Building a Foundation: Four ways to make an IT transformation project a success
X by 2 Article in Best's Review: December 2011

When IT transformation projects implode, the costs in time, money and morale can be devastating. Think it couldn’t happen to you? Ram Sundaram, a senior principal at X by 2, suggests that you think again. Read More

IT Leaders Give Their Thanks
PropertyCasualty360: November 2011

In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday, PropertyCasualty360.com wanted to know what insurance IT leaders were most thankful for, so they asked a variety of the industry's top people one simple question: What should insurance IT leaders be most thankful for?  

Included in the group of respondents are insurance carrier CIOs, technology consultants and analysts, software solution providers, and X by 2's CIO advocate Frank Petersmark. Here are their responses. Read More

Choose Wisely: How insurance carriers should approach, leverage and build upon analyst tech evaluations
X by 2 Article in Best's Review: November 2011

According to Ram Sundaram, a senior principal at X by 2, if there’s one concept insurers understand, it’s risk. Core IT transformations, like all business decisions, are essentially risk/reward calculations. If a new and better system can be fielded in a reasonable time frame, at a minimal cost and with a high probability of success, it’s typically worth the investment.In short, the old model of building IT systems from the ground up is quickly turning unsustainable.

But over the past few years, our industry has watched more and more of these projects buckle under the weight of skyrocketing development costs, never-ending time lines and downward-spiraling forecasts. 

In short, the old model of building IT systems from the ground up is quickly turning unsustainable. And increasingly, CIO s are finding commercial off-the-shelf solutions to be highly tempting alternatives. Read More

ERM: Entering the Danger Zone
PropertyCasualty360: November 2011

In recent years, insurance companies have changed their focus in terms of how they want to be both profitable and competitive in the marketplace.

“It used to be all about driving premium growth,” says Frank Petersmark, CIO advocate for X By 2, a consulting firm specializing in enterprise and application architecture for the insurance industry. “Before the economic downturn, carriers began to think long term about enterprise risk management to develop a strong book. Today, being profitable is more about risk control—managing pricing and making money off underwriting.” Read More

Policy Administration Systems 7 Must-Haves 
Insurance Networking News: November 2011

As a host of business and competitive reasons cause carriers to contemplate replacement of this most core of systems, a rapidly evolving slate of technology options awaits.

Frank Petersmark, former CIO of Amerisure and current CIO advocate with consultancy X by 2, has seen the challenge of managing aging policy administration systems firsthand. Read More

The Handoff
PropertyCasualty360: October 2011

Many carriers are worried about the amount of data that is entering their systems on a daily basis. While some worry more about unstructured data—video, texts, email and such—at least one industry observer feels it is more important for carriers to deal with the data quality issues around their structured data.

“It’s not uncommon for us to go to insurance companies and they cannot tell a person’s first name from last name,” says Samir Ahmed, senior architect, X by 2. “They have a name field that someone typed in first name, last name or last name, first name. It may be a mainframe system with two name fields.”

Ahmed realizes such situations sound comical, but he insists it is a situation that is both real and pervasive within the insurance industry.

“In our experience as a service provider to insurance companies, [carriers] are not worried yet about how to make sense of unstructured data. The truth of the matter is insurers have bigger fish to fry, so to speak.” Read More

Breaking the Herd Mentality: "Insurance" for mega-transformation technology initiatives
X by 2 Article in AAIS - Viewpoint: Spring 2011

There is an unpleasant truth that almost any CIO or senior insurance executive is loath to admit: At some point in the past he or she has been involved in a large and costly technology initiative that failed spectacularly.

It’s especially difficult when the initiative is at the root of the company’s operations, what we call a “mega-transformation” initiative.

Why does this happen? There are many reasons, but most result from the effects of a herd mentality. Read More

The Final Convergence
Insurance Networking News: May 2011

Despite all the potential advantages [fabric computing], Petersmark counsels carriers to be careful not to hop on the fabric computing bandwagon too quickly, as all the functionalities and capabilities might not be there yet. "CIOs are rightfully wary of any heavily hyped technology," he says. "But, given some time, vendors with these types of resources mostly get it right." Read More

Easy Does It
Tech Decisions: May 2011

Frank Petersmark, CIO advocate for X by 2, a software architecture consultancy, believes there is a natural friction between agents and carriers when it comes to keying in data. From his days as a CIO at Amerisure, Petersmark recalls dealing with agents that wanted the carrier to take care of as much of the processing as possible and unburden [the agents] of the responsibility so they could just sell.

The reverse was also true, remembers Petersmark, as the carriers wanted agents to perform those tasks.

“Process and administration usually relates to expense,” says Petersmark. “Carriers tried to push that process down the food chain if they could to agencies. There has been a tug-of-war for the past few years, particularly as the recession hit. You had sort of a mad scramble of carriers and agencies to find ways to reduce expenses so they could stay profitable. I don’t think that world has come together just yet.”

Many carriers tout themselves as being easy to do business with, but Petersmark isn’t ready to concede that ease of business is somehow more important than having the best price. Read More

CIOs aren't CIOs for Long: If you want a job with a guaranteed timeframe, consider politics before IT management, surveys and folklore show
Computerworld: March 2011

In the mid-1990s, Frank Petersmark, who eventually would become the CIO of Amerisure Mutual Insurance, was told that the job of CIO works on a five-year cycle.

