC in Sydney on August 19 where we’ll celebrate our winners in a special keynote session.
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