Insurance businesses need to follow the example of other 'smart' industries, and learn how to leverage the wealth of information available to make more intelligent decisions. This emerged at the ITWeb/IBM Performance Management for Insurance event, last week.
According to Tony Boobier, insurance leader for IBM business analytics, it has become increasingly important to leverage information for greater business value in the insurance industry, especially in the current environment. Challenges are due to the recent financial meltdown, market dynamics, and continued business complexity in the industry, he said.
Boobier noted that smarter systems provide clarity, which helps insurance businesses to understand, measure, and probe the business world in new ways. He also pointed out that predictive analytics allow for complex data to be managed, processed and made actionable.
According to Boobier, insurance companies should use technology to effectively manage the explosive volume and variety of historical and real-time information. “They will also be able to identify and proactively address opportunities and threats with predictive analytics in real-time.”
With technology, pervasive information collected from a multitude of sources across the value chain can be made useful to all who need it, he explained. “Technology also helps in delivering trusted, accurate and timely information to the right decision-makers,” he added.
IBM calls this capability information-on-demand (IOD) and says it can deliver true competitive advantage. According to the company, its IOD strategy is intended to provide a range of data management needs, including content management, data cleansing, data integration, search, and business intelligence tools.
Simon Jeggo, IBM's sales and marketing manager for information management products in south and central Africa, said there are key requirements for unlocking the business value of information for competitive advantage. “This is what IOD is focused on,” he noted.
In order to unlock the business value of information, insurance organisations need the ability to manage information - both data and content - over its life cycle, to reduce info management costs, provide controlled accessibility, and address retention and compliance requirements, he told the forum.
“They must also be able to use this information as part of the individual business processes and applications across the enterprise, optimising the performance of applications and improving decision-making,” he suggested. According to Jeggo, these requirements are addressed by data and content management capabilities.
He added that insurance organisations need to establish an accurate and trusted view of information across these different processes and applications. “This is to drive more consistent information across the enterprise and support analytic and other requirements to use information coming from different sources.
Boobier pointed out that the insurance industry needs a 'flexible' architecture that can leverage all of its existing investments. “Accurate, trusted information is established through information integration, data warehousing and master data management,” he concluded.
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