The role of the modern Information Technology in Italian insurance companies

The aim of this paper is to discuss how the insurance industry has been adopting the latest Information Technology advances and exploiting the new Enterprise 2.0 applications in order to create value-adding networks, where, employees, partners and customers are the key providers of innovation. The work reports the examples of cases selected among the major insurance Italian companies in order to highlight the valuable role of the "direct" service provider within the complex process of production and consumption of policy insurances and auxiliary services. In actual fact, highly customized and innovative services as well as real user experiences are nowadays offered to different market segments. The paper contributes to the call for research on a particular service sector by addressing the unexplored issue of one-to-one marketing strategies adopted by the insurance industry in the era of modern Information Technology. More specifically, it provides ample evidence of the enormous benefits that the adoption of Enterprise 2.0 can ensure to this sector in terms of customer satisfaction and, by implication, of competitive advantage in an ever-changing and volatile market