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From Resource, January 2008
Challenges
for the Industry
What challenges does the industry face in 2008?
Here are the views of several industry suppliers and partners.
The insurance and financial
services industry faces numerous challenges in 2008 and coming years.
Technology, human resources, customer service are all top concerns for the
industry. Here are the views of several industry suppliers and partners on some
key issues in the coming year:
Coss:
Maximizing Distribution, Minimizing Costs
By Julian D. (Jay) Stevens,
FLMI, MBA
Chief Marketing Officer, COSS
In 2007, I wrote about the
changing dynamics of distribution, focusing on how to leverage your sales
technology across multiple distribution channels. In 2008, this continues to be
a major issue for carriers of all sizes. If anything, it becomes more difficult
each passing year as the market fragments even further. LIMRA studies have shown
a continued downturn in the number of new full-time career agents, and an
increase in the premiums attributable to brokerage or independent channels. No
one is predicting this to change anytime soon. In addition, fewer product
innovations, a reduced time-to-market for new products, and a copycat factor
have created a commodity type market for life and annuity products. A
carrier’s ability to differentiate now often comes down to price and service.
Therefore, how do you position yourself to win with price and service, while
keeping margins at acceptable levels?
Leveraging Industry Leading
Solutions Across Multiple Channels
Competing today requires that
carriers leverage their products across multiple distribution channels, and into
multiple end-to-end solutions. However, building different solutions for each
distribution channel is costly and can cause confusion in the marketplace. To
increase efficiencies, carriers should strive to work with partners that provide
the ability to showcase products and sales presentations across multiple
platforms, thus reaching the largest number of producers. COSS innovations have
helped carriers market effectively for 20 years. To accomplish this, we partner
with top companies to deliver comprehensive, point-of-sale solutions that drive
business through multiple distribution channels. For example, our partnership
with iPipeline sets the standard in combining content, illustrations, electronic
forms, and new business submission, allowing carriers to provide product and
service to the brokerage, IMO, PPGA and captive producer markets. Our
partnership with RGA Technology Partners leverages the AURA—Suite of Products
to enhance the COSS offering by utilizing RGA’s extensive underwriting
expertise, creating one of today’s most comprehensive end-to-end solutions for
new business submission and underwriting. These partnerships provide consistency
to both carriers and producers alike, which in the end create business
conditions that drive more premiums through the door. In 2008, financial service
organizations will continue to look for ways to leverage technology to meet the
demands of an ever changing distribution landscape. To succeed, carriers should
seek out partners that help deliver the quality of service that producers
demand, while gaining the efficiencies needed to grow margins.
Visit Coss at www.cossdev.com Phone:
800-776-7087
ImageRight:
It’s 2008: Do
You Know Where Your Business Is?
By Phil Hargrove
Insurance Technology Advisor
ImageRight
In the old days (yesterday),
insurers looked to business intelligence (BI) for indicators of business
progress. In the future (tomorrow), they’ll rely on Business Process
Intelligence (BPI) for indicators of effective performance. They’ll expect it
to include every item of operational and productivity data they can get. Beyond
knowing where their businesses stand at the moment, they’ll use BPI to drive
change—to improve what they’re doing right, to change what they’re doing
wrong, and to chart their courses for the foreseeable future.
Successful BPI requires a set
of key performance metrics, as well as a means of monitoring performance
constantly against them. More specifically, BPI requires:
1. Business Process Reporting (BPR)
capabilities that include:
A data warehouse or repository
Feeds to that repository from core
processing systems
Open architecture that enable
integration with other data sources
2. Business Activity Monitoring
(BAM) capabilities that include:
Tools for monitoring, measuring, and sharing key performance
indicators
Personalized dashboards that deliver
on-demand BI enterprise wide
Multiple levels of detail
Technologies like
AJAX
(Asynchronous JavaScript And
XML)
3. Business Process Analytics (BPA)
capabilities that include:
Basic and complex queries with any sort of calculation
Multiple views, columns, data rows,
and graphic templates
Editable runtime parameters, input
values,
and filters
Comprehensive sorting capabilities
Tables or charts from multiple data
sources
4. Business Process Discovery
(BPD) capabilities that include:
On-line Analysis Processing
Custom calculations and calculated
cells
Dynamic sorting and filtering
On the fly charting
Yesterday, insurers understood
they couldn’t manage what they couldn’t measure. Today, they understand they
can’t improve what they can’t monitor. Tomorrow, they’ll understand that
BPI is the key to managing and improving all aspects of their business.
