If the dotcom collapse taught us anything, it's that the biggest spender doesn't always win. Perhaps no old-line company makes this point more convincingly than insurance giant American International Group. Meantime, the AIG Global E-Business unit is experimenting with using the Internet to automate procurement and cut the paper flow among AIG's 1,600 separate insurance companies, each specializing in industrial, home and life policies in different geographic regions. The company is unusually guarded about how much it spends on e-business, revealing only that it's accounting for a growing percentage of its overall IT budget. What's known is that AIG is holding steady as market-share leader in many commercial insurance lines against rivals Chubb, CNA, Liberty Mutual and Travelers Insurance.
Observers say there's good reason for insurance companies to move cautiously into e-business.
The site, launched in March 2000, offers news and analysis to help executives evaluate the risk of doing business in particular industries or regions. Premium content includes analysis from sources such as Kiplinger and Stratfor, said Gerald Komisar, senior vice president in charge of AIGonline. AIG is considering adding services such as customized reports and consulting this year, Komisar said. The Vignette content management system behind AIGonline is one of AIG's largest technology investments of late, said e-business CIO Al Feygenson. The software, working with an Oracle8i database, stores, catalogs and serves Web content, such as internally generated reports and content from third-party information providers.