CIO Profile: Subhasis Mukherjee, VP and CIO, Pekin Insurance Group

Subhasis Mukherjee is CIO at Pekin Insurance, where he is leading a strategic technology transformation program across all lines of business. Prior to joining Pekin, he held various IT leadership roles at Zurich North America, including head of IT strategy for underwriting. He holds a Masters of Computer Applications from Jadavpur University.

Note: Interview was conducted before the COVID-19 crisis.

What are your key priorities for the next 6-12 months?

We are working on the optimization of IT operational expense as we are transitioning “from build to operate” mode following the peak of our program to modernize our business and IT platforms. We are focusing on cost optimization as a discipline within IT and the company in general.

Our first priority is to finish the modernization of our business and IT platforms, then to focus on monetizing the technology investments we’ve made. Most of these initiatives are in digital and data science. We’re also working on stabilization for some of our older enterprise systems and integrations, and working with our agents to help them modernize their systems as well as make sure we have a clear picture of their environments and potential integration methods. We’re also enhancing our productivity systems and business continuity planning and disaster recovery capabilities.

What are some of the monetization successes you’ve had?

We’ve had two recent successful initiatives in data science that I can share. One was a deep analysis of our homeowners loss history and its exposure to CAT losses, which helped us re-focus our sales and actuarial efforts to diversify the portfolios. We’ve taken these insights into distribution, agent recruitment, and monitoring overall portfolio risk.

Another data science initiative was an analysis of requirements orderings against hit ratio for new policies. We were able to identify mismatches between report ordering and the hit ratio of some agencies and generate significant savings by leveraging those insights. Now we’re starting an initiative around claims leakage, looking at where the sources of leakage are.

In digital, we started a small digital experience (DX) portfolio with a fusion team model, to test out a business-led IT model for that area.

What are some of the biggest changes you’ve seen recently?

The constant push into a digital operating model is starting to take hold. We’ve converted IT into a completely Agile shop, changing job descriptions to match. We’ve been practicing for 18 months, and now we’re shifting fully to product-oriented teams, moving to a business-IT fusion model. The DX team was the first step there.

IT is changing from a service department to a real core element of business-value delivery, focused at the product level rather than the operating division. We’re also adjusting the funding model and demand management to support this shift.

What do you see as some of the biggest challenges ahead?

Changing the culture and attracting talent is hard. There’s a balance between trying to shift the mindset of people who are close to retirement, and it’s difficult to attract talent to our location in Peoria. We’re considering expanding the technology organization to other locations, but we’re also trying to recruit people with local roots back to our area as they hit a life change and are looking for a better quality of life.

We also have a strong internship program with local colleges and universities, and we’ve made some good hires from that. We do have three other major employers in our location, and we can tap into those networks.

What do you see as the role of emerging technology in your sectors?

We’re exploring potential partnerships on AI-based underwriting and claims tools, and we’re also exploring the potential use of AI in call centers. We’re also planning some limited IoT pilots through partnerships this year.

How do you and your team leverage your Novarica relationship?

We really leveraged Novarica’s advisory services and research materials as we were planning our transformation. The New Normal 100 capabilities model was very useful for assessing where we are and where we want to be. We’ll be working with Novarica on our strategy and digital workshops this year as we develop our digital strategy further.

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