Accenture Technology Vision 2012: What it means for Insurance

Accenture’s annual Technology Vision report provides a perspective on the future of technology beyond the current conversations about the cloud, mobility, and Big Data. This year’s report, Technology Vision 2012, outlines the trends that forward-thinking CIOs will use to position their organizations to help drive growth, rather than focusing on cost-cutting and efficiency improvements.

Accenture has identified six technology trends that will influence insurance over the next three to five years:

1. Context-based services – Where you are and what you are doing will drive the next wave of digital services.
2. Converging data architectures – Rebalancing the data architecture portfolio and blending the structured with the unstructured are key to turning data into new streams of value.
3. Industrialized data services – The ability to share data will make it more valuable – but only if it is managed differently than in the past.
4. Social-driven IT – Realize that social is not just a bolt-on marketing channel. It will have true business-wide impact.
5. PaaS-enabled agility – The maturing platform-as-a-service (PaaS) market will shift the emphasis from cost-cutting to business innovation, supporting rapid evolution for business processes that need continual change.
6. Orchestrated analytical security – Organizations will have to accept that their gates will be breached and begin preparing their second line of defense – data platforms – to mitigate the damage caused by attacks that get through.

As customer demands increase and insurance companies focus growth efforts on emerging markets, insurers will need to develop simple, focused products and improve the customer experience. As expectations regarding cost-to-income ratios mount and regulatory pressures intensify, insurers will also have to leverage low-cost channels and deploy proven, competitive underwriting strategies – all while using regulatory requirements as sources of competitive advantage rather than matters of compliance.

Read the paper, which gives Accenture’s view of what will influence the choices of forward-thinking CIOs in the insurance sector.

About Accenture

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 246,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$25.5 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2011. Its home page is www.accenture.com.