
Understanding What Business Partners Are Trying To Accomplish


Ursuline Foley, SVP & CIO, XL Group
Challenges in technology to meet enterprise needs in 2013 and expectations
Data, Data, Data. It’s growing exponentially every day. The challenge is to capture it, manage it and analyze it to allow for better decision-making throughout the company.
It would be a lot more beneficial if some of the data management tools were marketed and integrated as a total solution for the business. Reporting is another major need.
The areas in business environment where solutions do not yet exist or not up to the mark, and which if existed, would've made job easier
For insurers, technology offers major strategic competitive advantagesstreamlined processes to boost internal efficiency, better data to make better underwriting decisions, more efficient claims handling and real-time datasharing to improve the customer experience. Many companies have been slow to adopt new technologies.
We have grown via M&As and tried to push forward- in challenging insurance market conditionsoperating on multiple legacy systems. Transformational initiatives that depend on major process reengineering require major investments, a big step, but we’ve started to make them. We completed a multi-year program to build one global claims management system and separately a single global reinsurance platform. Keeping such programs focused on delivery, schedule and budget is a challenge that many can lose sleep over. Having some successes certainly paves the way for other opportunities which we are now pursuing such as Financial Transformation and Management Information, all big challenges, but very important and will be worth it in the long run.
Technology Trends Impacting Enterprise BusinessEnvironment
My roles and responsibilities as a CIO
Lessons learned as a CIO
What’s challenging and rewarding about our roles? Stay on top of technological advances- being experts in our own field while also learning about the business that we serve. For me, that means understanding how we underwrite risks, report financials and service insurance claims. The more we understand what our business partners are trying to accomplish, the more likely we are to advise them wisely of the technology options available to help them to advance and grow their business. “Adding business value” is an important aspect of our IT culture, mantra and goals.