Guidewire (NYSE: GWRE) held its customer conference, Guidewire Insurance Forum, in London yesterday. The in-person event brought together international thought leaders to share best practices relevant to the EMEA general insurance market, and provided an opportunity to collaborate with industry peers, as well as connect with the Guidewire team.
Guidewire’s chief executive officer, Mike Rosenbaum, talked about the diversity of Guidewire’s customer community, nearly 70 strong in 18 countries across EMEA, from Tier 1 insurers to small greenfield companies. He acknowledged the variety of unique, and also common, innovation strategies employed by this community; underpinned by a desire to reduce implementation and upgrade cost as well as simplify innovation. Rosenbaum confirmed Guidewire’s commitment to EMEA through ongoing investment in market solutions, framed by Guidewire’s transformation to a cloud service. While this transformation is hard, it is also necessary, he concluded, and Guidewire Cloud Platform has evolved to power innovation and agility through go-to-market, data-driven, and digital strategies.
The following Guidewire speakers also presented:
Diego Devalle, chief product development officer, focused on how Guidewire Cloud Platform has evolved to continuously innovate, with state-of-the-art digital engagement and actionable insights from embedded analytics;
Laura Drabik, chief evangelist, spoke about how embedded insurance combines core, digital, and data to help insurers secure a competitive edge, as well as Guidewire’s open API that allows insurers to access new customer pools;
Ian Gibbard, London Market lead, and Paul Mallett, principal product manager, talked about Guidewire’s London Market roadmap to deliver policy, underwriting, and claims capability tailored to the London Market, and support continued modernisation;
Will McAllister, vice president, head of Global Legal, illustrated how Guidewire Cloud is enabling European insurers to adapt to complex and frequently challenging regulations, as well as running safe, secure, and resilient operations;
Christina Colby, chief customer officer, and Annemarie Bruch, senior director Transformation Strategy, described the enhanced Guidewire Cloud engagement model that can support Guidewire customers to reach their goals; and
Charles Clarke, vice president sales, Digital, Data & Analytics, explained Guidewire’s vision of how data and analytics are creating unprecedented opportunities for differentiation.
Brian Desmond, Guidewire’s chief marketing officer, introduced the inaugural Guidewire EMEA Outstanding Achievement Awards, with honours going to Colonnade (Luxembourg), Direct Line Group (UK), P&V (Belgium), and Tryg (Denmark). Each winner took to the stage to share their experiences using Guidewire technology, and the insights they have gained.
Before concluding, the conference heard a panel discussion, moderated by Christina Colby, on how Guidewire Cloud can accelerate innovation; with Rudi Serron, chief information officer, P&V, Steen Wung-Sung, director, finance & development, Claim DK, Tryg, and Vittorio Giusti, former chief executive officer, Aviva Italia.