The value of “product freshness” is well understood across most segments of the insurance industry. Insurers are under pressure to seize new market opportunities or at least become fast followers of competitor offerings, lest they lose market share.
IT is often seen as the “long pole in the tent” when it comes to speed to market due to long implementation and testing cycles. Yet for many carriers, internal processes can have a greater influence. Pointing to IT as the culprit for long product cycles may mean missing opportunities to better align business functions to speed the research, design, and drafting phases.
What’s more, including IT early in the product development process may be a sign of process maturity and can have a direct correlation to increased speed to market. Carriers generally want to execute on new products when they’re high-value and easy to implement. Early IT involvement allows carries to understand, and potentially even affect, the ease of implementation.
More information on speed to market and the role of business/IT alignment is available in Novarica’s latest Research Council Studies. The reports, Speed to Market for Property/Casualty Insurers and Speed to Market for Life/Annuity Insurers, present benchmark information on product introduction and modification speed, and analysis of factors that correlate to faster or slower total cycle times.
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