| | March 20169Challenges in technology to meet enterprise needs in 2013 and expectationsIt's been the same challenge for several years- how to locate, recruit and hire enough qualied people. There is a tremendous shortage of people with technology skills and experience in all aspects of IT and the insurance industry has a special challenge in getting the attention of qualied candidates. As to a wish list for 2013, I'd like to see mobile tools that enable the development of one set of code that would run on the various mobile and tablet devices, allowing us to take advantage of the rich capabilities of those devices. The areas in business environment where solutions do not yet exist or not up to the mark, and which if existed, would've made job easierOne thing I would like to see is more fault-tolerant software from our vendors- software written to detect, recover and self correct when we have infrastructure outages. I would also like to see better conguration tools across the various platforms that we, as an industry, support. Manner in which data is used to head o problems and complications before they happenCurrently the client services department's management in our organization must monitor the work queues and manually move people from one role to another as the work demands. We are working to provide systems which allow us to understand the skills of the various people in the organization, calculate the number of people required to complete the work, and automatically change the work those people are assigned, in order to meet the demand. Thoughts on how IT strategic planning supports organization-wide e orts to improve quality, cut costs and improve eciency in the nancial sectorOur IT strategy covers a wide variety of e orts to reduce costs, improve quality and eciency. A partial list of that strategy includes:· The creative use of technology to push information to the people answering customer queries in an easily understandable format.· Improving our requirements gnitset dna gnipoleved ,gnirehtag processes to reduce the cost of development.Technology trends impacting enterprise business environmentMobile and tablet technology, and social media would be the two trends that are the most interesting. Our marketing, sales and distribution departments are working to leverage these technologies to increase our brand awareness, increase revenue, reduce costs and mitigate risk.My roles and responsibilities as a CIOAs an executive IT leader who has been in the industry for many years, I have seen a dramatic change in how our business leaders see IT. In the past, the IT department was looked at as the "end-all, be-all" for technology needs in the organization. Now, technology is ever-present in our lives. Like everyone, Business leaders are touched by technology in their lives outside of work.Lessons learned and advice for fellow CIOs My advice would be to not chase the latest technology. Make sure the technology ts within your organization and is the right solution for the problem.Scott KlusVP, Policy Administration SystemsJackson National Life Insurance, Co.Scott began his career at Jackson in 1998 as a Programmer Trainee. Since that time, he has been promoted to various roles within the IT department, most recently to VP Policy Administration Systems in 2010.Our IT strategy covers a wide variety of e orts to reduce costs, improve quality and eciencyCXO VIEWPOINTA
< Page 8 | Page 10 >