It’s 2008. Do you know where your business is?
For more information, call: 770-860-0065 or visit: www.imageright.com—770-860-0065
Jacobson:
The Case for the Mature Worker—Writing the Next Chapter
By Margaret Resce Milkint,
Managing Partner,
Jacobson Executive Search
It’s time for the “Next
Chapter.” Redefining the aging workforce is a challenge and an opportunity. It
is undeniable that the greatest demographic shift in the history of the
U.S.
is here.
As we
sing “Happy Birthday” to the first Boomers turning 60, we are reminded of
the impending gap in knowledge and talent as they begin to exit the workforce.
By 2011 someone will retire every eight seconds for the next ten years. The
tightening of the labor market during the past few years is dramatically
illustrated in the accelerated demand and competition for underwriting,
actuarial, claims and financial talent. This will only continue and the talent
crisis will intensify. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a shortage of ten
million workers by 2010.
As
senior leaders and technical experts consider the implications of their own
retirements, many are considering working longer or are contemplating new
careers. In fact, studies indicate that most baby boomers expect to work in
retirement. Creating an environment where the Mature Worker (55 and above) is
welcomed, recruited and embraced in the talent landscape is mandatory.
The
traditional hiring relationship is certainly one answer; however, creative,
personally-tailored roles as Subject Matter Experts, Consultants, Trainers or
Mentors are clear, non-traditional options. Offering flexibility, benefits and
recognition to “Next Chapter” professionals will ensure the growth and
stability of the insurance industry.
The
workplace has evolved dramatically during the past 20 years; and today it
embraces family leave, tele-workers, flexible benefits and schedules, and
personal sabbaticals, to name a few. It is time for the next leap…
“The
answer is to give incentives for mature workers to continue bringing their
skills and experience to the marketplace,” says Jeff Rosensweig, Global
Perspectives Program Director at the Goizueta Business School of Emory
University and author of “Age Smart.” “Further, incentives must exist for
firms to work out flexible arrangements to induce mature workers to keep
contributing their productivity.”
Redefining the “retirement
age” calls for another cultural evolution: reshaping perceptions on aging and
workplace value and integrating those into strategic planning and talent
management initiatives at all levels. The shift must be championed and
cultivated on an enterprise-wide level from the Board of Directors to the
C-Suite to line managers and supervisors. Create a boundary-less workplace to
ensure the critical transfer of intellectual capital and, more importantly, to
ensure the development of the next generation of leadership.
The wisdom, the “war
stories,” the perspectives and the vision of the Mature Worker are invaluable,
must be captured and are what makes this recruitment initiative vital. The
future of the insurance industry depends on this, period.
Contact: Margaret Resce Milkint
is Managing Partner of Jacobson Executive Search, the executive search and
selection practice of The Jacobson Group. Milkint can be reached at (800)
466-1578 or mmilkint@jacobsononline.com.
EDS
SOLCORP:
2008 Heralds Trend to Large
Enterprise
Modernization
Over the past few years the
global insurance industry has been focused on the modernization of policy
administration systems; consolidating numerous legacy systems to a small subset
of platforms resulting in the modernization of systems in isolation from larger
enterprise IT architectures. Many
more advanced insurance carriers are now beginning to realize that this is only
one part of a larger modernization roadmap that encompasses many other systems
including but not limited to: distribution
and new business systems, sales channels, customer service, payment processing,
financial reporting/system reconciliation, and workflow/STP processing.
This year we expect to see insurance carriers taking a more holistic view
of their IT enterprises. Workflow/Business
Process Management (BPM) will be used extensively to manage and improve
end-to-end business processes across geographic boundaries, organizational
structures, and system silos. Service
Oriented Architecture (SOA), working in tandem with BPM, will provide both the
architecture for business processes and the integration framework for the
automated business processes to improve the speed, efficiency, and reliability
of business functions and enable their distributed deployment.
These two technologies, coupled with Content Management, Enterprise
Information Management (EIM), Enterprise Architecture (EA) management, and IT
Governance, will be key ingredients to the future of IT for insurance carriers.
At
EDS, we believe these trends will provide the biggest value and differentiation
for insurance carriers worldwide.
For
more information go to www.edssolcorp.com
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