March 2004 — Data mastery is a critical area that is yielding high returns for insurers. But the vendor space is crowded and confusing. Celent’s new report helps insurers quickly understand and navigate this space.
Data mastery encompasses data warehousing, data integration, business intelligence, reporting, and parts of CRM. Celent outlined data mastery, a phrase coined by Celent, in a June 2003 report where data mastery was shown to be a key area of investment and provider of ROI, according to the results of Celent’s recent insurance CIO/CTO survey.
The vendor space for data mastery solutions is crowded and heterogeneous. It often takes insurers months just to figure out which vendors they should be speaking to for their individual projects. Celent’s report is designed to help insurers understand the data mastery vendor space, and to provide an overview of the capabilities, areas of focus, and characteristics of each of over 30 leading solutions. Details on each vendor’s solution are presented in short profiles, and are compared and mapped relative to each other in a simple figure and table designed to help insurers quickly assimilate information about this complex space, and which vendors are likely to be relevant to their specific initiatives.
“Few industries are so rich in customer, product, and operational data, and yet so poor at extracting useful information from that data as the insurance industry,” said Matthew Josefowicz, manager of Celent’s insurance group and author of the report. “But that is starting to change. There is a renewed emphasis on streamlining operations, on focusing on profitable businesses and customers, and on improving underwriting results. In addition, new laws require senior executives to have a crystal-clear understanding of their operations and their customers. Data mastery initiatives are the keys to both areas, and vendor-provided solutions are increasingly critical components of these initiatives.”
The 47-page report contains 4 figures and 31 vendor profiles.
Celent’s service offering falls into two categories, consulting and research, each of which is dedicated to technology in the financial services industry. We help banks, brokerage firms and insurance companies use IT to enter new markets in the shortest possible timeframes. All of our services are geared towards facilitating better informed, faster decision making. For more information visit www.celent.com.
Tags: Celent, data management
