Anyone at all versed in behavioral economics already has some understanding of the intention-action gap, in which one’s words don’t always match deeds. For many consumers, a similar cycle develops around sustainability. They want to live more sustainable lives, but time, money or some other factor prevents them from seeing that intention through. So, if a brand were to reduce the common friction points associated with doing business with and investing in green companies, then it stands to reason it would emerge as a leader and earn more market share.

This is especially true today, as a joint report by Barkley and Jefferies Group found that 95% of consumers say sustainability is as or more important than 18 months ago. With two-thirds of consumers reporting that they base purchasing decisions on brand values, an increased focus on sustainability presents a huge opportunity for insurance companies to gain traction with consumers looking to invest in like-minded brands.

In the insurance sector, the difference between quality and cost of coverage from one brand to the next are often minimal, at best, so brand values and consumer trust are increasingly important. Either one can be the tipping point in purchasing decisions. An increased focus on sustainability, therefore, can help insurance companies not only differentiate themselves from competitors but also connect with consumers on a deeper level.

Benefits of Sustainability in the Insurance Sector

People now expect all companies to take a stance on sustainability issues. Shifting your focus from a myopic view of consumer needs to a larger view of worldly needs meets this consumer preference for sustainability while also leading to better innovation within companies. Here are some other benefits of sustainability in the insurance sector:

1. Sustainability can lead to greater profits.

The purpose of most companies is to produce profitable solutions that help meet consumers’ needs. At first glance, it can appear as if generating more profits is in conflict with doing good in the world. However, shifts in consumer attitudes, beliefs and behaviors suggest that it’s often more profitable for companies to develop and launch sustainability initiatives. The majority of consumers (60%, according to the Barkley and Jefferies report) say they’re willing to pay a premium for products from environmentally or socially conscious brands.

Take Unilever North America. The company’s commitment to sustainability has more than paid off in its revenue growth. As of 2020, 75% of Unilever’s growth has been driven by its cadre of more than 28 sustainable living brands, which include the likes of Ben & Jerry’s, Dove and Seventh Generation. SAP, a multinational software and technology company, has experienced similar results in not only revenue but also business outcomes with its increased focus on sustainability. It’s also not shy about sharing its beliefs that sustainability can be profitable and that profitability can be sustainable.

2. Sustainability can improve employee engagement.

Engaged employees are less likely to leave, thereby cutting the time and expense associated with replacing and retraining talent. Companies focused on sustainability don’t often run into questions about how to engage their team members. Sustainability efforts provide employees with a sense of belonging and the feeling of contributing to the greater good, which improves job satisfaction and overall sentiments about a company.

This isn’t to say that pay or benefits are inconsequential, but good pay and benefits don’t guarantee low turnover rates. One survey found that a majority of Millennials would accept a smaller salary to work for an environmentally responsible company. Sustainability in the insurance sector could be a cure for its talent crisis.

See also: Good, Bad and Ugly of Going Digital

3. Sustainability can support brand growth.

Word of mouth has become a critical component to brand awareness and growth in the insurance industry. The question then is, how does an increased focus on sustainability encourage positive word of mouth? With younger generations, “green” word of mouth has become a trend: Millennials especially will recommend companies with ESG initiatives to friends and family.

In fact, 75% of people who recommended a brand in a six-month period in 2021 did so because of the brand’s environmental or social responsibility. Improved word of mouth can lead to increases in the quality and quantity of viable leads.

4. Sustainability can strengthen brand reputation.

Let’s look at two companies on opposite sides of the political spectrum: Chick-fil-A and Ben & Jerry’s. Chick-fil-A might make solid nuggets, but that’s not what the business is selling; Ben & Jerry’s might make excellent ice cream, but that’s also not what the business is selling. In truth, both sell their values and service experience to customers.

How is it that these category leaders — businesses that charge more per ounce for their respective products than their competitors — continue to win? It’s the reputation of their brands. It’s the values, service and trust that bring people back. Those three factors are crucial and connected. That’s what sustainability in the insurance sector can do for your brand’s reputation.

