Omnichannel: a must have for your Digitalization strategy - Gartner Inc. [PDF]

Omnichannel: a must have for your Digitalization strategy

January 2017 2

i2S International Conference

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The Importance Of New Platforms To Implement Omnichannel Strategies For Insurers

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Research from Gartner: Insurance CIOs Need to Bridge the IT Spending Gap to Support Digital Transformation

15 About i2S

2 i2S International Conference

i2S INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, THE NEXT LEVEL The 1st edition of the i2S International Conference, The Next Level, took place on the 13 and 14 October in Casa da Música in Porto. These were two days of true immersion in the current and future insurance panorama, with Insurtech as the dominant topic. The official opening presentation in the first day – open to the general public and having an imminently international dimension – was made by Jorge Brás, i2S’ CEO, who welcomed around 80 participants from 7 different nationalities. Then, Bruno Dinis (Partner, McKinsey & Company) initiated the sessions, focusing on the challenges posed by Digitalisation to the insurance business. Waleed Sarwar (Founder & CEO, Covi Analytics)

came next, with a presentation addressing the evolution of Solvency II and how analytics can contribute to this evolution. After lunch, following an exclusive tour to Casa da Música, all participants had the opportunity to attend a presentation by Gastão Taveira, i2S’ co-CEO, in which the omnichannel approach was the main topic, with several interesting examples of what is being made around this issue within the insurance industry. Nicolas Michellod (Insurance Senior Analyst, Celent) closed the sessions addressing again the Digitalisation theme and the opportunities it may bring. The day ended with a tour and dinner in Caves Ferreirinha, which gave participants the chance to know the Portuguese culture while being also a great networking opportunity. On the second day, i2S invited all its clients to participate in the User Group and in the discussion on the priorities and future plans of i2S products. Following the welcome speech by Luís Paupério, member of the i2S’ Executive

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Board, to about 45 participants, Gastão Taveira had the lead, talking about what i2S has in mind for its clients, considering possible opportunities and ways to address challenges faced every day. Enrique Ruiz (Managing Director, RGA) closed the morning with a presentation on the European insurance challenges. The afternoon was exclusively dedicated to i2S presentations, given by Paulo Padilha, Manuel Ribeiro and Marco Perestrelo. It was a very interactive and relational day, with the closer relationship with clients allowing a spirit and dynamic similar to the ones felt in a focus group, with the creation of new ideas and solutions and the overcoming of barriers. The conference ended with the closing remarks by Luís Paupério. The overall balance was very positive. The participants’ feedback is a clear evidence of this event’s success, which gives us confidence to repeat this initiative next year. However, it is now time to reflect on how can we improve

and correct what is necessary so that the 2nd edition of the i2S International Conference is even bigger, better and has more impact on the national and international insurance industry.

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i2S International Conference

Source: i2S

4 The Importance Of New Platforms To Implement Omnichannel Strategies For Insurers

The modern consumer is rather demanding and expects to interact in a different way with their companies and brands. Millennials are an increasing share of consumers. They are connected and agile. They trust people not ads. They trust recommendations of people they know – 84% do it in practice, according to a study by KTC. 48% see the internet as the most important research tool when buying insurance. Brand and interaction are key. Yet insurers are distant from their clients. Life insurers contact their clients on average 2 times per year and Non Life around 3 times. Motor, and especially Health do it more often (15 times for Health insurers) according to a study by McKinsey in Europe. This compares unfavorably with other industries – 110 times for Banks, 70 for Telcos, for instance. Social media dwarfs all other industries with 400 times, as expected. Insurers are vulnerable both to new insurers with new business models based on digitalized processes, or new distribution channels that take control of the client relationship away from the traditional insurer – most of them are heavily dependent on digital business models. We are seeing a number of new comers with strategies and business models of this type. Companies such as Lemonade, Trov, BackMeUp, Cuuva, Safeshare, Spixii, etc. These new players are called Insurtech. Dailyfintech which is the

