ICT AND NEW SERVICE EXPERIENCE IN ITALIAN INSURANCE INDUSTRY

The aim of this paper is to discuss how the insurance industry has changed its way of conducting business in recent years by the role of ICT. The insurance industry has been adopting the latest Information Technology advances and exploiting the ICT 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 (Generali) 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. The paper addresses the need for research on a particular service sector by indicating the unexplored issue of one-to-one marketing strategies adopted by the insurance industry in the era of modern Information Technology. The paper provides evidence of the enormous benefits that the adoption of new service experience can ensure to this sector in terms of customer satisfaction and, by implication, of competitive advantage in an ever-changing and volatile market.