Partner with external service providers to drive successful transformation

The pace of digital transformation is accelerating, and insurers can’t do it all alone. Increasingly they are seeking partnerships with external service providers—not only because of the technical and process-related expertise this can bring but also because, as companies extend their global reach, it can give access to bilingual talent.

However, not all such partnerships go smoothly or deliver the intended results. Difficulties integrating with existing systems, problems establishing a shared vision and poor governance are among the problems commonly encountered. What does it take to get it right?

As a leader in digital transformation that works with insurance partners around the globe, Genpact is well placed to answer that question. The company has a strong focus on helping its insurance partners adapt and thrive in an increasingly joined-up, virtual marketplace.

Genpact’s digital talent, and its ability to tailor strategic relationships to suit individual partners, has made it an attractive choice for insurers with a range of needs. From target operating model design to implementing automation and embedding analytics and artificial intelligence (AI), Genpact’s involvement with the industry is wide-ranging and long-running.

As part of its target operating model exercise, Genpact identifies opportunities for clients to leverage digital resources to improve the customer and employee experience, harness data insights via data engineering, analytics, and cloud strategy, and drive cost efficiencies. While the insurance world has been a laggard in this realm, it is rapidly catching up, says Mohita Sajwan, chief operating officer for insurance at Genpact.

“Now they’re well and truly on that journey and moving from their existing infrastructure to the cloud infrastructure,” she says. This is where service providers have a key role to play.

“Digital transformation requires people to have a lot of knowledge which, over the years, we have enriched by bringing in experts from the industry—people who have been on the other side of the table who are now part of our service line,” she explains.

The power of a new perspective

To achieve successful digital transformation, a whole new approach is often needed. At its heart, Genpact helps companies think differently about how they run their businesses. Within the insurance world, Erik Stockwell, Genpact’s head of consulting and transformation services for insurance, sees a lot of companies that are still set up on a linear model, with the customer at one end and a bound policy at the other.

“We help clients think differently about how to change the way of working and use new tools and new capabilities to present something that is a different experience for brokers, clients, and consumers, rearranging that step-by-step process into something that’s more dynamic and bringing consulting, digital and analytics together in one integrated way,” he says.

Some of the top needs Stockwell sees among insurers relate to data.

“A lot of changes have to happen because the data is not in a place where clients need it to be and they don’t necessarily trust the insights that are coming out of the data,” he says. “We’re doing a lot of work on data strategy, data engineering and getting data quality into a place where it can help drive all of the downstream capabilities.”

Insurers can do this in a variety of ways: one is using AI/machine learning extraction capabilities that can transform vast amounts of unstructured data into a structured format without the need for human intervention.

A second is by blueprinting digital transformation: bringing together design thinking, knowledge of the insurance ecosystem, and expertise in the latest digital tools to enable clients to get where they need to go.

“It’s about helping clients in a more directed fashion, so we understand your ‘as is’, we do a lot of design thinking about what you should get and do, and we infuse that with our knowledge,” says Stockwell.

Intelligent automation is a core element—companies are working to automate key processes to improve efficiencies and eliminate costs. Genpact has a diagnostic tool for process health called ProcIndex, which helps it identify the best places to apply automation.

Genpact also identifies system bottlenecks by taking timestamp data out of legacy systems and running it through its process-mining tools to see the sticking points.

“Once you can see where your workflows are getting stuck, you can then look at doing it differently, automating processes and looking at integrated workflows to drive more straight-through underwriting and claims processing and then move all that out to the cloud,” says Stockwell.

What should insurers look for in external service providers?

The accelerated pace of digital transformation has made insurers keener than ever to partner with external service providers—but many digital implementations fail, usually because the companies have not formed a clear enough up-front definition of their requirements.

“Companies want to focus on their strengths and then bring partners such as Genpact in who specialise in certain areas of expertise,” says Sajwan. “Because we work with different carriers, we have a bird’s eye view of how different companies are tackling data and technology challenges.

