A new study by International Data Corporation (IDC) discusses how the insurance industry's digital mission is driven by the challenges facing existing business models from the change in expectations of customers and partners, technology innovations, regulatory demands, and sociopolitical and economic disruptions.

The study, Worldwide Digital Transformation Use Case Taxonomy, 2017: Insurance (IDC #EMEA42769517, June 2017), shows that the advent of semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicles, connected vehicles and homes, sharing and on-demand economies, and peer-to-peer insurance models are adding a new dimension to the competitive landscape.

"Despite numerous challenges, insurance organizations are embarking on a transformation journey to cater to the requirements of an ever-evolving marketplace," said Sabitha Majukumar, senior research analyst, IDC Financial Insights.

"This begins with a definition of the mission of contextual and value-centric insurance, strategic priorities that support the mission, programs that help meet priorities, and use cases that help realize the overall goals and objectives of the organization."

For technology buyers in the insurance industry, the study identifies where and how to craft a winning DX business strategy and execution roadmap. For technology vendors, it provides a contextualized understanding of how and where key software, hardware, and IT services enable DX business outcomes and success.

IDC's DX taxonomy provides structured guidance on how 14 distinct industry and government verticals are creating and enabling digital transformation success in the digital economy. The study is the latest in a series of studies from IDC. While the taxonomy is an extensive representation, it is not exhaustive.

The taxonomy is a four-level model:
Digital mission (one per industry). The digital mission is the business organization's overarching aspirational goals and objectives. Each industry has its own unique mission.

Strategic priorities (several per digital mission).
There are several strategic priorities that describe what organizations expect to accomplish over an extended period to achieve their digital mission.

Programs (several per strategic priority). Several programs support each strategic priority. Each represents a long-term plan of action to achieve the strategic priorities through a series of use cases.

Use cases (several per program). Under each program is a set of use cases. These use cases are discretely funded efforts supporting a program objective. Use cases can be thought of as specific projects employing line-of-business and IT resources including hardware, software, and IT services. Each use case is organized by the use case name, current situation, business goals and objectives, key technologies used to enable desired business outcomes, and a summary of the results.