FirstBest UMS Implementation: Driven by IT or Line-of-Business?
We often get asked if the FirstBest UMS purchase decision making is driven by IT or the line-of-business. The reality is, it depends on the carrier, but we’ve seen this initiative come from both sides. When the initiative is driven by the business, it is typically addressing a specific set of strategic business initiatives, i.e.:
- I need to protect my existing book-of-business and also expand into new markets and/or new lines of business
- I need to be easier to work with, both internally and externally
- I need to find some way to capture the knowledge and experience that exists in my current underwriting and agent interaction process and convert that to institutional knowledge that is accessible to everyone in the organization
When this process is driven by IT, it’s generally a result of the IT leader and department looking for a strategic solution with modern, flexible architecture that will allow them to be more responsive to the ever-changing needs and demands of the business units.
In either case, the carriers we work with tend to be forward-looking carriers that are looking for the next-generation solution to help address their collaboration, point-of-sale, underwriting workflow, and rules engine challenges, to catapult them ahead of the competition.