major media focused on Fintech declared that “2015 was the year that InsurTech emerged from the shadow of Fintech.” Some of these players probably won’t be here in 3 or 5 years. But some will find their niche and grow taking an increasing share of the market. And they are teaching a few lessons that are very important to the insurers that want to adapt to this new economy: • They all use simple mostly App based interfaces to their customers. They are designed for smartphones and tablets and show a strong appeal to Millennials (may this be a generational standardized interface?) • They avoid complexity of Insurance Products, Contracts, Policies and all the processes to sell, underwrite and service insurance. • These companies are fundamentally customer centric, as opposed to Product Centric • They seek policyholder’s engagement, Lifecycle instead of Sale / After Sale split • They emphasize Service, Sharing (between customers, providers) and Social (social networks becoming a major source of leads and interaction). One important way insurers can defend themselves and even profit for this new consumer trend is to adopt an effective Omnichannel strategy.

5 Key to develop an Omnichannel strategy is to understand the Customer Journey. The customer journey goes thru several digital and physical channels (whatever is the most appropriate means available to the customer) at different points of an insurance product life cycle. It is extremely important that the context of the customer interaction is not lost across the multiple channels. The most important features of an Omnichannel model are: • Context and Single Point of Truth. It must provide a powerful customer experience and allow context to glide between channel interactions. The core holds the truth, but you need to connect them to the customer journey across your network of channels, putting your customer first. • Push Self Service. Provide the means for customers and employees to have 24x7 access to your services, getting the answer they want when they need it. • Effective Communication. Push targeted content to profiles providing structured way to present products, company information, selling opportunities and others across channels. • Define Once and Publish Anywhere. Define a product then decide which covers, pricing, limits, rules and data collection sequence applies. Decide what to publish to which channel and for how long. • Support Multidevice Access. The responsive application can be used on any reasonable device and based on channel content and widgets channel features can be tailored to your goals. If more customization is needed, native apps can be developed to point to the same services.

• Canonical Service Bus. Service generation capabilities to clearly specify the connections needed to achieve the desired channel experience. Manage endpoints and routing to coordinate back end complexity with simplified user experience. • Channel Security. Centralize channel security and concentrate efforts on maintaining a single point of truth. • Dynamic Products. Launch new products in weeks not months. If using the full application stack, the application adapts to the new product. How different is that from todays experience? • Protect your Legacy investment. Legacy sucks … but it works (some do). But front it with something modern, usable, flexible that will get you the sales and quality of service you want for your business. Quite often this last point is impossible. In fact it has been found that legacy systems are holding back traditional insurers from digitizing their value chain. So they can only push digital services on the products they are already selling. This is why some are taking an interest in Insurtech startups – to get experience and understand what new products may or may not work. (see “Insurers rush to grab hold of fintech start-ups with potential”, Financial Times, October 2, 2016) In fact old technology limits their capacity to launch new products. These are the reasons enough for insurers to implement new modern platforms. By Gastão Taveira Source: i2S

6 Research from Gartner

Insurance CIOs Need to Bridge the IT Spending Gap to Support Digital Transformation Life and P&C insurance CIOs need to reconcile their current level of nontransformative IT spending with executive management’s strategic business priorities. Gartner has identified three different patterns of IT spending with unique digital transformation roadmaps for life and P&C insurance CIOs.

Strategic Planning Assumption

Impacts

The 2015 Gartner CEO and Senior Executive Survey clearly shows that business growth dominates the strategic priorities of CEOs in the financial services industry, and that business executives believe they can achieve growth by workforce enhancements, technology investments and improved customer experience. The insurance industry is no exception to this trend. As a consequence, insurance CIOs — in both life and property and casualty (P&C) — need to focus their IT investments on digital transformation, to deliver more business through digital channels, improve the customer experience and streamline operations.

