Organisational design and strategy
Editorial by Simon Phipps
What to do once InsurTech opens Pandora’s Box?
In this month’s edition of InsurTech Insights, we are turning our focus to arguably one of the most important of all considerations – organisational design.
At The Digital Insurer, as you’d expect, we are ‘all in’ on digital. And we view InsurTech as the key to opening-up Pandora’s Box of challenges and opportunities facing the insurance sector. However, we always go to some lengths to stress the role of digital technologies as enablers. First and foremost, true business success can only be achieved with a compelling, differentiated vision and business strategies.
Next to this comes the people – the heart and soul of the business – and the way the systems, values and beliefs are aligned to energise and drive business success.
KPMG’s Pat Kneeland and Kabir Sadarangani take a considered look at one of the big challenges and opportunities brought about by the rise of InsurTechs – how large, often risk-averse and ‘slow’ insurers can work effectively with these agile, creative and hungry new ventures.
Pat and Kabir clearly lean on their first-hand experience in their report – offering us a practical series of tips to help make the experience of insurers and InsurTechs working together, a better one for all involved. All their tips make sense – with the one stand-out for me being ‘lead with the need’ – all too often at TDI we see InsurTechs running around with solutions trying to find a problem – and insurers being attracted (and distracted!) by these ‘shiny new toys’. Half the battle is ensuring you’re clear on what problem or opportunity you’re trying to solve before you do anything else.
Taking a different tack (if you’ll forgive the pun), Rick Huckstep challenges us to think about whether insurers are ready to ‘burn the boats’ yet? Drawing parallels with a by-gone era, Rick makes the strong case for insurers needing to go ‘all in’ and accept that tinkering with incremental change is no longer enough. Amazon is now a defacto retail distribution model, something that in a relatively short time span of 20 years has left many traditional retailers and distributors out in the cold. Insurers can only avoid a similar fate by ramping up their change efforts and mobilising larger-scale transformation efforts now.
And again, in a broader sense, Rick argues, this is where organisational design comes in, and has a pivotal role to play. Organisational design needs to move from linear and silo’d to an holistic, 3-pillar model. And at the core of future success for insurers is an un-resounding commitment to technology, permeating all aspects of organisational design.
You can also join our interactive discussion on the implications of digital for organisational design by signing-up for our webinar taking place on 4th September at 10am (EST) 2pm (GMT) 10pm (HK/SG) here
Yours sincerely & digitally,
Simon Phipps
Head of Asia & Global Development
Is the insurance industry ready to burn the boats?
Rick makes the strong case for insurers needing to go ‘all in’ on digital and accept that tinkering with incremental change is no longer viable.
Get the most out of your InsurTech partnership
KPMG’s Pat Kneeland and Kabir Sadarangani offer practical tips to help make the experience of insurers and InsurTechs working together, a better one for all involved.