"Back in the early 2000's, like a lumbering business slowly chugging its way towards certain death, the insurance industry decided to get with the program. Geico added its Gecko and the Caveman and Progressive added Flo. Both companies had fun and punchy ads however lacked cloud infrastructure. Just when a stagnant industry couldn't seem more non-progressive: the Hartford launched a flare of hope for the insurance industry - one that even its iconic stag probably took notice of.
The Hartford's Icononic Stag - Once a Dinosaur Now Leading a Cloud Pack
Instead of fun and punchy ads, The Hartford went another route: they focused on their customers' ultimate user experience as well as their customers' data and how it would store it in the Cloud. It focused on results-based private cloud and growing its group benefits program, mutual funds and casualty businesses.
What was so great? The clients didn't really notice. Behind the scenes it was making a user experience second-to-none - everything was as easy to use as it's always been, and according to the company's press release:
""By taking advantage of the inherent benefits that cloud computing offers, the company expects to reduce costs, improve system availability and business continuity capabilities, and bring products and technology services to market faster.""
A lesson that can be learned from this Cloud-based complete turnaround in IT infrastructure is this: the user experience (whether they know it or not) is tantamount to conventional design. Just because you build it doesn't mean they will come, but if you build it right: the user will come back.
The Road Less Traveled By: Why Intelligent Design Defines the User Experience
NOTE: Two other companies that can also be added to this post: but seem a bit obvious: Yahoo! and of course, IBM."
