Strategy Meets Actions’ research reports that insurers have tens, hundreds, even thousands of initiatives. To achieve these goals, aligning the business and IT is critical, as is setting the right priorities, and ensuring technology investments support these priorities.
Decision Management focuses on the key business decisions, and moves away from a focus on functional processes and organizations. A focus on key business decisions clarifies priorities and drives alignment, cutting through typical organizational silos. It is also clear where new technology investments will have the greatest impact.
Insurers following a Decision Management approach have
- improved their loss ratio
- expanded their ability underwrite complex policies
- dramatically reduced the time it takes to implement change
- improved the quality of the service they provide
- are handling claims with few staff and fewer errors
- dramatically increased straight-through processing of requests
Decision Management organizations can make rapid changes to the way they conduct business. Decisions are the changeable elements of most operations and rapidly changing policy or regulation and competitive pressures affect these decisions, not the processes or functions within which they are made.
Decision Management organizations deliver the business control executives want. The business has the flexibility and agility it needs because it has control over the decisions that drive day to day operations and implement business strategy. These decisions are compliant, and demonstrably so, because those who understand the regulations are driving the decision with no IT/business disconnect.
Systems that focus on decisions also benefit customers and internal staff directly. To personalize a product or service for a customer means to make a unique decision about how to interact with them. Decision Management organizations also support their people by ensuring they work effectively on the highest value tasks they have. Decision Management organizations gain operational advantages and a competitive edge through a systematic focus on decision making throughout the organization.
That’s it – series over. Decision Management should be a key element of any insurance company’s IT and analytics strategy. At Decision Management Solutions we are working with a number of insurers and seeing them make real progress using Decision Management to meet the key imperatives for profitable growth in 2011 and beyond.
