Market Leaders Break Through Walls Between Front and Back

Are you ready to transform the front office process like the market leaders? Market leaders look at the end-to-end insurance process through the eyes of the customer/agent. They no longer refer to "front office versus back office" as the process has become more straight through and transparent.

By Deb Smallwood and Cindy Maike

The leaders will continue to leverage the changing demographics, higher client expectations and expanding distribution channels, and drive business agility and innovation throughout the enterprise.

Becoming a market leader starts with a mindset, a vision and a commitment to business transformation. How ready is your organization? Ask yourself these three sets of questions to find out.

Statesman or Spoilsport? (07/24/12)
Risk Confessions (06/01/12)
Splitting Silos (10/11/12)
Giving Peace of Mind (08/22/12)
Murphy Proofing (09/15/12)

-- Strategy. Does your company have a clear and razor-sharp business strategy and plan, specifically around the changing customer, both policyholders and agent/brokers? Is the strategy clear, is it memorialized, and is it known and understood across the enterprise?

-- Business Process. What is your company doing regarding business innovation and business capability analysis? Have you started to relook, rethink or re-engineer your customer-facing business processes?

-- System & Technology. Do you have a clear business and information-technology roadmap and make technology decisions through linkage of business strategies, business capabilities and IT investments? Are these technology decisions and investments based on return on investment, and tracked and monitored for true cost-benefit analysis?

DEB SMALLWOOD, former chief transformation officer for Insurance Company of the West, is co-founder of Smallwood Maike & Associates, along with CINDY MAIKE, a former director of standards for the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development.

August 1, 2008

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