Why should companies focus on sustainability? Sustainability begets innovation and vice versa. Though quality and price will always play a role in purchase decisions, values have become the differentiator for many consumers — 50% of consumers, in fact, choose to buy from brands that share their values, the Barkley and Jefferies report found. An increased focus on sustainability efforts creates the trust capital your insurance brand needs to remain relevant and drive profits for years to come. Besides, our planet will be better for it, and isn’t that the most important reason of all?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the fastest-growing business in the history of technology. (Per analysts at Deutsche Bank who measure such things, AWS is the fastest-growing business in history, period.) AWS also innovates faster than any other commercial technology player, averaging one product release or major upgrade per day since their founding in 2006.   

This column isn’t a commercial for AWS or the cloud. But there are useful lessons in AWS’ inception and rise to prominence that are relevant to all of us working to drive innovation in the insurance enterprise, irrespective of tool or stack.   

First, a little history. 

The year was 2000. Amazon was struggling to grow amid headlines predicting “Amazon Dot Bomb” and “Amazon Dot Toast.” It was trying to launch an e-commerce platform called Merchant.com to help third-party retailers like Target and Marks & Spencer build online shopping sites on top of Amazon’s e-commerce engine. I say “trying” because Amazon’s development teams were missing key milestones and blowing deadlines. Raise a hand if you’ve been there. I’m raising mine.      

The problem was Amazon’s legacy technology. When Amazon launched in 1994, they geared their platform to selling only their own inventory. They didn’t plan for future requirements such as shared environments and secure multi-tenancy.      

In parallel with Merchant.com, Amazon was hiring hundreds of engineers to build out their core e-commerce capabilities. More engineers, the thinking went, should result in more innovation delivered faster. But project teams, forced to provision their own database, computing and storage resources, were waiting three months for infrastructure--for projects that should’ve taken less than three months to complete. Amazon’s technology operating model, based on best practices, was proving itself too slow for the high-velocity e-commerce market Amazon was striving to create.              

Slowing revenue growth, a dwindling cash pile, nervous investors and a NASDAQ in free fall meant that everyone with a pen or keyboard was urging Amazon to cut costs, on technology in particular, to weather the storm. But Amazon went the other way, doubling their technology spending. Analysts freaked. 

Job One was to untangle Amazon’s monolithic legacy stack into a well-documented set of distinct services capable of interacting with each other through a well-defined set of application program interfaces (APIs). The good news for Amazon was Merchant.com ultimately went live. The bad news was it was a total flop. The silver lining was the Merchant.com platform was repurposed for Amazon’s Third-Party Seller network, which today delivers about half of Amazon’s e-commerce revenue.

Job Two was to build a common set of computing, storage and database resources that internal development teams could provision in minutes instead of months. The result was all good news here for Amazon as development cycles and innovation accelerated as team sizes and development costs shrank. New features such as “customer reviews” and Amazon Prime were added quickly, about as quickly as the ideas themselves were conceived.    

See also: Why Analysts Need Business Awareness

Competing against Walmart’s massive size and razor-thin 3% margins, as Amazon’s new technology operating model bore fruit, internal development teams were tasked with finding open-source alternatives to expensive commercial software. Why spend, for example, $100 million on Oracle licenses when there were open source options? Building and operating their own datacenters, Amazon likewise cost-optimized everything from building construction to CPU design to server procurement to energy consumption.  

As Merchant.com was an attempt to let other retailers leverage Amazon’s platform for their own e-commerce, AWS was about letting businesses in any industry leverage Amazon’s tools and processes to rapidly build and scale technology solutions at a low price, paying only for capacity used.   

The time between the first business case for what became AWS and writing the first line of code for what became their first product--S3? Eighteen months. Amazon spent that time forcing a specificity of thought and intent around the product, working customer-back. “Slow down,” went the internal mantra, “to move fast.”