• Insurers’ transformative business objectives will increasingly require insurance CIOs to position themselves as strategic IT investors. • A focus on tactical initiatives presents significant challenges for CIOs working to remain relevant. • The need to support transformational initiatives is driving insurance CIOs to adopt enterprisespecific plans and bimodal delivery methods. Recommendations Life and P&C insurance CIOs: • Identify the business priorities of your organization, and assign them to the appropriate run, grow and transform categories to better understand the strategic focus of your company. • Create a capability map and rate the capability’s value in meeting business objectives. Prioritize and establish an investment plan for each capability that needs to be improved or that requires a significant reduction in operational expenses. • Develop a clear value proposition for your IT organization, and define a future vision how you and your IT organization will develop to support the business objectives.

By YE18, escalating IT debt will force more than 100 insurers worldwide to restructure, be acquired, outsource their IT operations or go bankrupt. Analysis

The challenge for insurance CIOs is that many of them are still drowning in a sea of legacy applications. According to Gartner’s digital maturity assessment, 52% of insurance IT executives are still running more than 50% of their core insurance applications such as policy administration or claims management on legacy systems, and many IT organizations support multiple redundant systems. One consequence of this problem is that, according to Gartner estimates, the insurance industry worldwide has accumulated more than $113 billion in IT debt during the past 10 years (see Note 1). Nonetheless, life and P&C insurers’ IT spending will remain relatively flat in 2016. Forty-five percent of the insurance respondents to the 2016 Gartner CIO Survey expected to see their IT budgets decrease or remain the same as in the previous year.1 Gartner is concerned that the

7 chasm between business objectives and IT’s ability to deliver on these objectives will increasingly widen, due to the continuously high support for aging legacy systems, which is absorbing a significant proportion of insurance IT budgets. Insurance CIOs will have to bridge this chasm if they want to remain or become strategic partners for their companies during the ongoing digital transformation of the industry. This is even more important in light of a difficult and increasingly competitive market environment, with low interest rates, largely flat premium income in many geographies, and growing merger and acquisition (M&A) activity. In order to contribute to the growth ambitions of executive management, IT leaders will have to better balance tactical and strategic IT investments. This research document will discuss the current conflict between primarily tactical IT spending (the IT budget needed to run the business) and strategic business objectives (the budget needed to transform the business) — a conflict that requires a fundamental shift in IT capabilities and IT investment priorities. Impacts and Recommendations

Insurers’ transformative business objectives will increasingly require insurance CIOs to position themselves as strategic IT investors

companies based on public statements in annual reports and other documents.2 Of the announced business objectives, 40% can be considered as transformative, while 32% of the business priorities focus on growing the business and only 28% support running the business (see Note 2). The strong focus on transformative business objectives represents both a call to action and a tremendous opportunity for CIOs in the insurance industry. Technology will play a vital role in supporting many of the business objectives articulated by executive management. Insurance CIOs who are able to align transformative technologies with these business priorities, and to deliver them in an agile and timely manner (typically using bimodal IT to balance strategic and tactical commitments) will be uniquely positioned to jointly shape the digital future of their organizations. According to our digital maturity assessment, only 15% of insurance business and IT leaders consider their organizations to be digitally progressive, so there is clearly a great deal of room for improvement. Gartner believes that one of the reasons for this low level of engagement is business executives’ lack of understanding of both the role IT can play in strategic business transformation, and the constraints CIOs face with respect to the cost of legacy systems. CIOs who face this issue need to take a leadership position in clarifying IT’s role.

In 4Q15, Gartner analyzed the strategic business priorities of the 25 world’s largest insurance

FIGURE 1

Impacts and Top Recommendations for Life and P&C Insurance CIOs

Source: Gartner (June 2016)

8 One approach is to analyze the distribution of their current IT budget between running, growing and transforming the business and pointing out how the platform’s capabilities can change as well as its cost. Regular and proactive discussions with business peers on the business value of technology are also important. Recommendations for life and P&C insurance CIOs: • Identify the business priorities of your organization, and assign them to the appropriate run, grow and transform categories to better understand the strategic focus of your company. • Analyze the distribution of your current IT budgets to assess how well you currently contribute to these business priorities, and determine whether you can quantify IT’s contribution to the success of your company. • Discuss your findings with your business partner to develop strategies for improving IT’s value proposition.

