"Addressing core [insurance] systems as well as systems that are peripheral to the core and taking them to the new world is a responsibility that is squarely on the CIO's shoulders.
It is imperative that CIO's address the issue for the long-term sustainability of the organization as it has a direct impact on a few aspects: ease of doing business, time to market, eliminating non-value add activities in the information supply chain, and most importantly enhancing the data quality so that it can be mined for information.
We at Great American have addressed the issue head-on and are well on our way to replacing the core and all the peripheral systems. From my individual perspective my argument for folks who say it is too big an issue is to ask them to answer this question: Is it bigger than the long-term competitiveness of the company?"
(Piyush Singh is senior vice president and CIO for Great American Insurance.)
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.