A Day of Innovation & Insight
February 7, 2012 12:50 PM
The Celent awards program noted 23 different components as essential to the best practices recognized at the event. The firm awarded a different company for outstanding performance in each component, as well as naming its Model Insurer of the Year for overall excellence.
Celent CEO Craig Weber kicked off the day-long event with a discussion of the central themes of the day: innovation and disruption. Weber explained, If you have opportunities to improve operationally, that might be your focus area for the next few years. If youre buying the creative disruption message though, wed like to get you thinking outside the realm of working operationally, even if youre capturing some of that low-hanging fruit. For INN Editor Carrie Burns' full take on his presentation, read her blog post about it.
More than 100 technology-minded professionals from carriers and technology solution providers working with the insurance industry listen in.
Celent Senior Analyst Karen Monks announces the 23 award winners and Model Insurer of the Year. For the full list of winners and the categories they were honored in, click here.
Recognized for "coping with a nationwide disaster in the cloud," Tomohiro Suzuki accepted the award for his company, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co., Ltd.
Justin Manley accepts the award presented to Torus Insurance for "delivering a modern portal to brokers."
Weber presents Derek Holmes of Erie Insurance with the Model Insurer Award for "streamlining the marketing, selling and processing of life insurance."
Model Insurer of the Year Award winners from Nationwide pose with Monks and Weber. Click here for an interview with Dan Greteman (middle) and details surrounding the award-winning project.
Glen Reardon, head of industry, financial services advertising at Google, got the afternoon underway by discussing the burgeoning effects of mobility on consumer behavior, and the insurance industry's need to adapt to those changes. For a full recap of Reardon's presentation, click here.
Bill Ball, AVP, Inforce Operations and Financial Control at John Hancock, discusses the evolving role of the CIO while moderator Catherine Stagg-Macey, SVP at Celent, looks on. "You need all three of these roles. The operations side is the table stakes, playing to the strategy and disruptive roles. If you cant deliver on your systems and do your operations well, no one will talk to you about the other two. Its an evolution of these roles more than moving from one to another.
Celent Senior Analyst Mike Fitzgerald, as well as other Celent analysts, sat in with the crowd, contributing to presentations by asking and answering questions extemporaneously.
Tsukasa Makino, manager, IT Planning Department & Corporate Planning Department, Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co. provides his unique perspective on CIO responsibilities. "At Tokio Marine there is no 'CIO,' but they have maintained a disruptive atmosphere through the company's free-thinking and autonomous environment," he said.
Nicholas Michellod, Celent analyst, raises a question to the panel.
Greteman discusses Nationwide's award-winning project and how he managed to balance the business priorities behind the merger of two internal companies with the opportunity for technological advancement.