A focus on tactical initiatives presents significant challenges for CIOs working to remain relevant Staying relevant to the business is a challenge for many insurance CIOs. Despite executive focus on transformation, IT spending has largely been stuck in nontransformative categories during the last five to 10 years. According to Gartner’s IT Key Metrics Data, the portion of IT spending allocated to running the business has hardly changed between 2011 and 2015 and oscillated around 60% while transformative IT spending has remained below 15% of the overall average annual IT budget. What is even worse is that the run portion of the annual IT spending has even gone up from 61% in 2011 to 64% in 2015. The total IT budget is also not going up significantly, when inflation is taken into account. IT spending increased by 4.2% in 2015, and Gartner projects that it will increase by 3.4% in 2016, based on IT budgets supplied by our clients. While only 28% of business priorities are focused on running the business, insurance CIOs are actually spending

on average 64% of their annual IT budgets in that category (see Note 3).3 This value mismatch cannot be acceptable to executive management, and it erodes the credibility of the IT organization. Potential consequences are decreasing strategic relevance of the IT organization in shaping the firm’s digital future, and a reallocation of capital from IT investments to other departments, such as marketing or operations. Gartner believes insurance CIOs need to leverage different approaches to address the significant gap between transformational strategy and tactical investments. They need to better articulate the value and the importance of IT for the digital transformation of their organization by promoting and showcasing emerging technologies. They will have to create new types of key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the impact of their digital transformation programs. Working with their business partners, they will have to better prioritize their current portfolio of IT investments, and communicate the underlying reasons to business leaders by leveraging pace-layering methodologies or strategic technologies maps. And they will need to create bimodal delivery capability in their organizations to support those initiatives that are targeted for systems of innovation and differentiation. Recommendations for life and P&C insurance CIOs: • Create a business capability map of your current IT architecture, and assess the value of your IT systems in meeting your company’s established business objectives. • Prioritize the capabilities that need to be improved, and develop an improvement roadmap. • Establish an investment plan for each capability that either needs to be improved or requires a significant reduction in operational expenses.

9 The need to support transformational initiatives is driving insurance CIOs to adopt enterprise-specific plans and bimodal delivery methods If insurance company business leaders are aiming toward digital transformation, why are IT budgets still so heavily weighted toward running the business? One explanation is that insurance CIOs are allocating IT budget to existing legacy systems, to improve or modernize them as a foundation for future transformational initiatives. This modernization may take too much time, however, and prevent insurers from being more agile in adopting the new digital opportunities. Other CIOs may be focused on day-to-day changes to support legislative or regulatory requirements, or to address their backlog of functional and infrastructure enhancements. And others may simply be focused on “keeping the lights on.” But there are many other conditions that factor into how much money insurance CIOs are willing or able to invest in digital transformation. Market conditions and the style of the business as a whole could be driving investment levels, as could the availability of capital. Some companies can be high-growth market leaders, while others could be market followers and mature. The role that IT plays in the business might also factor into the IT organization’s focus. While

some IT organizations’ missions focus heavily on transformative work, others’ missions are centered on IT cost containment and reliability. The readiness of the IT organization’s core management disciplines might not be mature enough to execute on a significant transformation activity. Other inhibitors to transformative investment may be a poor IT service and delivery track record, the risk profile of the business (whether it is a risk taker or risk-averse) or IT leadership gaps that need to be closed. Another factor could be that the business itself does not feel that its business model requires transformative change. Some or all of these factors will determine the degree to which CIOs and their IT organizations are constrained with respect to spending on transformation, versus being able to fundamentally change the course of the IT platform’s capabilities. Others might see a need to make a gradual change, while others might see the need for a dramatic shift. A combination of many of the factors above is observed operationally in how CIOs structure their budgets and what they spend money on. Gartner has identified three types of IT spending patterns into which companies fall: • Tactical spenders — IT organizations whose focus is day-to-day, business-as-usual activities.