Though several lessons can be drawn from this mini-case study, I take four:

1. What’s your real problem? What aspects are people/process-related versus technology-related? Humans tend to blame their tools when results are suboptimal. Missing targets, is it the archer or the crossbow? If it is in fact the latter, by all means accelerate replacement.
2. Are your best practices still best? The acceleration of technology innovation means best practices expire faster. This isn’t about chasing every fad. It’s about questioning core principles from time to time, especially if you’re struggling to deliver results, disconfirming beliefs.   
3. Slow down to move fast. The larger the initiative, the bet, the more planning required. “Build fast and break things” may be a winning mantra for tech startups in Silicon Valley beginning life with zero customers. But you have customers, and you can lose them if you’re not careful. Rigorously think and plan things through, always working customer-back. Speed comes later.  
4. If you believe you’re right on the first three points, then gut it out, stick with it, be prepared to be misunderstood internally and externally for what may be an uncomfortably long time. Go ahead, let the analysts freak out.

In 2021 alone, the U.S. had 1,376 tornadoes – up more than 300 from the previous year. They caused billions in damage for homeowners across the country, leaving a lasting financial impact. 

Home and renter insurance policies often don’t provide full coverage, resulting in massive out-of-pocket expenses for families with limited cash savings and immediate expenses to deal with – like temporary housing, childcare, tree removal and their insurance deductible – that cannot be ignored and cannot wait 30 or more days for the claims process to unfold. Families need flexible cash, and they need it fast.

The 2022 tornado season is upon us, and it’s expected to be even busier than last year. So, policyholders need help understanding their coverage and where they may have gaps or face risks that can endanger their financial resilience. 

Identify where current coverage falls short

As you advise your clients, it’s imperative to know what their current policies do and do not cover to ensure they’re adequately covered when disaster strikes. An average home is underinsured by 20%.

In addition, just because severe weather strikes doesn’t always mean that the insurance they have will cover it. Almost 70% of disaster damage since the '80s hasn’t been covered by insurance.

See also: Unusual Weather We're Having, Right?

Limited cash on hand

The average U.S. household savings is only $3,800, and 60% of Americans have no emergency fund. Recovering from a tornado, on the other hand, is often much more costly. The typical price for tornado repairs can range from $4,600 to $17,000. Your clients’ deductible can range anywhere from 5% to 30% of their home’s insured value. 

And, while homeowners wait for a claim to be processed, they can burn through their emergency funds.

Reasons like these are why products like Recoop Disaster Insurance were created, delivering quick cash that insured homeowners can access within days of making a claim following a declared disaster. This recovery cash is designed to be flexible so families can do what they need to get back on their feet swiftly.

With anticipated severe weather on the horizon, no one is immune from the damages caused by tornadoes. Instead of rolling the dice and helping clients after a tornado occurs, help them prepare before the busy season arrives.

Not only will your clients appreciate that their home will be covered no matter what happens, they’ll be thankful they have an insurer considering their overall financial wellbeing.

