Insurance: Strategic IT Investment Critical to Competitive Edge

Jeff Griggs

Financial Services Practice Leader

Avaya Inc.

Let’s go to Avaya’s Jeff Griggs. How im--portant is strategic IT investment for insurance carriers in this current climate?

IT investment for the insurance industry is one of the most important strategic decisions a carrier can make today. Today’s environment requires a focus on differentiation, which is the key to both retaining existing members and adding new ones. So while some players are cutting costs and services, successful carriers are looking to leverage cost-lowering, high-impact technologies such as Unified Communications. A common theme among successful carriers is rolling out IT according to customer segments, which requires considerations at both the end-customer and the customer-facing employee level.

Goals?

To determine goals, carriers should immediately identify the core customers they are trying to attract or retain based on the needs of each group, and then enhance the capabilities of the employees serving those customers. This means that IT cannot simultaneously enable all employees with the same technology tools. They need to enable the groups of users who work directly with these customers to be highly efficient and proactive. Once their needs have been identified, carriers should look at how they can prioritize and enable them for the near-, mid-, and long-term. Oftentimes, even a simple software enablement within the current infrastructure can resolve some short-term needs.

What should companies avoid doing?

Blanket IT. IT organizations are learning that while the number of applications that need to be supported is increasing, the “true” number of users who actually need the technology is relatively small. When IT organizations enable every employee with the same technology without asking, “Why does this person need this technology,” they may experience low adoption rates and unnecessarily high costs. Needs-based assessments done effectively keeps IT from paying for technology that is neither beneficial to employees’ work or to the company’s bottom line. Thus, they can focus time and energies on applications that enable their lines of business to create more growth for the company, even in difficult economic times.

New capabilities?

There are two very hot capabilities coming down the pipe: proactive outreach and mobility. Carriers who have been able to proactively reach out to customers following weather-related events or to communicate lower rate policy options and take advantage of cross-selling opportunities have been very successful. In addition, enabling field agents to quickly resolve claims, deliver checks and move on to the next file is a big differentiator. Companies that enable their adjusters with simple, one contact number technology and allow them to have a common experience using their preferred or most relevant communications device are seeing up to 15% increases in claim resolution over their competitors.