As an agency you may be asking how you can cut costs and streamline your overall functioning given the favorable economic climate we are experiencing.
Now the insurance industry does have the reputation of being somewhat ‘technologically stagnant’ and part of moving into the modern era is alleviating these accusations through new innovative solutions.
One area that businesses across the globe are struggling with is ageing desktop infrastructure that is proving to be a major hindrance in this accelerated growth period.
In fact, it appears as if this resonates particularly loudly in the insurance industry as a recent Aberdeen report found that 34 % of respondents cited the cost of supporting traditional desktop solutions is becoming too expensive to maintain.
Resultantly, the burdens of employing a dedicated IT staff to manage PC maintenance, replacement, repair, upgrades and security are causing insurers to seek alternative solutions.
One such answer is desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS), which allows users to access cloud-based desktops and programs from virtually any computer, browser or device – including the evermore popular tablets or smartphones.
Designed by Vertafore, a software provider for insurance businesses, DaaS aims to eliminate the high costs of maintaining existing PCS as well as alleviate numerous IT challenges associated with on-premises hardware.
“One way it will help agents and brokers is we’re seeing some growth in the market, so we’re several organizations replace aging infrastructure that is a cost basis. Agencies are also adding staff as the economy has turned around,” explained Steven Finch, Vice President of Strategic Solutions at Vertafore. “With that being said, once you go to desktop as a service your IT spend becomes straight arithmetic times number of users. Typically from an agency-spend, an in-house system ends up being 50% of the cost of your normal core system, so having it baked in is a great benefit.”
In today’s globalized world, companies and clients want services to favorably include mobile devices as well as other unconventional points of access, something that DaaS does well.
“A by-product of desktop as a service technology is one you don’t need to be within the physical walls of your agency to access this information on a computer, and two it can support some of those appropriate mobile devices,” Finch added.
“There is a mobility benefit there as well.”