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It's Time to Rethink the Spreadsheet Paul Carroll, Editor-in-Chief of ITL The oddest venue where I've ever delivered a talk was the QEII. In 2000, a conference group had hired out the ship, which carried an audience of CIOs east for a day and a half out of New York, then did a U-turn and sailed back. The group hired me to give two talks on how the CIOs could regain control of corporate data processing following nearly two decades of decentralization caused by the spread of personal computers and local area networks. A key concern was the spreadsheet. Seemingly every person had one, containing data that might or might not be current and that might or might not come from a source that was recognized as authoritative throughout an organization. Basically, every person could have their own version of truth, and big organizations have thousands or even tens of thousands of people.  That problem persists. But the sort of theoretical solution I laid out 20-plus years ago is becoming practical today, because the massive improvement in computing power and connectivity means we can rethink what a spreadsheet is and how it should be used.  continue reading > Podcast Alert Check out Majesco's latest podcast featuring Denise Garth, Chief Strategy Officer at Majesco as she is joined by guests Abhishek Bakre, Senior Manager of Strategy and Santosh Kutty, Principal at Deloitte as they discuss how to modernize disability insurance and absence management to drive profitability and customer satisfaction. Listen Now SIX THINGS The Next Evolution of Insurance by Ron Gura Instead of simply selling consumers products, smart companies. including insurers, market themselves as companies to believe in and make part of one’s life. Read More COVID Drives Tech in Workers' Comp by Shahin Hatamian Workers’ compensation survey shows more payers are investing in electronic payment platforms and digital claims management tools. Read More The Future of Work  Sponsored by JobsOhio  As employees start to return to work after two years of mostly working remotely, smart employers are rethinking just about all aspects of how work is done to get the best of both the home and office worlds.  Register Today The Return of In-Person Events by Matteo Carbone With all the complex challenges and opportunities facing the industry, there is real benefit to meeting face to face. Read More 7 of the Wackiest Workplace Injuries by Matthew Elson The majority of workplace injuries are slips, trips or falls, but there are many unexpected injuries, such as getting hit by lightning or falling overboard. Read More Insurance Needs More Women in Leadership by Lindsey Davies Organizations that focus on gender inclusion and prioritize the advancement of women report up to 61% higher revenue growth than other companies. Read More The Risks of AI and Machine Learning by Anthony Habayeb If the proper guardrails and governance are not put into place early, insurers could face legal, regulatory, reputational, operational and strategic consequences down the road. Read More THE NEW COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE Sponsored by PwC Insurers increasingly go to market not as individual companies but as part of ecosystems -- a radical change in thinking. Watch Now  MORE FROM ITL May Focus: Claims When Dan Bricklin was a student at Harvard Business School in the late 1970s, he got tired of having to recalculate all the values for the cells in a spreadsheet and realized he could produce an electronic version of a spreadsheet that would run on a personal computer from a little company called Apple. In the process, he didn't just have software take over tedious work that had bedeviled MBA students for generations; he unleashed a wave of innovations far beyond anything he expected. Read More   Winning the War for Talent  Sponsored by PwC This webinar tackles a key issue -- maybe the key issue -- facing the insurance industry: How can we attract, train and retain the talent that we need and that the industry's mission merits. Watch Now

The retirement crisis has begun to spiral in recent years. With the pandemic, spikes in inflation, potential Social Security cuts and higher interest rates, more and more people are anxious about having enough to retire. When you consider the rising cost of healthcare and the fact that people are living longer, working well into retirement age is a potential reality for many.

As a result, many aging Americans are looking for ways to expand their savings and understand their assets. But what many don't realize is that the answer might be in their life insurance policy.

Every year, around $200 billion of life insurance will lapse or be surrendered, even though it could have been sold on the secondary market via a life settlement. It's hard to imagine that so many would leave billions on the table, but there's a good reason. Most people simply don't know life settlements are even an option. Even if they do, a lack of transparency and information makes the process so long and complex that it leads to underutilization.

Lack of Transparency Slows the Life Settlement Valuation Process 

In the traditional life settlements process, it can take months for an adviser to understand the value of a client’s life insurance policy on the secondary market, making it difficult to provide quality financial guidance.

A primary cause for this delay is a lack of access to a critical piece of information, Cost of Insurance (COI). Several variables are used to calculate the COI for a life insurance policy, such as when the insured purchased the policy, how old they were when they bought it, their health at the time, the comprehensiveness of the policy and the policy type. All of these factors affect how much it will cost to keep the policy in force over time and are essential for understanding its resale value.

But why is it so difficult to get this information? Historically, COI data is fiercely protected by life insurance companies. As a result, advisers and their clients must meander through a long and complex underwriting and selling process before they can fully understand the pros and cons of selling, keeping or surrendering a policy. 

However, AI-powered technology has the potential to open the flood gates to this data and speed up the life settlement valuation process exponentially.

