Principles for Tackling the Legacy Challenge
Celent has presented the 2022 winning model insurer cases in legacy and ecosystem transformation in mid-March in the frame of our Innovation & Insights week. If you are interested to review the contents of our event and discover what insurers have been doing on this topic you can still watch the sessions on-demand here.
We think we have a comprehensive understanding of insurers legacy and ecosystem transformation initiative. Our Model Insurer program has brough to us hundreds of initiatives coming from all over the world:
As I explained in a recent insight titled The Many Facets of Insurance System Modernization: Finding the Right Color Through the Prism, we think there are key success factors that all insurers should be aware of when starting a legacy and ecosystem modernization project.
- Tailor the approach: There is no perfect approach, so be as exhaustive as you can in terms of exploring the pros and cons of each alternative. It is recommended that each alternative should be at play and considered depending on the type of capability that needs to be acquired.
- Focus on business objectives: The best approach is the one that helps satisfy the business requirements, not pure technology requirements only. Remember that technology is not a goal in itself, but a business enabler.
- Perform an exhaustive conceptualization: Do not neglect the effort needed to define a robust target digital architecture and identify relevant technology enablers to reach this target architecture.
- Rationalize IT and the investment: Consider all systems and components (old and peripheral) with the extreme digitization ambition in mind—and make sure these investments have tangible benefits for the business (impact on technical ratios).
- Align the stakeholders: Involve each stakeholder from the beginning. System modernization is not purely about technology—meaning that business stakeholders must be integrated into the overall project and related processes early in the program.
We look forward to discovering more initiatives and helping our insurance clients navigate this topic.