Having all parties within the company working toward one goal may seem like a simple task to accomplish for insurance carriers, but of course if it were that easy, everyone already would have done it. The reality is each department has its own ideas on how best to run its business, but as companies have learned, siloed strategies rarely succeed. Never is that more pronounced, though, than when technology enters the discussion. Technology has become the integral enabler for virtually every task performed, and with such power, complaints are certain to follow as new methods of operation meet up with the traditional workflow of insurance.

"Alignment is the Holy Grail for businesses," says Bernard Tubiana, principal with Deloitte Consulting. Even within the individual lines of business, he explains, alignment is nearly impossible to achieve. "It's not just inter-business/IT alignment but also intra-business alignment," he says. "The plank IT walks has multiple constituents. Even with a seat at the table, even if IT were able to understand the business better, and even if business understood IT language better, you still would have degrees of misalignment."

IT is making progress in achieving alignment with the business side, according to David Holtzman, managing director, PricewaterhouseCoopers, who leads the consultant's insurance technology and operations practice. But he points out the issue remains one of the top targets for insurers seeking to realize the benefits of technology. "There are a ton of projects being driven by IT, and at the end of the day, they don't meet expectations because business isn't driving the actual design and implementation," he says.