Description: Explores the open vs. closed systems debate with regards to actuarial modeling and exposes the over-simplification. Valuable for anyone who uses models.

Description: As commodity markets evolve in tandem with advents in communications technology, the criticality of data management becomes a lynchpin of corporate success or failure. Advanced analysis on market movement can lead to substantive market gains, while an inability to assess risk in a timely fashion can hinder corporate responsiveness, stagnate growth or result in unmitigated risk. In essence, the old paradigm of data flow and management was severely limited by 1 the amount of readily available data, 2 the transmission capabilities for data, and 3 the costs of data storage and maintenance. Presented at 2010 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, Society of Actuaries, April 12-15, 2010.