ACRONYM KEY AND GLOSSARY TERMS

Run the business

This is an indicator of how much of an IT resource is consumed by and focused on the continuing operations of the business. It includes all nondiscretionary expenses as part of the run-the-business cost.

Grow the business

This is an indicator of how much of an IT resource is consumed by and focused on developing and enhancing IT systems in support of business growth. Discretionary investments are more likely to be included in the grow-the-business or transform-the-business cost.

Transform the business

This is an indicator of how much of an IT resource is consumed and focused on implementing technology systems that enable the enterprise to enact new business models.

10 • Foundational spenders — IT organizations whose mission is focused more on delivering business solutions that not only improve IT costs, but also improve business capabilities and cost at the same time. • Transformative spenders — IT organizations that are entrepreneurial and are viewed by the business partners as strategic value creators (see Note 4).

• Determine which spending category you are in at the moment, and whether you and your IT department have the right resources and maturity to move toward a different spending category. Develop a transition plan for that change that includes necessary investments and skills. Evidence The 2016 Gartner CIO Survey included 119 CIOs or other senior IT decision makers from life and P&C insurance companies. 1

It is important to note that insurance companies may fall into more than one category throughout their existence, or could be in one and remain there for quite some time. The path to transformation is different for each of the spending categories listed above. Tactical spenders that intend to change cannot leapfrog toward transformation spending. In order to become a transformative spender, IT leaders will have to address the risks and challenges of foundational and tactical spenders first, and establish a different strategic role for IT. CIOs who are satisfied with their organization’s position must find ways to take actionable transformative steps within the spending constraints and their company’s capability. Table 5 lists a number of actions for the three spending patterns providing a path for transformation for each one (see Note 5). Recommendations for life and P&C insurance CIOs: • Develop a clear value proposition for your IT organization, and define a future vision how you and your IT organization will develop to support the business objectives.

The list of the world’s 25 largest insurers (measured by 2014 net written premiums) was compiled by A.M. Best. The additional sources for the data used in this research include other databases, company websites, IT&T Daily, Insurance Networking News, Factiva, Insurance Business Review, OneSource, Insurance and Technology and InformationWeek. 2

This research contains relevant database averages and ranges from a subset of metrics and prescriptive engagements available through Gartner Benchmark Analytics consulting-based capabilities. Calculations were made using worldwide observations. 3

Note 1 IT Debt Defined Gartner defines IT debt as the cost of clearing the backlog of maintenance required to bring the corporate applications portfolio to a fully supported current release state. Note 2

TABLE 1. OBJECTIVES OF THE 25 LARGEST GLOBAL INSURANCE COMPANIES AND THE PERCENTAGE OF COMPANIES THAT SELECTED THEM

Transform the Business (40%)

Grow the Business (32%)

Run the Business (28%)

Customer centricity

Optimized distributions

Operational efficiency

Digitalization

Growth

Cost savings

Innovation

Legacy modernization

Risk diversification

Build partner ecosystems

Brand

Sustainability

Talent management Source: Gartner (June 2016)

11 Note 3 2011-2015 IT Spending to Run, Grow and Transform the Business FIGURE 2. GARTNER IT KEY METRICS DATA ON RUN, GROW, TRANSFORM


Note 4 Spending Pattern Descriptions. TABLE 2. TACTICAL SPENDERS

Definition: Tactical spenders are focused onday-to-day, business-as-usual activities. Key focus: • Day-to-day operations. These companies are risk-averse and late adopters of new technology.

Potential inhibitors to transformation:

Spending focus: • This spending pattern is indicative of IT organizations whose expected mission is cost containment and the reliability of IT.

• Large backlog of enhancements.

Key risk: • IT organization is viewed as a cost center and not a strategic business partner. Source: Gartner (June 2016)

• Data quality and governance issues. • Complexity of current IT infrastructure (often heterogeneous and not consolidated).

