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2nd June 2013

Creating an environment for improving and widening decision making
Opinion

Insurers and brokers are experiencing many challenges and opportunities as technology not only enables an evolving 24X7 global marketplace and wider analytics solutions to assist in running a more effective and efficient organisation. An increased emphasis on regulation, particularly the Solvency II development in Europe, has been looked upon by many as a costly burden, but some see it as an opportunity to positively utilise the IT spend to enable better decisions for future strategic direction.
In the last few years, the industry has seen the move from management information, through business intelligence, to analytics. Insurers traditionally depending largely on hindsight, are being offered solutions by suppliers which improve insight, and foresight through predictive analytics, modelling, fraud and customer analysis. The advent of Big Data, encompassing unstructured Social Media, offers further promise but it needs to be presented in a clearer vertical market business focus.
The bottom line for market players is to achieve better, quicker, and wider decision making. As global opportunities, particularly in developing countries loom, internal business analytics, however sophisticated, will not be sufficient to meet this challenge. Information technology is enabling easier integration with third party solutions such as catastrophe and financial modelling, and geographical information systems. Integration of global and local market and IT trends can also enhance internal business analytics and put them in context-not just competitors results, but their global strategy and use of IT, regulatory development, and published research and surveys.
The challenge for the industry and for the IT suppliers is to move through the step changes from data to information to intelligence.