Dudley Hones Standards at ACORD

After spending most of his career on the implementation side of the standards process, most recently at Atlantic Mutual Insurance, Ron Dudley has joined ACORD (Pearl River, NY) as vice president of standards.

"I have a lot of experience implementing standards and now I want to apply some of my knowledge to developing standards," Dudley says. "Many insurance companies have signed on with ACORD, but I want to see those carriers actually implement the standards."

At ACORD, Dudley's responsibilities will include the development and management of the ACORD standards and managing the ACORD standard-setting process. "One of my challenges will be to work with all of the different steering committees to identify the framework for the standards," Dudley says. "The business is what drives the standards, so it is very important that we don't create a standard that nobody wants to use.

"We also have to make sure the standards identify the critical business processes, reduce redundancies, add business benefit and achieve faster processing," so data is moved easily among the various business partners involved in the insurance process, Dudley adds.

With that in mind, Dudley also says he plans to use ACORD's resources wisely, adding that in the past ACORD may have tried to develop too many standards to cover too many processes. "People agree that ACORD doesn't say 'No' to enough requests" for new standards, he acknowledges. "We have to work collectively with our partners to wisely use the scarce resources to do the right thing."

Greg MacSweeney is editorial director of InformationWeek Financial Services, whose brands include Wall Street & Technology, Bank Systems & Technology, Advanced Trading, and Insurance & Technology. View Full Bio