• High and continuously growing IT debt. • Business conservative and does not assign a high value to digital transformation. • CIO and IT are not perceived as strategic partners to support transformation. • Primacy of operational efficiency by eliminating IT redundancies, replacing platforms, or leveraging alternative development options.

12 TABLE 3. FOUNDATIONAL SPENDERS

Definition: Foundational spenders are IT organizations whose mission is focused more on delivering business solutions that not only improve IT costs, but also improve business capabilities and cost at the same time. Key focus:


• These types of IT organizations not only are improving or • Immature data governance across systems. modernizing IT itself, but also are applying technology to improve business processes and customer experience or to become more • No master data management or 360-degree view of the customer. agile that will result in significantly increased revenue or cost savings for the enterprise. They could be architecting them in • Implementation of foundational technology, ways that accelerate product configuration, or could be building such as business process management, a foundational infrastructure that is positioning the platform for customer relationship management or improved integration for data analytics. enterprise service bus. • This IT organization is paving the way for digital transformation and can be viewed as a strategic enabler. Spending focus: • Foundational spenders will see a greater proportion of their IT spending in the transformation and growth categories. They are less risk-averse, not as late at technology adoption, and can be viewed as a strategic enabler. Key risk: • Long break-even point and the potential for the business to lose confidence in the CIO’s ability to deliver positive results.

• Business too focused on internal operational efficiency versus client experience. • Long project timelines and low near-term return on investment. • Legacy systems that are not service-oriented architecture (SOA)-compliant and are difficult to integrate. • Inaccessible business rules and business rule redundancy in legacy systems.


TABLE 4. TRANSFORMATIVE SPENDERS

Definition: Transformative spenders are IT organizations that are entrepreneurial in system and are viewed by the business partners as strategic value creators. Key focus:


• This IT organization is not simply enabling transformation; it is taking the active and aggressive lead in transforming the business. Technology is at the heart of • Skills retooling and resource the business strategy and is being used to drive entry to new markets, increase bottlenecks. new digital revenue and create greater competitive advantage. • Businesses’ ability to keep Spending focus: pace with the change. • Transformative spenders are aggressive investors who are driving cost out of IT while at the same time increasing growth and transformative budgets. • Transformative spenders differ from foundational and tactical spenders in many ways. Their willingness to take on risk is greater. Their time horizon and scope definition is much more aggressive. Their investment in emerging technologies is larger. Key risk: • Getting too far ahead of the businesses’ ability to change. Source: Gartner (June 2016)

• Lack of experience with partnering with and integrating ecosystem partners.

13 Note 5 IT’s Role and Path to Transformation TABLE 5. RECOMMENDED FOCUS AREAS

CIO/IT Organization Role

Suggested Actions

Path to Transformation

Transformational Spenders • Focus on technologies that have significant impact on business models and the competitive landscape. • Create an industry vision that drives the direction of insurance in the future.

• Be a risk taker and a fast adopter of new technologies. • Implement strong enterprise architecture competencies. • Establish an entrepreneurial organization that incentivizes innovation. • Create ecosystems of partners inside and outside the company.

Business model transformation: • CIO positioned as a strategic value provider and a visionary leader in relation to the business: • Build an ecosystem of partners to deliver transformational change (agility). • Create a bimodal delivery capability (innovation). • Determine how to maintain the company’s differentiating lead. • Document the critical capabilities that the business requires to be differentiating. • Focus on systems of innovation, such as portals, mobility applications, analytics, smart machines and the Internet of Things (IoT). • Create competency in vendor governance and third-party software integration. • Build an ecosystem of solution partners to complement some portion of the value chain such as automated underwriting, agency customer relationship management and wearables integration. • Develop a methodology for scanning the environment for ideas (for example, by crowdsourcing), prioritizing research and development and decision making for commercialization. • Begin using techniques to introduce innovation into the organization such as creating an innovation lab or partnering with an incubator. • Build KPIs that measure increases in digital revenue, improvements in Net Promoter Scores or other digital KPIs.

