Many companies are working to standardize their business processes, but ACORD is taking it one step further–the standards organization for the insurance industry is looking to standardize business processes for the entire insurance industry. ACORD received a head start on the process, thanks to a contribution last year from IBM.

The IBM model presented to ACORD is high level, according to John Kellington, CTO and senior vice president of the Ohio Casualty Group, who was selected as chair of the ACORD standards committee earlier this year. "It's not at a detail level that you would need from a standards perspective, but it is all encompassing," he notes. "We can look at the framework and say: This is where we have a good alignment, and this is where we don't. It gives us the ability to frame out [processes]."

ACORD has work ahead to standardize processes, but Kellington believes this is an important starting point because it offers insurers the big picture. Denise Garth, vice president, membership and standards, for ACORD, agrees with the analogy. She explains the standards group will build a registry of the actual business process services that will tie to the process models at a high level.