On 25th January 2007, more than 200 decision-makers of the German-speaking insurance industry met at the management congress and trade fair "InsuranceCom" at the "Centre for Global Dialogue" of SwissRe in Zurich. Well-known national and international directors and management representatives identified "industrialization" as the key solution for both the increasing competition and the changing general administrative conditions in the insurance business.
International competition is forcing the insurance industry to look at their value creation processes more intensively than ever before in order to find solutions which would lead to cost reduction. A strategic realignment and repositioning is required. The standardization and the optimization of processes are the primary means of achieving this.
The introduction of continuous and efficient business processes as well as a service-oriented IT-architecture (SOA) were named as key factors for a constructive industrialization in the insurance industry. These two factors should not only ensure lower costs and a higher service quality but should also improve risk management. Possible solutions include the use of a standard software and the outsourcing of parts of the value creation chain.
Klaus Allerdissen, Member of the Board of Directors of ERGO International AG, presented the group's international IT platform strategy to the plenum. He stated that the aim had been to create a common platform with uniform standards in order to utilize cost advantages and synergies as well as to minimize local IT risks. He claimed that this aim had been successfully achieved with regard to costs, quality and performance using the standard software ALICE, a proven portfolio management system.
In his lecture "Standardization – What for?", Johann Mayer, Head of Section "Life insurance" at VICTORIA VOLKSBANKEN, Vienna, described how the Austrian composite insurer came to choose the standard software ALICE. VVV chose this flexible insurance software because their activities in seven countries with diverse hardware and software platforms made the utilization of transnational synergy effects impossible. Now, with ALICE as a “package solution”, VVV have the perfect software at their disposal, which can be implemented immediately for all new countries.
A small, clearly-arranged, high quality trade show provided the congress participants the opportunity to meet and talk to innovative solution providers of the insurance industry, such as ALICE. CSC, one of the world's largest IT consultancy and service companies, chose ALICE as the central strategic product component of their "Insurance Factory". The product management system "VP/MS" and the portfolio management system ALICE are the pillars of this "Insurance Factory".
Dr. Peter Maas, Member of the Management Team of the Institute for Insurance Industry of the University St. Gallen and moderator of the congress put it in a nutshell when he stated, "Actively formulating a value creation strategy will be a competitive advantage in the future". He also claimed, "the industrialization of the value creation processes is a prerequisite for this purpose".
Industrialization in the insurance industry leads to the concentration on the core competences by making use of clearly-defined and uniformly-implemented processes throughout the value creation chain, the grouping of similar activities within specific organization units and by using configurable, open IT systems on the basis of standard administration software.
Dominic Testrut, Director Business Development at ALICE Software Service GmbH, came to the following conclusion: "The congress has once again shown that ALICE is excellently suited for the realization of the industrialization strategy of insurance companies. This ability and our tried and tested installations in 14 European countries emphasize our unique selling proposition."