Foundational Spenders • Focus mainly on leveraging the IT organization’s deep business knowledge to deliver superior new capabilities.

• Establish a strong relationship management competency to interact with your business peers. • Gain a deep understanding of the primary business objectives. • Focus on business processes and be solution-driven. • Assign a certain percentage of financial and human resources to pilot and experiment with newer technologies.

Business process optimization, simplification and automation: • CIO positions as a business expert: • Develop a deep relationship with the chief operating officer. • Determine how to maintain the company’s competitive lead. • Document the critical IT capabilities that the business requires to be competitive. • Focus primarily on systems of differentiation, such as underwriting, product configuration and claims management. • Create a configuration-based architecture, and build application programming interfaces for easy integration. • Ensure that the architecture includes a centralized rule engine using natural-language constructs for ease of new-product development. • Establish a well-governed master data management capability to deliver a 360-degree view of the customer. • Adopt bimodal IT delivery capabilities in the organization. • Build KPIs that demonstrate the degree to which IT has contributed to quantifiable business improvements.

Continued

14 TABLE 5. RECOMMENDED FOCUS AREAS (CONTINUED)

CIO/IT Organization Role

Suggested Actions

Path to Transformation

• Establish a strong sourcing competency and a strong service management competency. • Create opportunities to redefine the role of CIO in the organization. • Develop a strategy for becoming a foundational spender with your business partner.

Legacy platform consolidation and simplification: • CIO positions as an operational expert and engineer in the near term: • Compare your personal competencies, those of the IT organization, and enterprises’ direction to evaluate the possibility of moving to foundational spending. • Understand operational pain points and changes that need to be made to address them. • Focus primarily on systems of record. • Document the baseline critical capabilities that need to be improved to stay in business. • Put stringent quality control and data quality controls in place. • Emphasize total cost of ownership as part of any project business case. • Determine how platform consolidation and simplification can enable foundational, and eventually transformative, capabilities, and build this into your plan. • Establish an agilelike approach to delivery to accelerate addressing the backlog of enhancements. • Use a time-based model to build a roadmap indicating which IT assets need to be eliminated, modernized, invested in and tolerated. • Base the future-state platform on a service-oriented architecture. • Develop an infrastructure strategy that standardizes on a platform that is scalable for growth.

Tactical Spenders • Focus mainly on optimizing IT operations and service. Reduce costs.


Source: Gartner Research Note G00304416, Richard Thomas Natale, Laurie Shotton, Juergen Weiss, 14 June 2016

15 About i2S i2S specializes in delivering to market the best software products for the life insurance business. With more than 30 years of experience, an impressive track-record of successful implementations of core insurance systems and a team of insurance business experts, i2S is the provider of choice of leading insurance companies. i2S offers life insurance companies a robust suite of software products aligned with business best practices that enable insurance product deployment with the best time to market and maximum autonomy and flexibility.

Its network of implementation partners provide additional expertise, complementary solutions and proximity to the clients, ensuring successful solution implementation with positive business impact and effective return on investment.

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Omnichannel – a must have for your Digitalization strategy is published by i2S. Editorial content supplied by i2S is independent of Gartner analysis. All Gartner research is used with Gartner’s permission, and was originally published as part of Gartner’s syndicated research service available to all entitled Gartner clients. © 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. The use of Gartner research in this publication does not indicate Gartner’s endorsement of i2S’ products and/or strategies. Reproduction or distribution of this publication in any form without Gartner’s prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Although Gartner research may include a discussion of related legal issues, Gartner does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner is a public company, and its shareholders may include firms and funds that have financial interests in entities covered in Gartner research. Gartner’s Board of Directors may include senior managers of these firms or funds. Gartner research is produced independently by its research organization without input or influence from these firms, funds or their managers. For further information on the independence and integrity of Gartner research, see “Guiding Principles on Independence and Objectivity” on its website.