Embracing a truly hybrid cloud strategy supported by an open architecture

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Increase flexibility.

Insurers must support and manage data, while remaining compliant with security regulations.

Cloud computing accelerates digital transformation in four ways:

1. Faster innovation with new technologies made available by partners in the ecosystem
2. Easier access to new types of data, and more ways to analyze it by using AI and analytics
3. Improved ROI by selecting the right cloud solution and the right cloud delivery model
4. Security functions and features built into cloud platforms as standard

All of these areas are part of the financial-services-ready public cloud that IBM has built to help address the requirements of financial services institutions for regulatory compliance, security and resiliency. This will help financial institutions transact with technology vendors who have met the platform’s requirements. It is the only industry-specific public cloud platform that can provide preventative and compensatory controls for financial services regulatory workloads, multi-architecture support and proactive and automated security, leveraging the industry’s highest levels of encryption certification.

To help develop the control requirements for the platform, IBM has collaborated intensively with Bank of America and other large financial companies. The financial-services-ready public cloud can enable Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and Software- as-a-Service (SaaS) providers – from the smallest FinTechs to more established vendors – to focus on their core offerings to financial institutions, with the controls for the platform put in place. In July 2020 we announced that BNP Paribas, one of Europe’s largest banks, has also joined this growing ecosystem of financial institutions and more than 30 new technology providers adopting IBM Cloud for Financial Services. IBM is creating this platform with the goal that financial services institutions can address their regulatory requirements, while creating a collaborative ecosystem that helps enable banks and their providers to confidently transact.

The path to cloud has many routes, with some insurers slowly dipping in with specific non-critical applications, while others enact sweeping cloud migrations strategies across the entire application ecosystem.

Improved flexibility to update cloud-based systems more quickly is perhaps the biggest benefit from moving on-premise workloads to the public cloud. Optimizing deployment enables insurers to respond to market changes and competition more quickly and introduce new products and services more rapidly. Now more than ever, customers are relying on digital interactions with businesses, expecting them to be seamless and secure. Businesses in every single industry are working quickly to develop new and expanded ways to digitally engage with their customers while accelerating their shift to the cloud. As enterprises grapple with modernizing operations, the benefits of their digital transformation must be balanced by the certainty that it will bring sustainable value. IBM CTO Hillery Hunter addresses the key questions around why an open architecture matters as businesses embark on their digital journey and why hybrid cloud matters to bridge the gap between the new world of cloud and traditional technology investments. Watch the replay: Why an open, hybrid cloud architecture is essential to your customer’s experience.

Together we can co-create an agile execution plan with ecosystem partners for innovation in and with the cloud.