Information and Transformation at Swiss Re: Maximizing Economic Value

Abstract

In 2007 Swiss Re was striving to maximize economic value, a metric that would allow the company to assess its performance over time despite the volatility of the reinsurance industry. Maximizing economic value required that decision makers throughout the company understood the risk profiles of individual investments and the performance profiles of individual investment instruments. Swiss Re management had recognized several years earlier that the firm had to globalize processes and share data to provide needed information to decision makers. This case describes Swiss Re’s journey from a regional to a global firm and highlights the role of information technology in enabling the standardization and sharing of the firm’s global processes and data. Swiss Re was still working in 2007 to drive the benefits of its global process environment, but decision makers were learning to take advantage of enhanced information.