Enterprise Architecture Critical to an Effective Infrastructure

An enterprise architecture serves as a blueprint for new development and as a map of existing functionality.

A critical best practice for building an effective infrastructure is to use enterprise architecture as the foundation. That foundation serves as a blueprint for new development and as a map of existing functionality.

But not every company has the same concept of what its enterprise architecture is or how it is developed. With a rapidly changing insurance landscape, in which adaptability is essential for survival, developing this architecture is critical for the success of the modern insurer.

ACORD and its members have begun work on the development of an ACORD Framework that provides many key pieces for the development of members' own architectures. The framework contains different pieces of the overall pie: a business dictionary with standard terms and definitions, a capability model with a common set of abilities and activities, an information model that gives a comprehensive view of all insurance concepts, a component model that provides the building blocks for application development and integration, and a data model for data modeling and validation. Used independently or collectively, these pieces can give companies valuable input to jump-start building an effective infrastructure.

As the insurance industry reacts to the complexities of data management, system integration, regulatory compliance and multiple-channel distribution, standards are invaluable in the development of a sound enterprise architecture.