---
title: "The Engagement Era: Elevating the Work of Insurance"
url: "https://www.guidewire.com/resources/blog/industry-trends/engagement-era-elevating-work-insurance.md"
language: "en"
locale: "en"
---

# The Engagement Era: Elevating the Work of Insurance

2017-06-04T19:00:00Z

In my first post in this series, I provided Guidewire’s perspective that we are at the early stage of a new era of P&C systems (see The Engagement Era)...

## The Engagement Era: Elevating the Work of Insurance

### Chief Marketing Officer

Brian leads Guidewire’s global marketing efforts, including demand generation, branding, and communications. Brian joined Guidewire in 2006, and during his tenure the company has been recognized as an industry-leading brand serving customers in more than 30 countries. He previously was Vice President of Marketing for PeopleSoft’s supply chain division and held marketing leadership and product marketing roles at Ketera, Ariba, and Tradex. Brian serves on the board of directors of Betterview, an insurtech that provides a geospatial predictive analytics platform for P&C insurance.

![Untitled](https://edge.sitecorecloud.io/guidewiresodb06-guidewire0f2e-productioncd91-5186/media/project/guidewire/guidewire/people/brian-desmond.jpeg?h=380&iar=0&w=505)

![Untitled](https://edge.sitecorecloud.io/guidewiresodb06-guidewire0f2e-productioncd91-5186/media/project/guidewire/guidewire/people/leadership-image-brian-desmond.png?h=540&iar=0&w=540)

[LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-desmond-8b933a/)

Brian leads Guidewire’s global marketing efforts, including demand generation, branding, and communications. Brian joined Guidewire in 2006, and during his tenure the company has been recognized as an industry-leading brand serving customers in more than 30 countries. He previously was Vice President of Marketing for PeopleSoft’s supply chain division and held marketing leadership and product marketing roles at Ketera, Ariba, and Tradex. Brian serves on the board of directors of Betterview, an insurtech that provides a geospatial predictive analytics platform for P&C insurance.

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Brian Desmond

“After 14 years at Guidewire, I have a deep appreciation for the role P&C insurance plays in our society. This motivates me to do my part to ensure we keep improving every day to better serve our customers.”  —Brian Desmond

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### Industry Trends

In my first post in this series, I provided Guidewire’s perspective that we are at the early stage of a new era of P&C systems (see [The Engagement Era](https://www.guidewire.com/blog/industry-trends/engagement-era)). In a subsequent blog post, I described the operating results being seen by insurers that are leading the industry through leveraging technology to transform their business (see [Defining the Engagement Era System](https://www.guidewire.com/blog/industry-trends/defining-engagement-era-system)).

There is another important outcome when insurers embrace the engagement era by using technology to meet users on their own terms by providing the journeys and experiences that *they* want. It is the potential to *elevate the work of insurance*.

Consider this point: Insurance knowledge workers spend far too much of their time on repetitive, mundane work that offers little value to the policyholder or agent. Guidewire’s Value Consulting team has worked on more than 300 engagements over the last decade. Based on this experience, we estimate that 80% of workers’ time is spent on basic tasks and compliance (see “Hierarchy of Insurance Work” below).

However, by adopting *engagement era systems*, which are optimized to make insurance knowledge workers more efficient and effective, insurers will gain time that can be invested in more strategic work, so that knowledge workers can better apply their expertise and experience, and so that personal interactions can offer additional value. In addition to freeing up time, the morale of knowledge workers will increase—which itself will result in better quality of service to policyholders and agents.

![](https://edge.sitecorecloud.io/guidewiresodb06-guidewire0f2e-productioncd91-5186/media/project/guidewire/guidewire/blog/images/blog-20170602-engagement-era-graphic.png)

To learn more about the engagement era and why insurers should care, watch this short video featuring Guidewire’s CEO, Marcus Ryu.

![Untitled](https://edge.sitecorecloud.io/guidewiresodb06-guidewire0f2e-productioncd91-5186/media/project/guidewire/guidewire/blog/thumbnails/engagement-era-elevating-work-insurance.jpeg?h=337&iar=0&w=590)

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