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The Role of the Modern Insurance CIO
Information Management Online, November 20, 2009
I recently spent several days with 60 or so insurance CIOs at a conference. Some observations from that experience that I think are worth sharing:
Most CIOs are excellent, professional data gatherers. They used both formal meetings and informal conversations to gather intelligence, and to share their stories, with the implied understanding that a healthy exchange of ideas could help them do their jobs better.
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Some problems that CIOs face are nearly universal, despite differences by company size, culture and line of business distinctions. On the agenda for 2010 and beyond: attracting and retaining skilled workers; improving the relationships between business and IT; solving today’s problems with an eye on tomorrow’s technology; and managing complex portfolios of IT projects so that resources used and the business benefits gained are both optimized.
The business of IT doesn’t take place in a vacuum. Business concerns, legal and legislative issues, and universal human foibles always intrude. That’s why CIOs have to wear so many hats in their day-to-day roles. Depending on the hour, CIOs must think and act like strategy consultants, educators, law enforcement, psychologists, arbitrators, firefighters and techno-geeks. If that all sounds a bit much, I would point out that’s what many CIOs appear to like about their jobs: There’s never a dull moment.
In an industry where consensus is often hard to find, most CIOs seem to think that technology is in a relatively good place right now. Industry trends toward service-oriented architectures (SOA), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), alternative sourcing strategies, plummeting costs of storage and the improved quality of many packaged solutions may finally give CIOs the game-changing tools they need to help their companies thrive.
Celent’s upcoming 2010 insurance CIO/CTO survey report will explore these and other topics, and I can’t wait to see how the data compare to the anecdotal evidence I gathered at the conference.
This blog has been reprinted with permission from Celent.
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Craig Weber is SVP of Celent's insurance group, and can be reached at cweber@celent.com.
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