“We’re a trusted partner to many insurers on their transformation journey, so we have the understanding and capabilities that make us an easy choice for companies to work with.”

A key part of Genpact’s success is its work to ensure systems are successfully integrated. Stockwell notes that Genpact’s broad perspective strengthens its ability to do this.

“A core differentiator is the fact that we are technology-agnostic, so if a company already has a digital strategy in place and they’ve moved down the path of digital transformation, we’re very happy to sit side by side with other vendors, or pull third party vendors in,” he says.

“We’re not an IT product company, we’re a services company—a process-led company that partners with companies that have spent time building products and building capabilities that are mature.”

He adds that external service providers that operate on a process level are better equipped to achieve successful digital implementations.

“By drawing in visioning, design thinking, project management and business analysis, you’re interfacing with the client on a process level. You’re building in new technologies and new processes as opposed to rebuilding the old processes. Also, we’re building things to work because ultimately we may be running them for our partners.”

How to thrive in a partnership model

Sajwan says that for a partnership to succeed, it’s vital to create a shared vision, with shared goals and values, and to cultivate a mutual respect between the partners. Genpact’s partnership with Aspen is a case in point.

Genpact has transformed and runs middle and back office capabilities for Aspen—from policy processing to claims processing, finance and actuarial, compliance and regulatory reporting support. Digital capabilities are embedded throughout, with a focus on unstructured and structured data opportunities, ways to automate and ways to bring in better data discipline. This extends to exploring applications of technologies such as AI and robotics.

“From the outset we were very focused on establishing the common and joint objectives with Aspen,” she says. “We’ve established trust and a one-team culture, so very candid feedback is exchanged. We listen to it, we action it, and there is trust that you can bring issues to the table, and that both partners will work with a one-team mindset to solve these.

“Relationships should be built on the fact that you always go beyond your defined charter: you always have to have an eye on what more can be done to drive better value for the client.”

Stockwell agrees that partners have to be extremely transparent with each other, adding that they need to understand that they are working together to move down a path of change. The less siloed the two parties are, the better.

“Transparency and working as one team are highly important elements in making this successful,” he says.

He notes that it’s important to keep the blueprint in view and to execute on it, working steadily through the change management process. When it comes to helping clients think through their change agendas, Genpact takes a proactive approach.

“Because we know our clients’ businesses so well, we can package up a solution that is different and transformational and then take it to the client, as opposed to going to them and trying to figure it out there,” he says.

Cultivating a shared vision

The need for understanding and close collaboration extends across all the parties involved. Transformation projects typically include multiple vendors, so it’s important for all parties to be on the same page and able to work harmoniously towards a shared vision.

“It needs to be clear what the roles and responsibilities are and where the decisions rights lie,” says Stockwell. “It’s also important to be communicating with the teams that are on the ground.”

He adds that any transformation journey must include change management experts who understand the methodologies involved. As part of this, it can be helpful to take a fresh look at how to assess the human investment and impact of change.

“Typically, people plot initiatives along the lines of effort versus value,” he says. “We’ve changed the ‘value’ metric to ‘friction’—so something that is very easy to do, but very hard to adopt, moves into a different spot on the matrix, because it’s high friction but low effort. Insurers’ priorities about what they do often shift when they realise this.”

A key characteristic of a successful partnership, in Sajwan’s view, is that you view your client’s business as if it is your own.

“That means you take full accountability, and you make sure you’re looking at everything that can possibly be done,” she says.

Za Petiwalla, deputy group chief operations officer of Aspen, says this works well in practice.

“We get advice from Genpact,” he says. “We get input and ideation from the Genpact teams. There’s a lot of positivity in terms of driving a change agenda for a common good, and that is really powerful.”

Sajwan adds that one of the things that Aspen has done extremely well from the beginning of its partnership with Genpact has been to merge its and Genpact’s identities, setting up a vision of a combined Aspen India and Aspen UK, as opposed to defining these operations as two separate companies.

