No one planned for 2020; the confluence of events created a perfect storm that life insurers had to navigate. As we approach the first anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is clear we will not be going back to the “before times.” It is less clear, however, what exactly the future will hold. These subjects made for a lively and engaging discussion at Novarica’s Life Insurance Special Interest Group meeting on January 28.
These sessions, conducted via Zoom, reflect how far we have come in a collective digital and virtualization journey. Insurers have focused considerable attention on changing business models and paradigms since 2020-Q1. Insurers positioned well a year ago, through a mix of careful planning and luck, reported strong sales results. For others, the lack of market traction was notable, creating added urgency to accelerate digital deployment.
Customer and user experience efforts have grown sharply, and several participants noted that the need to operate in crisis mode had led them to realize that “perfect is the enemy of good.” Agile has come to mean more than just a software development methodology.
Core system modernization also was a key topic of discussion. A major element underpinning this was a discussion related to cloud migrations. Several participants noted that shifting to the cloud is a desirable goal, but simply lifting and shifting workloads drives up costs without an offsetting benefit. Separating new from legacy workloads is a more effective approach, which allows organizations to consider the right tool for the task. Rather than force everything into cloud deployments, a more effective description of the objective may be to “get out of the data center business.”
We also explored organizational plans for returning to the office. There is no one correct approach, but it appears that hybrid environments, which support in-office and remote work concurrently, seem to be gaining broad favor. The “3-2-2” model explored by the Harvard Business School in place of the traditional 40-hour workweek also seems to be gaining traction.
With virtualization now firmly part of Novarica’s organizational tool kit, we have an array of Special Interest Group sessions planned for 2021. Details and registration can be found here.
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