Dr Stephanie Friedrich has focused on insurance fraud for years. In this issue of .experience, she spoke with us about the changes Big Data and analytics are bringing to the industry.

Smart and predictive maintenance refers to all technical and organizational measures that use digital tools, to rapidly increase the maintenance and service efficiency. Thereby on the one hand creating new business opportunities and on the other hand reducing costs. A central component of smart maintenance is the collection, processing and analysis of data from machines, plants and even whole production facilities. The goal is to detect errors and defects in advance, before they occur. This makes maintenance more effective and prevents breakdowns. It saves costs and resources. In this interview Anastasia Rachmann from ERNI Switzerland talks about why a company should invest into smart maintenance and what its advantages are.

The Swiss Banking domain is facing a change. There are factors and economical and political framework conditions which banks are exposed to. These conditions are making their existence a challenge, and if nothing changes, the financial institutions will lose their revenues and contact with the clients.

The Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain are relatively new technologies, with the latter being the younger invention. Both are highly used all over the Internet as top tech buzzwords for attracting attention or intriguing the reader. This intrigue obviously exists, as you are curiously reading this article to find out more about this technological blending and how it impacts our society.

Today, more and more companies – from the manufacturing sector to the engineering industry – are starting to use digital twins to optimise products, refine processes and predict possible failures. What is the technology all about and when to take it into account – we spoke to Anastasia Rachman, ERNI Switzerland.

The perspective from which we look at health insurers is changing. With the shift to an ecosystem, insurers are transforming from a pure service provider to a health manager that accompanies the patient along the entire customer journey. This, in turn, has a huge impact on the perception of the customer – from the bad guy who doesn’t want to pay the treatment bills to someone who helps to manage the customer’s wellbeing to avoid future costs. This creates a whole new set of business model opportunities and exponential innovation within the healthcare industry, with many insurance companies tipped to become such a partner in healthcare. Accompanying the customer along the entire journey and orchestrating the various touchpoints and stakeholders has many benefits besides changing customer perception. Insurance companies can automate, control costs and create value – extending the value chain along the treatment path. Healthcare is no longer limited to business days and office hours. More and more, it’s about 24/7 treatment.

The healthcare ecosystem is expanding towards including new types of data, new methods for collecting and analyzing them, and including new players. The future of healthcare is likely to be driven by digital transformation enabled by interoperable data and open secure platforms. Health will likely be about maintaining wellness rather than responding to illness. According to McKinsey, 30% of global revenue will be attributable to ecosystems by 2025. It is expected that 12 distinct and massive ecosystems will form around basic human and organisational needs.

In our series Meet our experts, we move now from MedTech to the Manufacturing domain. Thorsten Ulbricht joined ERNI as Principal Consultant in the area of IoT. Read about his passion for all aspects related to IoT and Smart Manufacturing.