Most insurance CIOs and IT leaders have grappled with the build-or-buy question as it relates to software. But the thornier and possibly more important context for the question is how it applies to IT talent.
Executive Summary
Insurance companies need to think about IT talent the same way they think about software platforms—not as point solutions to fill immediate needs—and to approach the task holistically to provide their organizations the functional richness, agility and responsiveness to changing market conditions and organizational needs over time, says X by 2's Frank Petersmark.Any IT leader worth his or her silicon understands that while software, hardware and processes are important, having the right people is truly mission-critical. How mission-critical? In the long term, having the right people is the key difference in the relative success rate of a CIO or IT leader. Everything else—software, hardware and even process—comes and goes. Having the right people to make sure it all comes together in the most optimal manner should be the thing that CIOs spend more time on than anything else.
