Investments in Digital by Insurance Industry Requires Greater Focus on Customers, Reveals Infosys Survey

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Apr 14, 2015, 05:00 ET

BANGALORE, April 14, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

Insurance companies in the US, the UK and Germany are well on their way to making the most of digital strategies in their business. However, for many, the success of digital initiatives is threatened by a lack of focus on the customer experience according to a survey commissioned by Infosys (NYSE: INFY), a global leader in consulting, technology, outsourcing and next-generation services. The study surveyed 200 IT and business decision-makers at insurance companies.

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The study reported recognition among insurance companies that digital can play a major role in their growth (47 percent) and drive a unified customer experience (44 percent). Specifically,

44 percent identify digital self-service as a key priority to improve customer experience and thus drive revenue growth
29 percent believe that Big Data is having a positive financial impact on business, primarily through improved underwriting
Over one-fifth identify Internet of Things as a catalyst for creating positive financial impact on bill payment, policy administration and agent management
25 percent acknowledge the role of digital marketing in winning new business

However, the study reported that when exploring the challenges and obstacles that organizations face around leveraging digital for customer portals, 60 percent of insurers highlighted that they are hampered by poor quality customer insights, meaning that some insurers could be making wrong choices about their digital investments. The report also revealed that

Nearly two thirds (65 percent) said that their digital technology portfolio is the result of an as-needed/ad hoc procurement approach
50 percent said that the lack of a digital innovation strategy prevents delivery of digital marketing initiatives that drive growth
The biggest obstacle to making digital technology effective (reported by 24 percent) is the lack of right skills

Quote:

Manish Tandon, Executive Vice President and Head of Healthcare, Insurance and Life Sciences at Infosys : "While many insurance companies have developed effective ways to leverage digital technologies to engage with customers, too many are not putting the customer experience at the heart of their strategy. This technology led, ad hoc approach to digital will not work. Best practices in insurance and examples from sectors such as retail consistently show that being laser focused on customers, and using analytics to develop a deep understanding of customers, are the most important factors in getting digital right."

Reflecting this, the Forrester study states that "Insurance organizations would be well served to grow their digital capability investments that drive better customer and agent experience by adopting customer-centric technology, organization, and process change."

The survey recommends Insurance organizations to "forge cross-company relationships to develop and support the digital agenda… leverage Big Data to create high-value contextual experience… [and] selectively outsource to accelerate the speed of digital time to value."

Infosys is enabling many Insurance organizations unlock business value by transforming customer experiences, driving operational effectiveness, and nurturing business innovations by leveraging digital technologies. For example, one of the world's leading property and casualty insurance companies has partnered with Infosys to improve customer acquisition and reduce premium by up to 60 percent for safe drivers.

The full study, The Digital Insurer In 2015, can be downloaded from http://www.infosys.com/digitalinsurerstudy

Additional Resources

Infosys Digital Insurance study: http://www.infosys.com/digitalinsurerstudy

More on Infosys Insurance services: http://www.infosys.com/industries/insurance/

Methodology

Forrester Consulting on behalf of Infosys conducted an online survey of 200 senior IT and business decision-makers in the Insurance sector at companies with revenues of more than $500 million. Surveys were carried out in the US, the UK and Germany. Questions provided to the participants were about how insurers are adopting digital, what the pain points were, their digital priorities and the type of digital innovations insurance firms are spending their budgets on. The study was completed in March 2015.

About Infosys

Infosys is a global leader in consulting, technology, outsourcing and next-generation services. We enable clients, in more than 50 countries, to stay a step ahead of emerging business trends and outperform the competition. We help them transform and thrive in a changing world by co-creating breakthrough solutions that combine strategic insights and execution excellence.

Visit http://www.infosys.com to see how Infosys (NYSE: INFY), with US$8.25 B in annual revenues and 165,000+ employees, is helping enterprises renew themselves while also creating new avenues to generate value.

Safe Harbor

Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements regarding our future business expectations intended to qualify for the 'safe harbor' under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding fluctuations in earnings, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, our ability to manage growth, intense competition in IT services including those factors which may affect our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, industry segment concentration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks or system failures, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which Infosys has made strategic investments, withdrawal or expiration of governmental fiscal incentives, political instability and regional conflicts, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, and unauthorized use of our intellectual property and general economic conditions affecting our industry. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission filings including our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2014 and on Form 6-K for the quarters ended June 30, 2014, September 30, 2014 and December 31, 2014. These filings are available at http://www.sec.gov. Infosys may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. In addition, please note that the date of this press release is mentioned at the beginning of the release, and any forward-looking statements contained herein are based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable as of this date. The company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the company unless it is required by law.

SOURCE Infosys