See also: Time to Embrace AI in Climate Change Fight

How AI Helps Advisers See the Full Picture 

The human brain can process only four to seven variables on average at one time, but AI-powered technology can process millions of data points simultaneously. As a result, AI processing has the ability to instantly look across millions of data points to predict a COI curve and provide a data-driven life settlement valuation. 

For instance, via My Policy Predictor, Harbor Life has created an algorithm that analyzes more than 16,000 possible COI curves and matches the policyholder with the curve that best represents them. This machine learning-based calculator expedites life settlement valuations that once took advisers months to receive, making the process more accessible to all key stakeholders. Now, advisers can input a few basic questions about the insured to instantly pull a quote, with 89% accuracy, for a client's policy, and guide them on whether they should keep, sell or surrender their life insurance. 

This type of technological advancement in the life settlement space means more opportunities for advisers to not only help their clients unlock years of built-up wealth but also examine the potential for reinvestment. Historically, life settlements have been a reactive option if a client is unable to afford their insurance policy. However, technology that makes the life settlement decision process more straightforward makes it easier than ever for advisers to understand the role life insurance can play in growing a client’s wealth.

The Future of Life Settlements

With seniors expected to account for 20% of the population by 2050, giving Americans access to sufficient retirement funding has never been more crucial. In a space that has been criticized for its lack of transparency, it's possible to unlock billions in retirement funding for seniors by streamlining an outdated, gated process. 

Everyone deserves the right to know the value of their assets, and technological advancements, like the My Policy Predictor, give advisers the tools they need to solve this retirement crisis, one client at a time.

Regulatory change is slow in the insurance industry, yet the technology to serve it and other verticals keeps advancing at warp speed. In a recent survey of hundreds of senior technology leaders and business decision-makers across multiple industries, many technological efforts stand out that will propel insurers and similar financial service organizations to reduce operational costs, better engage with its customers and improve efficiencies.

Changing demographics

At the end of 2021, these tech and business leaders sounded off with views on their daily challenges, issues that tech can address and opportunities they see on the horizon. Top among them is the changing American demographics.

Generation X commands more than 20% of today’s U.S. marketplace, and Gen Z is quickly growing. Taken as a single group, these consumers are adept at modern commerce tools and–especially Gen Zers–fully expect businesses to offer a robust technological experience. Today’s youngest adults have spent their entire lives with smartphones.

They are more interested in self-serve interactions, have access to real-time information, earn more  disposable income and are more informed about their financial choices. This group boasts more independent thinkers than past generations because it's been exposed to more worldly views through the power of modern communications. Thus, they feel empowered to guide their financial independence. 

Cloud over conventional

Insurance and financial leaders recognize they must structure their products and services to meet this market segment. Leaders wish to spend more time crafting and launching these services than thinking about how they will do it. Ergo, cloud technology ties in seamlessly with this goal. 

Fifteen percent say moving to the cloud will be their top technology expense in 2022.

The concern is diminishing that the cloud cannot serve within existing regulatory frameworks. However, efforts to reduce risks from storing data here remain hyper-focused. Converting segments of operations such as  human resources, administrative, accounting and other compartmentalized functions are steps insurer leaders recognize will bring them up to modern speed while still reducing costs associated with hosting in-house all the data related to their companies. 

One of every five insurance leaders identified improving operations while reducing costs as their greatest challenge.

Technology transformation also affords insurers the ability to scale more quickly and launch products and services using reusable cloud components and architecture. While automation was always prevalent in the Insurance industry, executives are now moving to intelligent automation that can accommodate rapidly changing processes and disparate data. 

Power of automation 

Higher computing power at lower prices through the cloud gives insurance companies the means to create and operate complex systems, distribute applications to improve customer experience, keep up with changing compliance regulations and quickly adapt to changing business processes. Relieving those burdens allows insurers to direct resources on what they do best: innovate and improve products, deliver exceptional customer experience and enhance investment and investor value.

Insurance leaders also responded that the influence of artificial intelligence and machine learning on their operations and customer data would significantly improve efficiency in underwriting, claims and fraud protection and enhance personalized customer services. 

