Insurance CIO/CTO Pressures, Priorities, Projects, and Plans: The View Across the Atlantic Report Published by Celent - Insurance-Canada.ca

US and European insurance CIOs are focusing on the same business issues, but are taking a different approach to staffing and partnering with vendors.

In a new report from Celent, Insurance CIO/CTO Pressures, Priorities, Projects, and Plans: The View Across the Atlantic, Celent provides a comparative analysis about behaviors, initiatives, challenges, and priorities for 2007 between insurers in the United States and Europe, based on its in-depth surveys of 46 CIO/CTOs from the US and Europe at the end of 2006.

�There is a general convergence on business issues,� says Catherine Stagg-Macey, senior analyst and one of the authors of the report. �Insurers on both sides of the Atlantic are focused on meeting market demands, especially for speed of service delivery and processing. This business driver is reflected in the IT initiatives around broker portals and other e-business projects.�

�The biggest Trans-Atlantic difference is in vendor-partner utilization,� notes Matthew Josefowicz, managing director of Celent�s insurance practice and co-author of the report. �European insurers are much more heavily invested in outsourcing, while US insurers tend to prefer to keep development efforts in house. In addition, US insurers are much more focused on vended software applications, while Europeans are much more interested in custom-builds with consulting partners.�

European Insurer	US Insurer
Key focus on distribution and related IT initiatives Aggressive in outsourcing, especially in areas of telecom and application maintenance/development Reliance on outsourcing results in smaller percentage of budget spent on staff Spend 55% of budget on maintenance Top three new projects are distribution, general administration and infrastructure Very focused on data mastery, specifically around CDI and enterprise portals	Key focus on policy administration replacement Less likely to outsource Staff is largest budget category. Have higher percentage of technical staff Spend 62% of budget on maintenance Top three new project areas are IT infrastructure, policy administration and claims. Very focused on data mastery specifically around BI and data warehouse
*Source: Celent analysis*

�Data Mastery is a common theme in both regions,� says co-author Ashley Evans, an analyst in Celent�s insurance practice. �Insurers across the world are trying to cope with a flood of external data while getting a better handle on their own internal customer, product, process, and risk data.�

The 31-page report covers a broad range of areas, including detailed budget breakdowns, staffing plans and ratios, technology preferences and uses, use of Web Services and service-oriented architecture (SOA), approach to Data Mastery, and other areas. The report contains 21 figures analyzing survey responses from 46 insurer CIOs.

A table of contents is available online.

About Celent

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.