The first year as CIO is the honeymoon. The second year is about strategy and planning, and the third year is about implementing. In the fourth year they (the higher-ups) figure out that the execution isn't going that well, and in the fifth year, you start looking for your next job, Petersmark recalled.

He doesn't subscribe to the five-year limit, having held his job at Amerisure for 13 years until leaving at the end of last year. But Petersmark's CIO tenure has out distanced the most optimistic of surveys. Read More

Insurers Told to Get on the Mobile Train
2011 AAIS Main Event X by 2 Expert Panel Participation - Insurance Networking News Coverage: March 18, 2011

“Mobile” was the buzzword at an executive conference held by the American Association of Insurance Services (AAIS) this week in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., as speakers reinforced the need for property/casualty insurers to use mobile technology to engage and retain customers who have grown up knowing only a digital world.

In the mobile world, it's all about the customer experience," said Frank Petersmark, CIO advocate for the software consulting X by 2. "You need to build your brand among the millennials, and let this emerging demographic know you're there."  Read More

Turn It Around: Changing Data into Business Intelligence
PropertyCasualty360: March 2011

Long-term CIO Strategy: CIOs Must Be More Like the Ant Than the Grasshopper
X by 2 Post in CIO - Blogs and Discussion: March 18, 2011

Mature BI Platforms Can Lead to Successful Implementations
PropertyCasualty360: February 3, 2011

Changing the Channel
X by 2 Article in Best Review: February 2011

Frank Petersmark, CIO Advocate at X by 2, discusses agent and carrier's need to embrace the new technology of selling and distributing insurance products through mulitple distribution channels. Read More or Listen to Podcast

Successful ECM Requires Both Tools and Strategy
Insurance Networking News: January/February 2011, pg 24

The Disappearing Data Center?
Insurance Networking News: January/February 2011, pg 16

PAS or Play?
Tech Decisions: January 2011

Petersmark Takes CIO Skills to Consultancy
PropertyCasualty360: January 10, 2011 Press Release.

Frank Petersmark joins X by 2 as CIO Advocate. Formerly CIO and vice president of information technology at Amerisure Mutual Insurance Company, Petersmark has 30 years of insurance industry experence as information technology professional and executive.

Legacy Modernization Tops List of 2011 Challenges - With Good Reason
X by 2's Top 2011 Insurance IT Trends and Challenges - Commentary from Joe McKendrick: Insurance Experts' Forum, January 5, 2011

According to X by 2's list of top IT challenges in the insurance industry, the emphasis will continue to be on forward-looking IT value-adds to companies in the areas of agility, responsiveness, and analytics - things that legacy systems weren't designed for. Insurers face critical decisions on whether to continue to modernize old systems or replace them. Read More

Calculating Strategy: The New Vibe
X by 2 Article in Best Review: January 2011, pg 40

Frank Petersmark, CIO Advocate at X by 2 an architecture consultancy that specializing in enterprise and application architecture in the insurance industry, anticipates a more results oriented mind-set that strives to pinpoint the actual value derived from IT projects and spending initiatives. "That's a little bit of a new vibe or discipline for IT folks," Petersmark said. "They're actually going to be asked to come up with ideas or projects that help drive revenue into the business." Read More

Synthesizing Data for A New View: By integrating disparate data elements, carriers can gain more granular insights, by need to first address data quality issues
Insurance Networking News: January 2011, pg 8

As carriers gorged on storage in recent years, many architecural concerns were pushed to the side, notes Oleg Sadykhov, a principal at Farmington Hills, Mich.-based technology consultancy X by 2. Another challenge insurers face is data incompatibility and fragmentation. Read More

Oakwood Website Honored for Design, Ease of Use
Oakwood Press Release: November 24, 2010

Oakwood Healthcare's external website was nationally honored for the fifth consecutive year by one of the industry's most reputable award recognition program, the eHealthcare Leadership Awards. Read More

Software Architects Indeed Have Dream Job, X by 2's Ahmed Says
Reuters October 25, 2010 Press Release

X by 2's Samir Ahmed describes what it takes to be an Architect "The Best Job in America" according to Money magazine. Read More

Data Saving the Day for Insurers
Tech Decisions: October 2010

Qasim Hussain, senior architect for architecture consultancy X by 2, agrees that everbody blames data. "Data is never good enough," he says. "IT can go in and fix the data, but often the business is still unsatisfied with the quality of the data."

Hussain also believes that once the data is of a certain age, fixing it is almost impossible. "It was captured at a point in time by a system, and there is no way to fix the data without interacting with the external entity to get the data cleaned," he says. Read More

Technology Can Solve the Customer Service Puzzle: As the Web and mobility alter expectations, insurers can employ analytic tools to better serve customers
Insurance Networking News: September/October 2010, pg 9

Carriers can head off customer services issues long before they happen by bearing in mind the potential end uses of data, says David Packer, principal of Farmington Hills, Mich.-based architecture consultancy X by 2.

Packer says as the Web becomes more prominent - any data hygeine issues insurers may have will become more public. Read More

The Wireless Frontier
Insurance Networking News: September/October 2010, pg 8-10

Mobile operating systems have become more sophisticated, and as a result, become very real platforms, says David Packer. "There is a clear expectation from customers that they should be able to do business on these devises. To fully exploit the potential of mobile platforms, Packer says insurers need a well-thought-out architecture. Read More