At DIA Amsterdam 2022, HCL Technologies explored the new digital battlefront that insurers are competing in to drive transformation and deliver game-changing customer experience.   

In this Q&A editorial Sudip Lahiri, Executive Vice President and Head of Financial Services Europe at HCL Technologies, shares his findings from this event and discusses how leveraging the cloud can help insurers to realise their business growth ambitions.  

How has the rapid change in digitization impacted the insurance industry? 

“The world is going through an unprecedented phase of transformation and digitisation. In this digital transition, insurers are struggling to stay relevant and facing challenges that impact all aspects of their operations.  

Meeting today’s customers’ expectations and demands is crucial for any business. And IT, once again, has proven to be a fundamental foundation for any business wanting to embrace digital. No matter whether it is an online customer interaction such as a digital quote, an underwriter analysing a risk, a claims handler assessing a claim or an engineer connecting to a data centre server to resolve an issue, digital is becoming mainstream for any insurer.   

It is evident that customer expectations have changed as they started to experience the value-added services from insurers through feature-rich applications. As a result, these need always be available to guarantee continuity of services like mapping or mitigating risk and automated claims workflow.” 

Optimizing cloud to achieve business efficiencies through digital transformation 

“Cloud adoption presents insurers with more opportunities to utilise AI and predictive analytics to detect and prevent major downtimes, errors, and security attacks. As an example, many insurers are using AI and predictive analytics within their systems for dynamic customer engagement, prevention of Risk and Fraud, policy optimization and efficient claims management among others. 

There are numerous examples of how insurers can benefit from migrating to cloud solutions. Some of these include API integration (to connect with third-party providers for access to new functionality or data), platform hosting (allowing insurers to deploy quickly and easily new applications and services), moving from Capex to Opex (with no need to heavily invest in physical servers that are subject to maintenance) and performing Core Operations (to manage policy and claims administrations seamlessly). 

At HCL Technologies, we see many advantages for the entire sector and benefits across the total insurance value chain. The cloud revolutionised the way businesses operate, and insurance is no exception. Some of the benefits that we see with our clients that use cloud technologies include increased efficiency and cost savings, faster platforms, access to emerging technologies, greater scalability, quicker times to market and improved customer service.  

Some of the biggest learnings when it comes to cloud have to do with early identification of potential challenges, validating a business case through less impact application, including data security, establishing a Cloud Centre of Excellence, checking organisation readiness and onboarding a technology partner who has experience and understands the business well.” 

And what is your vision for the future of cloud?  

“The cloud is here to stay. Business leaders will have to find a way to manage the unwillingness to move away from legacy systems to new cloud-based solutions that are key to meet customers’ evolving requirements. Cloud will transform from being a technology differentiator to a business accelerator that helps insurers in reinventing customer experiences, drive continuous innovations and enable responsible decision making towards sustainable solutions.” 

Tomorrow’s digital insurers need to make intelligent choices that extract the true value out of cloud investments. HCL Technologies’ CloudSMART approach is designed to maximise business value in alignment with enterprise needs, organisational goals and unique circumstances. 

CloudSMART brings together an entire range of services, solutions, accelerations across all key cloud ecosystems along with a world-class experience of cloud engineers and architects be it a strong digital foundation, cloud-native or modernisation or innovative cloud services, driven by intelligent automation and a powerful partner ecosystem, to address specific business objectives. 

With careful planning and partnering with technology service providers, insurers can become a cloud insurer and face any challenge down the road. To increase the cloud adoption rate, it will be key to have reliable cloud-based systems as data needs to be available when required, regulations on data security need to be met and local data centres need to be available within certain geographies.  

So, what would you recommend to insurers and stakeholders at the beginning of the cloud journey? 

“First build the business case, make sure you get leadership buy-in, if possible, create first mover advantage and team up with the right cloud and technology service provider. 

Insurtechs can provide or manage the cloud service or offer APIs to solutions that can be easily integrated into the insurer’s legacy stack to accelerate business operations. For example, providing property or vehicle data for a quote or underwriting or Third-Party service providers in the case of a commercial lines or health insurance or pensions.”  

Who is HCL Technologies? 

HCL Technologies empowers global enterprises with technology, using its Mode 1-2-3 strategy, combining domain industry expertise, customer-centricity and entrepreneurial culture of ideapreneurship™.  

HCL offers its services and products through three lines of business: IT and Business Services (ITBS), Engineering and R&D Services (ERS), and Products & Platforms (P&P). ITBS enables global enterprises to transform their businesses through offerings in areas of Applications, Infrastructure, Digital Process Operations, and next-generation digital transformation solutions. ERS offers engineering services and solutions in all aspects of product development and platform engineering while under P&P.  

HCL provides modernised software products to global clients for their technology and industry-specific requirements. Through its co-innovation labs, global delivery capabilities, and broad global network, HCL delivers holistic services in various industry verticals including Financial Services.  

As a leading global technology company, HCL takes pride in its diversity, social responsibility, sustainability, and education initiatives. HCL has a consolidated revenue of US $ 11.79 billion and its 210,900 ideapreneurs operate out of 52 countries.  

Visit their website here to learn more: Insurance | HCL Technologies 
Watch their presentation at DIA Amsterdam 2022 here!