Mitigating cybercrime 

It’s no surprise that protecting customer information and cybersecurity is the top business value proposition among insurance executives. Of 15 different key drivers of business value identified, insurance leaders named cybersecurity the most prominent 15% of the time. Only cloud migration (11%) and bringing AI into operations (10%) gained similar double-digit recognition.

Reducing the risks associated with information breaches continues to grow, but cybercriminal attempts to break into that information increase, too.

Leaders want security built into the apps and integration solutions they adopt rather than patching existing weaknesses. With a trillion dollars of data crime covered by insurance over the past two years, there’s as much economic interest within this industry as any other to aggressively pursue reductions in liability and exposure to cyberattacks.

Healthcare and financial services are eyeing blockchain technology to secure their respective data and gain a competitive advantage. Insurance providers can look at these examples of integrated measures that strengthen cybersecurity in highly regulatory environments, involving enormous sums of personally identifiable information and wealth. 

Like their healthcare and financial colleagues, nearly 20% of insurance thought leaders report using such new-age technology to draw value-added insight from their data resources to compete more effectively.

See also: 20 Insurance Issues to Watch in 2022

Technical debt investment

Finally, the need to reduce technical debt among their systems is the single most significant demand business leaders wish to be remedied pronto. However, this debt finds its genesis in patchy technology transformation initiatives of the past that were designed and implemented with little to no thought on their sustainability. Three of every four executives expressed concern over their technical debt and are seeking a solution as these debts start surfacing in their balance sheets. 

The reasons are simple: Finding the technical skills necessary to keep legacy systems properly functioning gets more challenging every year. The new staff is hesitant to work on technology that’s past its due date and unfamiliar to them. And piecemeal patches to sustain legacy platforms ultimately result in more time, effort and money than is economically defensible.

Businesses seek the most significant returns on investments. Their leadership demands it. Crossing the boundary and adopting more automation, cloud storage, artificial intelligence and machine learning use into its operations can deliver those competitive results. Insurance and other business leaders recognize this. The sooner they make the transformation, the quicker their digital transformation will pay off.

In today’s digital-first environment, insurance companies absolutely need state-of-the-art systems to support every aspect of their businesses. These core systems that support policy, billing and claims functions have been foundational to the digital transformation of insurers and MGAs for years and continue to accelerate their transformation journeys today. The pandemic only elevated the need for companies to provide digital experiences to customers and employees, such as real-time payments and virtual claims submissions. And recent research suggests that this need is influencing how insurers and MGAs are purchasing core systems.

SMA's new research report, "2021 P&C Core Systems Purchasing Trends: Foundational Technology Continues to Enable Digital Transformation," analyzes core systems deals completed last year from the top solution providers in the market today, focusing on purchases by insurers and MGAs for personal, commercial and combined personal/commercial lines.

Our research has found that the overall buying trends have remained remarkably consistent over the past several years. However, we have observed a significant shift: The number of insurer buyers is decreasing, while there has been a steady increase in MGA buyers of carrier-based core systems.

What's clear is that insurance companies will only continue to rely on core systems to create digital enterprises in the future.

The oddest venue where I've ever delivered a talk was the QEII. In 2000, a conference group had hired out the ship, which carried an audience of CIOs east for a day and a half out of New York, then did a U-turn and sailed back. The group hired me to give two talks on how the CIOs could regain control of corporate data processing following nearly two decades of decentralization caused by the spread of personal computers and local area networks.

A key concern was the spreadsheet. Seemingly every person had one, containing data that might or might not be current and that might or might not come from a source that was recognized as authoritative throughout an organization. Basically, every person could have their own version of truth, and big organizations have thousands or even tens of thousands of people. 

That problem persists. But the sort of theoretical solution I laid out 20-plus years ago is becoming practical today, because the massive improvement in computing power and connectivity means we can rethink what a spreadsheet is and how it should be used. 

The basic idea is to centralize control of data even if you decentralize its expression.

