Guidewire cloud migration: transitioning your core platform efficiently

• Establish a shared strategic vision and incorporate migration to the cloud into your long-term business strategy
• Clearly communicate the benefits, of which there are many. Stick to the major takeaways that cloud enables:
  • A more user-friendly, efficient, intuitive customer and employee experience
  • Better access to higher quality data that drives deeper insights to tailor product offerings
  • Decreased maintenance costs and limited drain on internal IT resources

Insurers also must consider the continued investment software providers like Guidewire make in cloud-based platforms such as Guidewire Cloud and factor that into the business case. For example, self-managed Guidewire products will only include technical patches going forward, and product support will eventually discontinue. It is not a matter of if you’ll be updating your core system to the cloud, it’s a matter of when.

This must be communicated to key stakeholders and considered as a significant factor when building out a cloud-based system implementation timeline.

So, what’s the best way to take the plunge?
 
A cloud migration factory can facilitate the most seamless transition to cloud platforms like Guidewire Cloud, unlocking an efficient, predictable and successful transition to the new platform.
 
An upgrade factory will ideally run out of a single location and operate on standardised, repeatable processes to help your business engage the right processes and procedures that will ultimately propel you through the transformation to the cloud.
Advantages of a cloud migration factory include:

• Scalability. Resources can be increased and reduced based on business needs during the cloud transition.
• Speed to market. Implementation time and costs can be reduced by 10 to 20%, driven by cloud platform expertise and industrialised processes.
• Predictability. Standardised, repeatable processes drive consistency in delivery and reduces testing effort by 10 to 15%.

Transitioning to the cloud requires key considerations to maximise your return on investment. More specifically, additional thought is needed initially around the following:

1. Enabling technical agility. Technical decisions during the cloud transition should ensure they enable future capabilities that align with the organisation’s business strategy. Key competencies of a cloud-based platform include digital capabilities to enhance customer and agent experience, data accuracy and insights to drive decisioning, reduce expenses and loss ratio, and price accurately, and automation to drive operational efficiency and reduce costs.
2. Driving change adoption. Insurers may think that the move from self-managed to Guidewire Cloud requires less change management than a traditional core platform modernisation, but the reality is that the cloud transition is still quite complex and has a lot of organisational change implications, from changes in functionality and process to align with Guidewire Cloud standards, to shifting from an on-premises model to a SaaS model.
3. Building an operating model. Inherently in the shift from self-managed to the modern cloud, the IT support model changes. Most insurers aren’t prepared for this type of change, which can create confusion around roles and responsibilities while not appreciating losing control over certain aspects of IT operations. Similarly on the business side, there’s additional opportunity to streamline operations to align business agility with the technical agility introduced by cloud.

• Improved experiences. Experience is one of the true differentiators, especially in the insurance world where products and services are increasingly commoditised. A cloud-based platform can help enable and enhance digital experiences across the insurance value chain, from policy acquisition to servicing to claims.
• Enhanced efficiencies. Cloud can enable efficiency in several areas: automation, processes, and expense reduction. Distributed data across the cloud ecosystem combined with third party data can drive accuracy and insights in underwriting, claims, and analytics.
• Innovation at speed and scale. Cloud can leverage innovation to drive not only solving current customer needs through new products, services, and business models, but also creating new markets for future customer needs. Connected insurance, for example, can leverage IoT devices to better understand risk and prevent claims. Embedded insurance can introduce new customers to insurers to which they normally wouldn’t have access. Generative AI can be leveraged to provide insights or drive efficiency/automation. The possibilities are endless.