Frank Berger

Creating Competitive Advantage with Electronic Commerce: a Study of the German Insurance Industry Frank Berger

MA-Thesis / Master, die am 01.12.1999 erfolgreich an einer Internationale Wirtschaftshochschule in Großbritannien im Fachbereich Business Administration eingereicht wurde. Abstract: As electronic commerce is quickly increasing within some industries such as computers, software and retail banking the question arises whether and how insurance companies can profit too. This dissertation evaluates the impact of electronic commerce on the German insurance industry with the overall goal of creating competitive advantage. The dissertation proceeds by reviewing the literature for definitions and perspectives of electronic commerce, the suitability of electronic commerce for insurance products and services, the impact on existing business processes and value chains as well as the sources for creating competitive advantage within a mature insurance industry. Additionally, its organizational implications have also been examined. This dissertation contains fieldwork on the issues focused on in theory. Primary data was gathered using a questionnaire and a few interviews that were conducted with Chief Information Officers (CIO). The results of these activities were analysed and discussed by comparing them with both theory and experiences of other industries. Table of Contents: |Abstract|1 1.|Introduction|2 1.1|Objectives|2 1.2|Approach|3 2.|Hypothesis and Objectives|4 3.|The German insurance industry|5 3.1|Status quo|5 3.2|Future trends|7 4.|Literature review|10 4.1|E-Commerce - characteristics and perspectives|10 4.2|Insurance products and services in electronic commerce|14 4.3|Electronic commerce and the value chain|17 4.4|Competitive advantage|20 4.5|Business processes within the insurance industry|26 4.6|Organisational implications for electronic commerce|31 4.7|Success factors for Electronic commerce|34 4.8|Summary of literature research|35 5.|Fieldwork|39 5.1|Research and objectives|39 5.2|Methodology and scope - outline|39 5.3|Questionn...