The Promise of End User System Maintenance

One of the benefits of investing in modern, configurable software that is often sought is the ability to move creation and maintenance of systems to the business areas. The premise is that transferring these functions to users will increase quality and reduce costs. In Celent’s discussions with insurers and observations, this is often a goal that is more aspiration than realization.  

Our research has begun to quantify the extent to which functions are transferring within various solutions. For example, the graph below details the responses from U.S. insurers using a standalone rating engine when asked what percentage of work is being performed in their business areas:

Surprisingly, tasks to configure interfaces with third-party vendors (CLUE. MVRs, etc.) are performed at a very high level (83%). Not surprisingly, deployment to production is often held in the IT area. (For more details, reference the report: US Property/Casualty Rating Systems: ABCD Vendor View, 2009)

We are continuing to collect such data across different software platforms in order to quantify the “promise” of end user maintenance.

This blog has been reprinted with permission from Celent. Mike Fitzgerald is a senior analyst in Celent's insurance practice, and can be reached at mfitzgerald@celent.com.

The opinions posted in this blog do not necessarily reflect those of Insurance Networking News or SourceMedia.