Insurance IT Management Strategies and Practices

Reports Published by Celent

Under pressure to do more with less, insurance IT groups are re-evaluating their management practices and embracing CMM in an effort to gain control over their processes.

As insurance IT groups find themselves under increased pressure to do more with less and to ensure business/IT alignment, management issues are coming to the fore. Whether it is a matter of post-merger rationalization or just improving performance, many insurance IT groups are taking a long look in the mirror and asking how they can operate more efficiently and serve the needs of the enterprise more effectively.

Celent痴 new report, , is designed to familiarize insurance business and IT executives by providing an overview of key issues, practices, and new strategies in IT management.

"Insurers are realizing that legacy IT management practices can be as much of an issue as legacy systems," says Matthew Josefowicz, Manager of Celent痴 insurance group and author of the report. "We池e seeing increased focus in improving IT processes, most notably by embracing formal quality methodologies like CMM."

The report provides an brief overview of the current environment facing insurance IT groups and why management issues are of increased importance, examines the way insurance IT groups are structured and their relationship to the business groups they serve, looks at key issues involved in the management of individual IT projects, including project ownership, estimating resource requirements, evaluating and choosing vendors, and project management tools.

The report also provides an overview of SEI痴 Capability Maturity Model (CMM), a formal methodology for standardizing IT practices that is gaining popularity in the insurance industry, and looks at some of the drivers for adopting this methodology. It concludes with some general recommendations for insurance IT groups as they reconsider and attempt to improve their IT management practices.

The 31-page report contains 7 figures and 3 tables. A Table of Contents is available online.

of Celent Communications' Property/Casualty Insurance and Life/Health Insurance research services can download the report electronically by clicking on the icon to the left. Non-members should contact info@celent.com for more information.