So, you make sure that all important data comes from a corporate source or can be vetted centrally after someone pops it into a spreadsheet. That's not only key for data used in underwriting, claims processing or some other business process. It's key, too, for data on the size of potential markets, the economic outlook, etc. Everybody needs to be on the same page. 

You also make sure that there are live links from a spreadsheet back to its source, so the data gets updated in real time. That way, you don't make decisions based on spreadsheets that have been frozen in time, like a snapshot from months ago. The spreadsheets reflect reality, as perceived by the corporate as a whole, at any moment. 

Users can still apply analysis and expertise to the spreadsheets, but they become the means for displaying data, rather than a separate version of truth about the data itself.

Our old friend Marty Ellingsworth wrote a very smart piece recently that takes my old premise further, arguing that many spreadsheet jockeys are so tied to their individual expertise that they resist adopting cutting-edge analytical tools that can make organizations even smarter. He writes:

"The fact is, much of the underlying actuarial modeling that still drives the industry today is built on the good ol’ Excel spreadsheet. That can make integrating new high-powered analytics a bit like installing Formula One parts on an Oldsmobile.... The most tenured and credentialed practitioners work harder at becoming experts in spreadsheets than they do adopting cutting-edge tools that can handle new data.

"Shocking as that observation may be for those who’ve been following the evolution of the InsurTech space during the past several years, it makes sense. Excel has become the primary means of communication between executives on matters of importance over the course of four decades—which is the entirety of most executives’ careers. Suddenly upending that workflow is not something that’s going to happen overnight, but the industry is going to need to evolve before the cutting edge can go truly mainstream."

Marty also notes the need for syncing up all the data in spreadsheets, especially in these turbulent times. For instance, many spreadsheets related to auto claims contain historical assumptions about the cost of replacement parts and about depreciation, even though costs for parts have been soaring and cars have been appreciating in value when they're driven off a dealer lot, not depreciating.

Now, I've always loved the origin story of the electronic spreadsheet -- a student at Harvard Business School in the late 1970s got tired of having to recalculate by hand all the values for a paper spreadsheet once he altered even one assumption even slightly. Talk about necessity being the mother of invention. That student -- Dan Bricklin, a lovely fellow who deserves to be famous even outside of computer circles -- happened to have a degree in computer science from MIT and to be acquainted with the then-new Apple II. He and his friend Bob Frankston wrote the code for a spreadsheet, and the rest is history.

But 40 years is a long time even for a seminal software tool. It's time to rethink our reliance on the spreadsheet and handle data better while clearing the way for even more advanced tools.

Cheers,

Paul 

ITL:

What is the big problem you’re seeing that you're attacking on behalf of insurance agents and brokers?

Yamini Bhat:

Many of the sales tools out there are built keeping the carrier in mind and aren’t really built with the seller in mind as the central user. So, an agent, wholesaler or a broker needs to touch at least six, sometimes 10, different systems to get their work done well – systems from which they get marketing collateral, manage their own learning and development, track their compensation, do their goal planning, etc., as well as systems that track if any of their customers or relationships have had any service issues.

You have tens of these scenarios within a day. The massive challenge for an agent or a broker, who has maybe 500 relationships, is tracking what's happening across eight to 10 systems, and then trying to be most effective within the limited time that they have.

So, the problem we are targeting is seller productivity.

ITL:

How do you attack that issue? I assume you pull everything together from multiple systems into some sort of dashboard.

Bhat:

The baseline is pulling everything together. But to be able to do it intelligently requires a couple of things to happen.

One is that you have to create a view of what should matter most to agents and brokers, without the need for them to have to stitch together context across systems. So, we have playbooks for scenarios like P&C selling or renewals, brokerage for commercial lines of a certain type or life or retirement or group benefits.

The second thing is, our system learns across multiple sellers, almost 250,000 sellers across eight countries, to identify what behaviors have had the most impact in certain contexts. You figure out what the top 5% are doing that the others could also manage behaviorally: frequency of engagement, how agents nurture their customers, how they build relationships, etc.

