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A New Era of Technology: Part 2 – Analytics

In my last post, I focused on the transformative power of the current generation of Mobile Technology. I will turn to the core of current technologies, and an example from the insurance industry.

Big Data, along with his trusty companion, Analytics are what drives organizations to make decisions because…the numbers don’t lie. Gone are the days of having an employee standing in a store checking off every time a customer purchases a product or leaves a store without a product because it is all done now through technology. Not only is this technology able state actual data, it can also provide predictive analytics. The technology developed can look at trends, and buying patterns to give an organization direction on their next best action. Companies can now create personalized promotion campaigns for every single customer. Let’s look at an example of just that.

The insurance company Progressive offers a device called Progressive Snapshot. This device is a mileage-based tracking device but also looks at how you are driving these miles. This is a voluntary program which uses the device that drivers plug into their cars to monitor the time of day that they are driving, the distance they travel, how fast they are traveling, and how hard they’re braking.

Progressive collects all this data and gives incremental discounts to customers who have proven over a specific time period that they are a safe driver than others in that state. Although this idea may be viewed as intrusive, it allows Progressive the ability to determine eligibility for discounts and not increase insurance rates to customers who fall in perceived unsafe/reckless driving class.

Once again we show the value of this technology to the customer. A customer get rates directly based on their driving record through that data points they personally are feeding the insurance company.

I believe that there is so much more yet to be tapped into with this technology. What about combining this technology with the iBeacon technology (referenced in my last post)? What if this device can tell a driver that an area it is about to enter is known for accidents when cars travel over a specific speed. These are just some of the smart discussion our teams at IBM are having.

I want to answer my question I asked at the beginning of the last blog post. Are we oblivious to how great technology is?  No I don’t think we are oblivious, but I think we are naive to the fact that this technology is shaping the way we live without even realizing it.

 Editor’s Note: Peter Pleckaitis leads the Customer Experience & Strategy team in IBM’s Interactive Experience organization.

One Comment

Stephen Applebaum

Thanks for this thought provoking piece Peter. What strikes me as particularly paradoxical about the industry’s slowness in adopting proven technologies to improve their business and their customers’ experience is that most of these very same decision makers and influencers have already eagerly embraced the same technologies on a personal basis to make their own lives easier and simpler. Why Insurance is the laggard in innovation compared to all other financial services segments still remains a mystery to me after so many years working in the industry. We need more voices in this choir.

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