Insurance Networking News: Executive Strategies for Technology Management articles from January 2008

Insurance Networking News: Executive Strategies for Technology Management archives from January 2008

IT Spending Priorities Pile Up.
January 1, 2008... Early indications are that overall IT spending for 2008 will increasealbeit, forecasters predict the increase to be relatively small. The insurance industry isn't an exception. Based on benchmarking data, IT spending has been rising slightly in...

Customer Relationship Management: CRM Rises Again.
January 1, 2008... Much like a high draft pick in the NFL, customer relationship management (CRM) solutions seem to have suffered from the burden of high expectations. When CRM emerged in 1990s, it was touted as a cure all, which would bring companies closer to...

Service-Oriented Architecture: New Tools Connect SOA to Business Success.
January 1, 2008... Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is seen as a beacon of hope for insurance companies long beleaguered by tangles of incompatible legacy systems and networks. However, while the technology is now widely available, selling SOA to the business...

Not Standing Still.
January 1, 2008... You know the drill someone higher up in your organization requires that you reinvent yourself. If leading the charge in the IT department, you might have that process down pat. Between the transparency demands placed on IT due to...

News Briefs.
January 1, 2008... AGENTS WEIGH IN ON INSURERS PERFORMANCE Data collected by a group of professional insurance agents that ranks insurance carrier performance is now available online. The Professional Insurance Agents (PIA) of Connecticut, New Hampshire,...

Solutions.
January 1, 2008... AGENCY SOLUTION ENABLES INFORMATION ACCESS The OnBase Agency Solution, from Hyland Software Inc., Westlake, Ohio, is designed to integrate with an agencys current agency management system(s), enabling an agency to access essential...

Making Data Centers Lean and Green: IT decision makers are starting to take action to minimize the amount of electricity data centers and servers consume.
January 1, 2008... High energy costs, concerns about power availability and pressure from company stakeholders are causing growing numbers of IT managers to consider green strategies for their data centers. Although U.S. energy use is increasing in absolute...

Solutions.
January 1, 2008... LEGACY INTEGRATION SOFTWARE Seattle-based Attachmate Corp. has released updated versions of its Verastream legacy integration software offerings. The launch of Verastream Transaction Integrator 4.0 and Verastream Bridge Integrator 3.0...

Scenarios for Data Center Energy Savings.
January 1, 2008... When it released its 2007 report on data center energy consumption, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created improved operation, best practice and state-of-the-art scenarios for improving energy efficiency in IT equipment, and power...

News Briefs.
January 1, 2008... TRIA EXTENSION PASSES SENATE An extension to the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) has passed the U.S. Senate. The measure was approved by unanimous consent. The original TRIA passed in wake of 9/11. This is a tremendous victory for...

Hardware Advances Help Data Centers Keep Their Cool.
January 1, 2008... Servers, and the processors that power them, are the bedrock of the modern data center. Microprocessors, from their commercial introduction in the early 1970s until today, have mirrored the widely known contention of Intel co-founder Gordon...

Legislation Altering the Insurance Landscape: Carriers can use technologies such as business process management to help navigate the regulatory maze.
January 1, 2008... This past year saw a bevy of legislative initiatives come to the forefront, from the extension of Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA), to the creation of an Optional Federal Charter (OFC), to the reworking of flood insurance. To find out the...

Overuse of Scarce IT Resources All Too Common: Business departments need to be cognizant of the true cost of the technologies they use.
January 1, 2008... Aristotle once said: For that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. These words, written more than 2,000 years ago, still ring true todaythat is, if a recent USA Today article about air travel is any proof....

CFOs: SOX Compliance Costs Outweigh Benefits.
January 1, 2008... Nearly 90% of CFOs believe that the cost of compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) outweighs the benefits, according to the latest survey from the Tillinghast business of Stamford, Conn.-based Towers Perrin. This underscores a key problem...

PLM Helps Carriers Walk Development Tightrope: The race to deliver new products to market requires innovation, agility and the ability to customize and support them.(product lifecycle management)
January 1, 2008... Whether you are on the business or IT side, the thought of bringing new insurance products to market is oftentimes fraught with turmoil. Once a company has assessed who needs what product when, why and for how long, the real work begins....

News Briefs.
January 1, 2008... NATIONWIDES DATA MGT INITIATIVE RECOGNIZED Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., Columbus, Ohio, has been recognized for its innovative use of technology across and beyond the business to create and sustain highly significant and quantifiable...

The Product Agility Model.(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... HIGH Level 4-The Product-Agile Enterprise * Best practices product development techniques * Using product analytics to provide KPI feedback * Mass-customized products FLEXABLE Level 3-Formal Product Management *...

Solutions.
January 1, 2008... WI-FI BLACKBERRY Wi-Fi is now being offered to BlackBerry customers. AT&T Inc. , San Antonio, Texas and Research In Motion Ltd., Waterloo, Ontario, announced that the first cellular and Wi-Fi BlackBerry handset, the BlackBerry 8820, is...

News Briefs.
January 1, 2008... AIG AWARDS SPECIALTY PROGRAM UNDERWRITER Irwin Siegel Agency Inc. (ISA), a Rock Hill, N.Y.-based specialty program underwriter for the social services field, received the Daniel P. McMahon, CPCU Award for underwriting excellence. The...

Selling SOA to Management.
January 1, 2008... Many business executives may see the logic of moving to service-oriented architecture (SOA), but committing funding to initiate such projects is another story. Here are some tips from Joe McKendrick, author and consultant specializing in...

Solutions.
January 1, 2008... WOLTERS KLUWER INTRODUCES NILS INCOMPASS Minneapolis, Minn.-based Wolters Kluwer Financial Services announced the release of NILS INcompass, a workflow tool designed to help compliance and legal professionals monitor and implement ongoing...

Who's Buying What: Recent deals for technology software and services.(Company overview)
January 1, 2008... HARLEYSVILLE ROLLS OUT POLICY ADMIN PLATFORM Harleysville Insurance, Harleysville, Pa., is rolling out a new AQS/advantage commercial lines policy administration system that facilitates rating, quoting and policy issue processes in a...

INN January 2008 Editorial Index.
January 1, 2008... Company Name Page # 3i Infotech Ltd. 37 ABD Insurance and Financial Services 37 ACORD 36 Acxiom Corp. 10 Advanced Micro Devices 17 Advisen 28 AFLAC 32 AIG Programs 33 AIR Worldwide Corp....

Ad Index for January 2008.
January 1, 2008... Advertiser Website Address Page # Camilion Solutions www.productauthority.com 35 EDS Solcorp www.edssolcorp.com/adminsystems C2 First American - Proxix www.proxix.com C4 Guidewire www.guidewire.com 31 Map Info...

Emerging Risk and ERM: ERM platforms help gather data across siloed risk management domains, presenting an enterprisewide view of risk.
January 1, 2008... Facing the unknown is perhaps the greatest challenge for risk managers. Fraught with peril and potential disaster, uncertainty is a major impediment to devising effective strategies and mitigating risk. When confronted with unfamiliar...