Microsoft Leaders Forum – Insurance: Strategic IT Investment Critical to Competitive Edge

There is a right approach to dealing with this financial crisis and it is not dramatically cutting IT spending and waiting for the crises to pass. According to insurance analyst Matthew Josefowicz, the right approach for insurance carriers is taking a strategic look at IT and investing as if their competitive edge depends on it. It is now, he says, that carriers should be making those long needed reforms in their operating strategies and technology capabilities. Increasing demands coming from both consumers and distributors are going to make those who make advances get noticed – and that’s a sure way of regaining control of the bottom-line.

Matthew Josefowicz, Director, Insurance, NOVARICA

Dennis Pfiffner, Senior Vice President, Life Operations – Insurance Solutions, StoneRiver, formerly Fiserv Insurance Solutions

Bill Dochterman, Vice President, Marketing & Product Development, LexisNexis

Alex Aminian, President and Chief Executive Officer, DAVID Corporation

Gregory S. Webber, President, SunGard iWorks

Stephen Korow, Vice President, Technology, Decision Research Corp.

Don Canning, Director of Insurance, Worldwide Financial Services Group, Microsoft Corp.

S.R. Ramaswami, Partner & Executive Vice President, Polaris Software Lab Limited

Jason King, Director of Financial Services and Insurance, Hyland Software, Inc.

Pamela Pecs Cytron, President and Chief Executive Officer, Pendo Systems

Bruce Jackson, VP, Solutions Consulting, Varicent Software Incorporated

Stephen A. Bruno, President and Chief Executive Officer, Computer Solutions & Software International

Sedhu Krishnamurthy, Director of Architecture, Insuresoft, LLC

Kevin Pledge, CEO and Co-Founder, Insight Decision Solutions

Dr. Mehmet Baltacioglu, President, Winsoft Software Inc.

Jeff Griggs, Financial Services Practice Leader, Avaya Inc.