Third, a lot of the understanding of customer needs sits in the agent’s head post meeting. Finding an easy way for them to capture and use this information via seamlessly integrating it with wider data sets for learning and guidance on next best actions is crucial.

ITL:

What sorts of suggestions pop up for an agent using your system?

Bhat:

All of this would translate into: Paul, you have three hours this morning before your first meeting at 12. Here are seven calls you could make in the three hours before that. Call No. 2 is because your customer Charlie is coming up for renewal within 65 days. Why is that recommendation coming up now? Because, for that product line and this geography, we have seen that anyone who's done more than 95% renewal rates on their customers has gotten in touch with their customer for annual renewal 45 to 65 days beforehand, not plus or minus seven days, as is the typical playbook.

The tool might also say, Hey, because your 12 o'clock meeting is in midtown, here is someone within five minutes of where you’re going whom you haven’t spoken to in six months, who has a particular problem and whom you might be able to upsell. So, click here to send a message and see if that person will meet with you.

Even the best salesperson can plan actively and be extremely productive and intelligent, probably for one of the five days of the week. But they're not continuously planning. That’s near impossible because they're spending a lot of time in front of the customer.

Our users spend an average of 60 minutes a day on our platform, but not all at once, like they’re sitting in front of a system. They interact with our app 10 or 12 times a day, in bursts of four or five minutes.

ITL:

What makes a system like yours possible now, as opposed to a few years ago?

Bhat:

Customer expectations have changed. Any financial adviser is now expected to cover multiple products, almost to be a risk and asset allocation consultant. An agent today, vs. five years ago, has to understand a much broader range of customer needs and be able to position a lot more products.

COVID has meant that customers are also becoming much more familiar with a digital way of doing business. It's much more important now for them to be served on time, contextually, rather than have a longstanding relationship. When I have this pain point, who can serve me now?

So, you have the agent in an increasingly complex world, trying to serve a customer across their portfolio of needs right at the moment when the customer might need help. Agents need to be able to draw on multiple companies and be able to engage with their systems to get the right information at the right time. Magnify that complexity by 500 relationships an agent might hold, and the need for a system like ours is clear.

ITL:

This is great. Thanks.

I've been a fan of dashboards as a way of monitoring and managing business operations ever since I heard about one, way back in 1995. The homegrown software was not only a novelty for the time but a surprise in other ways, too: It wasn't being implemented by some U.S. multinational based on the latest thinking out of Silicon Valley; it had been developed for a family cement business in Mexico. 

So, I wrote an article about that business, Cemex, for the front page of the Wall Street Journal, where I was the Mexico City bureau chief at the time. I was pleased to see that, in the ensuing years, the dashboard played a key role in Cemex's expansion into a major player internationally (it is currently the fifth-largest cement producer in the world) and made its CEO, Lorenzo Zambrano, something of a rock star in business circles.

The initial iteration of the dashboard simply presented Zambrano with green, yellow and red lights that showed the status of the company's many operations. But, unlike with other businesses' reporting systems, those lights changed in real time, not based on some monthly or even weekly review, and he could drill down into the systems to see the source of any problems. We visited his plant in Puebla, where he showed me that, from the computer he had with him, he could monitor the instruments managing operations there and see, for instance, whether there was some fluctuation in the temperature of the kiln (which needs to operate at some 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.)

If an old-line family business in Mexico could benefit greatly from a dashboard more than 25 years ago, why not agents and brokers everywhere in today's digital world?

We seem to be getting there. 

I chatted with Yamini Bhat, founder and CEO of Vymo, which just raised $22 million in Series C funding for its software that helps sales teams in financial services improve their productivity. The software does a lot more than show green, yellow and red lights. It helps agents manage their schedules and prompts them, for instance, on best practices about when to approach clients about renewals and on when certain clients might be open to cross-selling or up-selling. 

I think you'll find the interview illuminating, both about what's possible now and about where technology can take agents and brokers in years to come.

Cheers,

Paul