Fill 'er up
“Growth is enabled by what we do in IT,” said Mark Berthiaume, CIO at Chubb, at the Celent 2011 Insurance CIO Roundtable. He continued: “To date, almost all the opportunities we’ve seen have been around speed to market. And because we are going into new places with a different operating model, change management is more front and center. IT will have to fuel this.”
I like Berthiaume's idea of IT as fuel. IT has got to be the energy that drives business into new territories, and the force that creates growth. I often think of IT as the engine of business, but the fuel metaphor is strong too - and it connects technology with business outcome in a very striking manner.
Speed to market and market entry depend more and more on the organization's ability to replicate its operations rapidly, and with controlled variation. The insurance business is advancing by taking an industrialized approach to business. Rather than inventing new structures and processes each time a new market needs addressing, smart companies reuse discrete capabilities, tailoring them as necessary to new opportunities.
The ACORD Framework is a great help in this regard. The Framework's Capability Model and Component Model articulate the reusable entities that underpin the kind of business agility Berthiaume is talking about. The Framework is fuel too. Insurance Networking News
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