Our clients have led us to initiate two 5-part report series on topics of interest, The Digital Enterprise, and Annuities.  The first is the Digital Enterprise, defined and then evaluated from different dimensions.  The second series is surrounding Annuities.  This series is similarly structured, defining and then evaluating Annuities from different dimensions. Annuities, in particular have come back into the limelight during this period of financial instability, and digital has been equally thrust into the limelight driven by the remote nature of our lives. 

This report examines a new entrant in the Life and Annuity Policy Administration System (PAS) vendor marketplace. Using an in-depth, hands-on approach to assess the Penn River platform, the research team provides a detailed review of the technical design and features and considerations for implementation, product configuration, and conversions.

We are extremely pleased to announce Sean McCarthy has joined Mantissa Group.   Sean is an insurance industry veteran and Senior Vice President / Client Partner with Mantissa Group LLC, who will join the firm to bolster our focus on strategic consulting for the CIO executive and their extended leadership teams. Sean is a seasoned insurance industry executive with deep experience in professional services sales, delivery and client engagement.  Sean joins the firm as a senior executive with the company charged with leading company growth and will serve as member of the Mantissa Group senior leadership team.

So as CIO you have prepared for this year after year – successful Disaster Recovery exercises and Continuity of Business planning.  CEO’s and Corporate Boards expect these tests, the business counts on it, and the technology organization is rallied to make it all happen.  Infrastructure is supposed to flip over seamlessly, systems are expected to run without a hitch, and heavy loads are put on your technology ecosystem given the higher than normal remote working strategy.

This edition of Mantissa Group News will focus on the CIO agenda in a prospective way.  CIO leadership will be the focus of this edition and we are pleased to showcase a Mantissa Group partner, Raoul Buron of Ingenium Leadership.    We will discuss why the CIO transformation agenda cannot be accomplished without an equally robust CIO leadership agenda, as well as many interesting developments in the industry affecting the CIO.

Mantissa recently reviewed a Life PAS offering from Penn River (http://www.pennriver.com).   And while CIO’s consistently note that there has not been a new offering in the Life Insurance PAS space in the recent years, we were pleasantly surprised our Penn River system demo. 

The power of the 100-day report for a new CIO cannot be underestimated. New CIO’s are normally hired for many reasons, such as setting a new organizational direction.  However, it is very easy for a CIO to fall into a predictable trap: production problems, sales calls, contract issues, human resource matters.  Issues immediately pile up and the CIO becomes distracted.  Then 6 months pass, and business leaders ask the inevitable question: What exactly has changed?

The employee “check in” is an informal, and probably one of the most powerful ways, to help your employees feel empowered and support their career and life goals. It also gives you a good sense for the culture of the company.

Why is it that the best professional sports franchises always seem to be in the playoff hunt?  The reason undeniably revolves around a highly integrated group of people, a team, operating with a clear sense of purpose and a unified mission. 

Whether you are a Small Business or a Fortune 100 Company, success depends on “The Team”.  For that matter, small businesses, baseball teams, football teams, team sports, IT Organizations, Departments, and most other industries live and die by the strength of the team.  

The Digital age is having quite the impact with the Agency distribution model. The livelihood of the individual agent is directly related to the number of touchpoints that they have with their customers. Agents are in constant pursuit of connection, interaction, hopefully sales, and then retention activities. However, if the life insurance company is also connecting digitally with the customer, do we have a natural conflict?

The role of the CIO is complex, changing, and multi-disciplinary. You are expected to have a technical point-of-view, deep understanding of the business you support, and have a technology vision for the future that will help transform your business. The digital journey is just one example of how CIO’s are helping their leaders transform the company.