Technology Action Plan

The questions for many organizations is not whether to employ technology, but how they should do it. Most executives understand technology requires a large initial investment but struggle to consider the potential impact on the organization. From an insurance perspective, there are a few things executives should consider.

​1. Understanding needs: As with the strategic plan of the organization, the technology plan should be simple, practical, severable and flexible. Therefore, it is important to involve internal and external stakeholders in the selection and upkeep of technology. The best way to do this is start with analyzing the current business situation. Once the existing situation is understood executives should predict the future to anticipate what type of changes will need to be made and how the system with evolve with the business.

​Insurance - When executives understand the technological needs of the organization they are often thinking about contingencies such as cyber strategy. Insurance companies like to see business taking a proactive approach towards technology. The more an organization can show they understand their exposure, the better the chances are that they will receive favourable pricing on their insurance.

​2. Evaluating Technology: Reporting capabilities, capacity, support & training, and cost are all important factors when evaluating technology. Reporting capabilities and capacity increase the functionality of the system, but also increase the attractiveness to malicious third-parties. To combat this, we implement support and training to educate and prepare the organization for the proper use of technology.

​Insurance - Although the cost of training can be high, the costs of paying for the repercussions of a cyber breach can be even more expensive.

​3. Implementation: Management attitude is critical to the success of any technology action plan as the organization turns to leaders for direction. Technology implementation should be an on-going and cyclical process as the organization grows. There should be a strategy in place various situations that can impact the business such as system updates, interruptions, and data breaches.

​Insurance - Most insurance companies like to see a business continuity plan in place. When an organization can show they are able to prevent or limit the chances of a large loss, the insurance company will be more inclined to insure the company.

​What do you think?