We’re Here! Now What?

As the 2015 tennis season’s first Grand Slam event, the Australian Open, began, my thoughts turned to a quote from the legendary Arthur Ashe: “Success is a journey, not a destination.” A winner of the event in 1970, Mr. Ashe recognized that success requires constant pursuit. As many insurers embrace their own transformation journeys, this makes me mindful of the need to see their core system replacement successes, not as ultimate ‘destinations’ but as important milestones on their journey; milestones that lay a foundation for continued success.

As important, and necessary, as it is to take the first step in the journey to success, it is also important to continue to take the next steps and choose the right course. For insurers, those next steps toward success can be directed using the rich new data sources found within their modern enterprise systems. The challenge can be turning that data into knowledge and using it to guide their journey. Being able to leverage the ever-expanding pool of data available requires several things:

1. The data must be accessible and usable. Data without structure or context is noise.

2. There must be a way to change the data into knowledge in order to apply it. Analytic tools in the hands of expert resources provide the means for this conversion.

3. The insurer must have the ability to act on the knowledge and make the changes required. This sets the course for the next steps in the pursuit of success.

Insurers must ensure that they are not only enabled in each of these necessary elements, but also that they have the ability and commitment to execute on them. This may require a restructuring of their strategy group to increase capacity and match the skill sets required for these new tools. With these new tools and expanded agility, insurers will find themselves in an environment where innovation and invention are both possible and integral.

I have already heard statements similar to “we’ve now caught up to, and delivered, the backlog of business requests. Now we’re waiting for the business to figure out what they want to do next.” Once the platform for success is in place, it’s time to continue the journey forward.