Celent announced the winners of its sixth annual Celent Model Insurer awards on Thursday, January 26, 2012 in Boston, MA. http://www.celent.com/reports/event-presentations-celent-2012-insurance-innovation-insight-day-featuring-celents-model. On hand were nearly 150 insurers and technology vendors. Celent Model Insurer Award nominations are open to insurers across the globe and recognize insurers who have successfully demonstrated key best practices in the use [...]

I recently reviewed an IT project that had been submitted for an award, only to learn that between the time of the submission and the time of the judging, the IT project in question had been “retired.” The context forced me to ask whether such a project could still be considered award-worthy, but the more [...]

Google tends to get a lot of press simply because it’s Google, although it’s fair to say Google has got a few things wrong with some of its products – anyone remember Orkut, or all the hype around Google Wave? One thing is certain Google have got a lot right about its launch of Google [...]

I’ve been doing research for several reports on the topic of IT outsourcing, some about utilizing cloud computing for hardware and some about working with vendors to handle consulting and development. While these two areas are conceptually very different, the approach and business values are quite similar. One misconception about both is that they are [...]

This week, Celent is pleased to feature an article from guest contributor, John Boochever, who leads Oliver Wyman’s Global practice focused on strategic IT and operational issues across financial sectors. For senior executives facing the turbulence of today’s financial crisis, reducing the cost base of their business operations now sits squarely at the top of [...]

At Celent, we often find ourselves helping insurance carriers implement a process of change, whether it’s selecting a new policy administration system, process reengineering, or restructuring the IT organization. Change means more than just a new technology or a new process; it also requires a shift in corporate culture. Even when the IT-side of a [...]

Previous posts about testing Topic 1: Automated Testing Topic 2: Getting Test Data Topic 3: Test Environment Topic 4: Best Practices in Application Testing: It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about this subject, but I think the previous three posts could use some follow up. After talking about the need for testing, getting the [...]

Previous posts about testing Topic 1: Automated Testing Topic 2: Getting Test Data Topic 3: Clean, Repeatable Test Data and Test Environment I’ve got a short but important point to add to the previous software application testing topics. A clean test environment makes the difference between valid results and frustrated QA. Running automated or manual [...]