CIGNA’s Storrer Builds Bridges

Orienting IT professionals to business goals is a challenge, but Scott Storrer, CIGNA's (Philadelphia.; $1.4 billion in 2004 net income) SVP of service and, as of December, IT, says getting business executives to understand IT is a bigger challenge. "Business is about service and technology," he observes. "The problem is, in most companies, business leaders have minimal IT experience."

Storrer is looking to enhance that experience by building bridges from IT to the business. To support the initiative, he is reorganizing the technology group. "We've mapped all of our key business processes, and we've realigned IT around them," Storrer explains. "For example, for consumer-directed products, we've built an IT organization solely focused on consumer-directed products, and the same for claims and other enterprise functions."

Previously, a business leader might work with 20 IT managers. Now, that leader is "joined at the hip" with a single IT leader with overall responsibility. That not only speeds interaction but also helps the business learn to leverage IT effectively. Says Storrer, "The more education that a company's IT can provide to its business partners about how they can better leverage IT resources, the better."

Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio