Celent’s annual US and European CIO/CTO surveys
saw insurance executives on both sides of the Atlantic continuing to focus
on improving the customer/broker experience by investing in new business
solutions, upgrading core systems, and streamlining operations. However,
US CIOs show greater concern about the impact of a softening market in the
coming year.
In a new report, Insurance CIO/CTO Pressures,
Priorities, Projects, and Plans 2008: The View Across the Atlantic,
Celent provides a comparative analysis of behaviors, initiatives,
challenges, and priorities for 2008 between insurers in the United States
and Europe. Based on in-depth surveys of 43 CIOs and CTOs from the US and
Europe at the end of 2007, its findings provide insights on general
priorities and business pressures, budgets and staffing, platforms and
technology choices, service-oriented architecture (SOA) and Web services,
outsourcing, and web 2.0 technologies.
The 2008 surveys saw rising concerns about growth
during a potential global recession, especially among US CIOs. Expense
control has also become a frequently cited business pressure for this
group. But until the full impact of the slowdown in the US economy becomes
clear, both US and European insurers are continuing to pursue the IT
investment trends Celent saw last year, with core systems replacement and
e-business initiatives remaining paramount. Large insurers’ IT budgets
are projected to remain stable in 2008, while midsize insurers’ budgets
may be more volatile. Insurers in both regions are also continuing their
gradual migration off the mainframe to more modern architectures.
“The greatest difference between regions continues
to be Europe’s heavier reliance on outsourcing and external contractors,”
says Ashley Evans, an analyst in
Celent’s insurance practice and one of the authors of the report. “This
is reflected in the staffing mixes of both areas. European insurers are
able to maintain lower IT headcounts relative to their company size.”
However, survey results suggest that IT staff headcounts in the US may
fall this year, given insurers’ renewed focus on expense control.
The 30-page report contains 22 figures and one
table. A table of contents is available
online.
