Digital Transformation is a hot topic. Prior to the world changing due to the pandemic, it was integrating AI and machine learning assist with automating the risk calculations during policy underwriting or fraud detection when claims are filed. During the pandemic, the focus changed to the user experience for the agents, underwriters, adjusters, and even the customers facilitating remote work and an online-only experience. Towards the end, a reassessment is being made of how the current technology stack performed, and what it would take to facilitate the new normal.
Looking at a survey conducted by KPMG, and reported by the WSJ, 79% of those surveyed in 2020 said “outdated IT systems were preventing them from delivering adequate services. Roughly the same share said issues arising from Covid-19 had increased their awareness of the need to upgrade tech capabilities.” It is easy to see that modernization projects cannot be left out of the digital transformation efforts, and in fact, maybe an easier sell to the CEO than in years past. The question becomes how to go about it? The key lies with your team.
PWC’s 2021 survey of top issues for the insurance industry calls out one of four areas that I have observed first-hand working with prior clients, and that is talent. This is more pronounced on the IT side with not just the aging workforce, but difficulties in attracting talent. While it is optimal to directly hire, it could take a very long time. Alternatively, outsourcing the modernization effort can take a while as their team comes up to speed with your business. Once the work is done and transitioned to you, your team is left to support something they don’t understand and an entry is added to the run-book to reboot it whenever something doesn’t look right. Then you are right back where you started five years later.
One technique that can utilize your current resources is to embed an expert with a small team you’ve selected to act as a tiger team to look at modernizing one part of the system. This would go beyond a single day or week hackathon as it not only puts a foundation in place, it allows the small team to gain the expertise while working with the migration of one app to deliver value back to the company. They will become your internal experts for the rest of the organization as their work serves as the basis for a template that can be used to help accelerate your transformation.
Do you want to know more about the tiger team approach, and how it can help your migration situation? Let’s talk to discuss it.