UK Insurance Companies Missing out on Customer Data

By Monica Gleberman
Contributing Writer

Before technology really took off, businesses were collecting facts and figures of sales on a daily basis and just logging them. Researchers and analysts were hired to try to process the data to figure out a way to increase business performance.

However, due to the amount of data being collected, it could take researchers months to find patterns to help increase sales, improve customer retention, and handing the ever-changing business and customer demands. As technology became critical component in the business market, many companies found programs to analyze this data for them.

It became a no brainer to use this material to help determine what customers are thinking. However, it looks like not everyone has jumped on board yet. A new study by IBM (News - Alert) found that a large number of insurance companies are still lagging in the research and development department due to a lack of data processing.

The study, which was carried out by Vanson Bourne and commissioned by Big Blue, found that 84 percent of the 50 senior IT decision makers within the U.K. insurance companies are not integrating customer data into a database. To make matters worse, only 16 percent of insurance firms in the U.K. seem to integrate customer data across their IT systems into one database, while 38 percent don’t integrate at all.

What does this all mean? Well, Danny Lee, from IBM Software Group, said this could hurt customer relations, along with sales. “The customers are demanding that companies really know them personally and it’s very much driven by retail organizations,” said Lee. “I think we have a lot to learn from the retail organizations, especially the ones driving online retail I actually had senior executives from insurance organizations say their inspiration is to be similar to Amazon.com (News - Alert).”

The sooner insurance companies in the UK are able to handle the amount of information that is being wasted, the sooner they will be able to increase sales, promote their business, and keep more customers.