Since May 2020, Novarica has been hosting a monthly Vendor Virtual Town Hall (VVTH) to discuss COVID-19 issues, review recent research, and have a conversation with a panel of carrier CIOs. On the call at the beginning of December, Novarica EVP Jeff Goldberg and I took a look forward at what to expect in 2021. (Note that all sessions were recorded and are available at this link.)
We began the session with a review of Novarica’s research agenda for 2021. The agenda includes Novarica’s annual Market Navigator reports on policy administration systems and IT services as well as updated Market Navigators on CRM, illustrations, GL/financials, life claims systems, and others. 2021 plans also include Novarica’s Business and Technology Trends sector reports and key reports from annual Research Council surveys. We encouraged vendors to keep us updated on product updates and launches as well as on new clients and implementations, since we publish other reports throughout the year on various technologies and capabilities.
We also reviewed the Novarica Impact Awards. This annual process brings together case studies to recognize insurer CIOs and their teams for delivering business impact in core, digital, data, and IT services areas. Impact Awards submissions must be turned in by carriers, but vendors often participate by helping carriers complete the awards submission form. The submissions are all published in a compendium report, and winners are provided with an awards presentation. Details on deadlines and the submission form are available at https://novarica.com/impact.
We then discussed Vendor Virtual Town Halls for 2021. We plan to continue our regular monthly calls at least through the middle of the year, and we’ll continue to discuss relevant research and topics of interest. January’s VVTH will include discussion of our recently launched survey on vendor marketing plans for 2021. The shift of in-person events to virtual formats in 2020 disrupted marketing plans and budgets, and the survey results will give insight into how this will continue to impact marketing strategy in 2021.
Finally, we looked at a few trends that we expect to continue in the new year. In our research during 2020, low-code/no-code tools have taken center stage both as platforms for developing solutions and as configuration tools for core systems. We’ve also seen insurer cloud ecosystems grow in importance—a trend accelerated by the need to support remote work during the pandemic. We also predicted “the big emerging technology trend of 2021.” You’ll have to watch the December VVTH recorded video if you weren’t at the live event! Hint: Sometimes a look at consumer electronics trends can provide insight into potential insurance technology trends.
In general, after a slowdown in sales and implementations in the first half of 2020 due to the pandemic, vendors reported that core projects continued, digital and some other projects were accelerated, and sales returned to normal levels (in some cases, increased) during the second half of 2020. As we finish this year over the next few weeks, we wish everyone happy holidays and a prosperous and happy new year.
Novarica’s VVTH events will continue to be presented on the first Wednesday of each month—we look forward to seeing you on January 6th at 1:00 pm EST.
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