November 20188The Changing Role of Data and Analytics in Insurance Industry By Jim Tyo, Vice President & Chief Data Officer, NationwideAcross the insurance industry, data and analytics play an increasingly critical role in improving company performance. The data and analytics space is rapidly changing, and organizations of all sizes are trying to stay ahead of the curve. Nationwide is no different, and we are actively using data and analytics to move in the right direction. Most organizations and especially legacy organizations face challenges in promoting data and analytics as foundational needs. We continue to successfully tackle those challenges while actively applying advanced analytics. Today, it is critical to use data and analytics to understand and anticipate customers' needs and improve back-office operations.Nationwide has been maturing its data and analytics space for several years. There is a need to pivot from a culture-based on instinct and experience to one that's data-driven while using experience to correctly apply analytic insights. While we know that maintaining a competitive edge requires data and analytics, many IT associates are used to how things have been done in the past. Many people are guided by experience that has shown them their intuition is correct. Getting those associates to embrace a data-driven culture takes advanced change management practices.To advance the adoption of data and analytics, it's important to develop advocates across the organization. Over the past couple of years, we have built strong relationships and formed key partnerships. The importance of IT and the business working together cannot be stressed enough. While IT associates know how to access and manipulate data, employees with more of a business background often know which insights are worth pursuing in more detail as well as how to apply the knowledge that the data uncovers. At Nationwide, our Enterprise Analytics Office is the business arm of the data and analytics space. Creating a formal partnership between the data and analytics offices has enabled associates performing analytics work to easily reach out to those people that know where the data sits and how to best access it and manipulate it. It also gives those associates on the data side more exposure to the business of insurance.Establishing forums for associates at a wide range of levels where they can voice their analytics needs and wants and hear what other areas are doing in the analytics space is also valuable. Data and analytics really aren't much different from other foundational business areas like finance in the sense that while they don't necessarily have to be centralized, they should have representation across the enterprise and a singular voice when speaking to the office of the CEO. This piece, representation at the highest level, becomes much IN MY OPINION
< Page 7 | Page 9 >