“We operate as a single team,” agrees Petiwalla. “Those cultural shifts that have enabled us to start moving beyond supplier and outsourcer relationship have been really powerful. They’ve set the tone for what I think is yet to come in terms of moving up the value chain towards a service-centric outcome.”

The ability to operate as a single team does not happen spontaneously; Petiwalla emphasises that work has to go into cultivating a shared vision and mutual understanding.

“We’ve done work to foster the relationship, including many site visits,” he says. “We’ve encouraged our teams to visit the Genpact office and work with the teams during peak times to get a feel for what it’s like being on the floor, and to engage with the teams in a more positive manner.

“We’ve also encouraged Genpact staff to come onshore when appropriate and work with our teams in our offices to understand the other side of the equation: what does a busy renewal at 1/1—when you write a third of your annual revenue on one day—feel like in the office at this end, and what does it feel like in the office at that end?

“Having gone through that common experience they have developed empathy and a better understanding, and all of that contributes to two teams bonding and gelling in a way that drives a better outcome.”

The importance of governance

A good governance model is vital to cultivating such a shared vision, not least because it ensures that everyone feels able to contribute their ideas and knows the process for doing so.

“Governance is not about necessarily creating the old version of the vendor-client relationship; it’s a partnership focused on driving change, and everybody has to be in this trust mode to generate better ideas and try them out,” says Stockwell.

To boost idea generation, Genpact has a programme that allows every individual, regardless of the capacity in which they engage with a client, to put forward ideas which they believe will drive benefits for the client.

“It helps us establish a mindset and culture in our organisation where we are constantly training our people to look for opportunities to improve the way things are being done today,” Sajwan says.

Another key task, which Genpact carries out with Aspen and other clients every year, is the creation of a transformation roadmap that outlines what the partners want to accomplish together.

“We continue to monitor how we are progressing on that in different governance meetings at different levels of the organisation,” says Sajwan. “We conduct sessions that bring the teams together to think about how things can be done differently—and that creates the culture for people on both sides to start thinking about new ideas.”

Sajwan adds that a good governance model looks different for different organisations, because each is on its own unique transformation journey. They have their own unique cultures and will have their own unique challenges or opportunities, but there are certain common features, she says.

“A good governance structure has the guiding principles that allow you to be clear about your desired destination, cultivate your vision at multiple levels, and create a platform for communication that is clear, transparent, and strong,” she explains.

“You have to make sure that you’re taking different parts of the organisation along with you on that journey, so we would typically think of setting up a governance model that works in three to four different tiers.”

Getting the basics right

As a starting point for a partnership, Stockwell highlights the importance of examining the difference between how people think processes work within their organisation, and how they work in reality.

“We take a four-pillar approach: on the front end, we make sure we understand what’s happening externally; then we want to interview the internal participants to understand what’s happening in the business based on what people think; and then there is the process-mining tool.

“When we compare the findings with what’s happening in people’s minds, a lot of times you see a difference between what the interviewee said, and what the system says is actually happening—so that four-pillar approach gives us a much more robust starting point to drive these programmes out and more insights to drive back to the client.”

When it comes to creating and implementing a solution, the governance structure should incorporate clear measures of success at every level of the roadmap.

“It’s important that you are constantly listening to feedback from the customer and adapting what you’re doing,” says Sajwan. “Communication is very important, and that needs to extend to the broader teams as well.”

Structured change management practices are also vital.

“As we started on the transformation journey with Aspen, we put in place a very structured change management programme,” says Sajwan. “As part of that we were constantly looking at how we communicate the vision of the new Aspen to employees across both sides: we needed to give people the comfort that this change is what is going to allow us to be ready for the future.”

Mohita Sajwan is chief operating officer for insurance at Genpact. She can be contacted at:  mohita.sajwan1@genpact.com

Erik Stockwell is head of consulting and transformation services for insurance at Genpact. He can be contacted at: Erik.Stockwell@genpact.com