As the pandemic disrupted markets around the world, leading businesses across many industries doubled down on their cloud and other technology investments. Accenture’s CEO, Julie Sweet, called this a “Henry Ford moment” and a “once in a digital era global replatforming.”
Cloud has become a value-based discussion that drives CEO imperatives and supports enterprise priorities. This elevation draws the case for cloud beyond the limitations of savings on IT running costs.
In Reimagining insurance: The new cloud imperative, co-authored with Steve Murphy, Jim Bramblet, and Keval Mehta, we talk about accelerating in the cloud. And we explore ways insurers can use the cloud to address their biggest business challenges.
Webinar: The data that matters to your life insurance customers. Learn more here!
The benefits of cloud acceleration in insurance
Revenue
For insurers there is a strong correlation between cloud transformation and revenue growth. Those who lead in SaaS, PaaS, and adoption of native-cloud applications tend to have higher revenues. And with global insurance revenues expected to grow $1.4 trillion over the next 4 – 5 years, accelerating in the cloud now can offer competitive advantage.
Customers
With all the events of 2020 and early 2021, insurers are facing not just changed economic conditions but also a changed customer. From personal lines consumers to business owners to group and specialty insurance buyers, there is greater uncertainty.
Insurance customers have new demands for cloud-enabled digital services that incorporate usage- and behavior-based offers. We see clear evidence of this in our Global Insurance Consumer Study 2021 in which consumers who say they would share significant data for personalized services to prevent injury and loss increased 54% in just two years.
Workforce
Insurers have seen how cloud solutions enable flexible, remote work, and the workforce of the future will expect some level of continued flexibility post-pandemic. Our latest workforce research shows a disconnect between what employees want and what managers want in terms of days in the office. Fortunately, cloud-based workforce analytics can offer insights both in office and remote settings to respond to hardships that affect career opportunities, performance, and morale.
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)
ESG is being elevated on the corporate agenda across every industry. Green cloud offers opportunity for measurable progress in server utilization, workload flexibility, and energy-efficient infrastructure.
Security
New threats have emerged, and legacy platforms are no match. Data breaches and cyber-attacks, including ransomware, are threatening the security of insurance systems, operations, and customer trust. Public cloud platforms have matured and now offer stronger controls than on-premise solutions with security and compliance measures.
Beginning with business challenges ahead of technology challenges can help accelerate cloud transformation in an elevated, well-structured approach and build a data-driven culture. Work with business stakeholders on a mix of cloud use cases with the potential to illuminate the way and inspire others to follow.
Source: Accenture
