Tech Decisions December 2009
Cover Story
Open Book Test: Passing Grade for Insurance IT Leaders
One of the challenges insurance technology leaders dealt with over the past year was to create better transparency as IT helped its business partners deal with the economic realities of 2009.
Features
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Who's There? Customer Service Steps to Forefront
The rock band The Who is known for asking the musical question: "Who Are You?" But it is the insurance industry (and fans of the TV show CSI) that often echoes lead singer Roger Daltrey's next line, "I really want to know."
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Business/IT Alignment: Opposites Attract
When a contentious relationship exists between business and IT, the latter constituency often gets the blame. Yet to be completely fair, the cause of misalignment falls as much on business as it does on IT.
Columns Editor's Note
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The Upside to the Downturn in the Economy
Exactly one year ago our cover asked: "Will insurance IT get Scrooged in 2009?"
Columns Trends & Tech
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Getting Content Under Control Is Simply Complicated
I spent last weekend reconfiguring and rebuilding the search indexes for a client. We indexed something like 3.5 million items, consisting of about three terabytes of data.
Columns Shop Talk
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Vendor Park II: The Rise of the "Compys" in Technology Market
Almost a year ago we looked back on 2008 and remarked on three things: the financial state of the insurance industry, the corresponding software market, and the "arrival" in our market of giant software vendors.
Departments Industry Intelligence
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Allstate Launches Roadside Help Via Smart Phones
Allstate Insurance and its Allstate Motor Club have launched a new mobile application that brings roadside services directly to drivers with iPhones and selected BlackBerry models.
Departments Business Solutions
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Turn of the Century for Content Management
It didn't take Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Co. 100 years to realize changes needed to be made in how the company handles workflow and business processes.
Departments Top Tech
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Insurance CIO Transforming Healthcare
As CIO of HealthPartners, the country's largest consumer-governed nonprofit healthcare organization, Alan Abramson has been at the forefront of some of the most innovative uses of technology in the healthcare industry.
