$100million — Follow the Money: Investment in Innovation Ventures

The announcement yesterday that MassMutual has set up its own fund to invest in innovations that may/will affect life insurers is another move demonstrating how real money is being bet on disruption.

Here is the link to their press release site: http://ift.tt/1xc16qc

Celent is aware of several organizations which have set up similar funds. These are not 3rd party venture funds, but are managed, directed, and owned wholly by insurers.

These moves signal that innovation leaders are increasing investments to discover new ways of responding to customers’ needs. The difference from past behavior is that insurers want to own the technology, not just buy it once it is available on the market.

In these companies a first mover advantage strategy is replacing the age-old fast follower approach. The bet is that, as technology investments pay off, patents and expertise barriers will prevent others from even being able to follow. Insurers will gain advantage because they own a protected capability, or they will be able to license it and capture an alternative revenue stream.

Stay tuned. It’s going to be exciting!

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The Efficiency CIO vs the Agility CIO

Craig Beattie

I wanted to take a moment to discuss two CIO archetypes. I had the occasion to see a panel recently where CIOs from different ends of this scale were sat next to each other to discuss a common topic. Having grown up in application development and worked in Enterprise Architecture I found myself split on how to approach change and investment.

First with my EA hat on. For those who have talked to me about Enterprise Architecture you may have heard me espouse the view that it is frequently focused on efficiency. EA is a great tool for mapping out current state and understanding change. Two of the key outcomes of EA are highlighting gaps in change, infrastructure, applications and the organisation as well as highlighting duplication. Duplication obviously yields opportunities for rationalisation and efficiency with what is typically an easy business case to assemble.

As an EA it can be easy to become focused on making investments in IT highly efficient, keeping a simpler applications architecture and making the right large investments in IT.

With my EA hat on I align with the efficiency CIO. Making large, meaningful investments in IT change that has the best promise of return on that investment. The key is to have the big view of change and protect future change from complexity. Here, change is executed selectively, as reliably as possible using the right resources at the best possible cost.

Now with my application developer hat on. Here my interest is in how do create new software and grow software assets to better meet the customers needs. With this hat on I want more change, to create more software to satisfy the many diverse requirements of the customers in the organisation. As a software engineer or application developer I see where parts of the organisation are starved of simple change, starved of access to skills like mine to continuously improve their position.

Here I observed what I have called here the Agility CIO. The CIO who is the developers champion, who values the ability to create new software and is happy to have the IT landscape grow to assist the business in similarly growing. Why not throw some IT folks, either internal or with partners, at a business problem and create something new? There needs to be adoption of pre-built assets, re-use, re-factoring, replacement – but this is a natural result of engineering and something we trust developers to execute as part of their role. Of course this means having good developers who are well paid, rather than the cheapest resources available. Further, with new software and expensive developers complexity and cost base tends to increase over time as well.

There is a role for both types of CIO, each organisation has different priorities whether they’re an insurer, intermediary, vendor, start-up, etc. Further, these priorities change and the CIO needs to balance their approach to change along this continuum. Indeed there will be parts of the organisation where the Efficiency CIO is most appropriate in reigning in unproductive change, and other parts facing stiff growth challenges that need an Agility CIO.

Where is your IT organisation on this scale? Where should it be? What is a good balance? I’d love to hear your feedback.

Celent is looking to understand how fast is fast, as well as how investment can be protected or future-proofed in a survey live at the moment. We’d be happy to share the results to those who share their views…

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6.24.2014 Celent Insurance Webinar: BPO in Insurance

Mike Fitzgerald, Senior Insurance Analyst

This event is free to attend for Celent clients, flex-plan clients, and the media. Non-clients can attend for a fee of US$250. If you are unsure of your client status, please contact Chuck Smith at csmith@celent.com or at 617-262-3125.

Please click here for more information.

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Apple Takes a Bite at the Internet of Things—Where are Insurers?

Apple has just announced two new “robust frameworks” for developers that are aimed squarely at two of the hottest sectors in the Internet of Things (IoT): HealthKit and HomeKit (http://ift.tt/1pMLVBK).

The IoT connects people and non-human things. HealthKit facilitates communication between fitness apps (think fitness bands) and health apps (think doc in a box). HomeKit uses Siri to poll and control household appliances and systems (heating and cooling, lighting, security (and eventually entertainment?). Everyone who saw “Her” and wishes they could achieve a higher level of intimacy with an AI/Machine Learning avatar, can now (according to Apple’s PR) “tell Siri you are “going to bed” and it could dim the lights, lock your doors, close the garage door and set the thermostat.”

Apple also announced some initial partners: the Mayo Clinic for HealthKit; and Philips Lighting for HomeKit—both strategically good, and household names (so to speak).

What is missing from this announcement is any mention of how health insurers or homeowners insurers could participate in what Apple wants to be a foundational step for connecting networked sensors to data stores, and then using analyses of that data to better price, underwrite, and control losses.

The iPhone (and other smart phones) have changed parts of the claims process, and basic communication between consumers/patients and healthcare providers. Apple clearly hopes that HealthKit and HomeKit will begin to do the same for the IoT.

Will insurers jump on this wave—or stay on the beach?

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My Risk Manager is an Avatar

In the world of Commercial Insurance there exists the very curious role of Risk Manager. I mean curious in the sense that successful risk managers appear to have superpowers. They are charged with taking the actions necessary to avoid or reduce the consequence of risk across an entire enterprise. Their knowledge must extend deeply into a variety of subjects such as engineering, safety, the subtleties of the business of their employer, insurance (of course), physics, employee motivation and corporate politics / leadership. Their impact can be wide-ranging, from financial (eg., dollar savings from risk avoidance / mitigation) to personal (the priceless value of the avoidance of employee death or injury).

Sadly, the tyranny of economics restricts the access that businesses have to continuous, high quality risk management. Full-time risk managers are prevalent in huge, complex, global companies. These firms often self-insure, or purchase loss sensitive accounts and the financial value of a risk management position (or department) is clear. The larger mid-market firms can afford to selectively purchase safety consultant services, their insurance broker might perform some of these tasks (especially at renewal), and their insurers may have loss control professionals working some of these accounts. However, for the majority of small businesses, risk management at the professional level is not affordable.

Over the past year, I have toyed with different ideas about how to automate this function in order to bring the value of a risk manager to the small commercial business segment. My attempts were always unsatisfying (and one reason I have not blogged this idea before). However at The Front End of Innovation conference last week in Boston, a presentation by Dr. Rafael J. Grossmann (@ZGJR) crystallized the vision. I can now clearly see how existing technology can be combined to create a Risk Manager Avatar.

Dr. Grossmann is a trauma surgeon who practices in Maine. In addition to the normal challenges of his profession, he is one of only four trauma surgeons servicing a very wide area. Although sparsely populated, the challenge of distance and time complicates the delivery of medical services. Dr. Grossmann presented his vision of a medical avatar, a combination of technologies which will perform 80% or more of the routine medical cases in a consistent, timely, and cost effective manner. Combining the technologies of mobile, voice recognition, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, machine learning and augmented reality forms a new silicon entity – a medical doctor avatar. He also introduced a company, sense.ly, that is now working to deliver similar services (video here: http://ift.tt/1o9orcj).

If such systems can deliver medical services, then why not risk management? For example, given permission, a system would monitor the purchases of a small company and identify when the historical pattern changes, eg., when the company begins to buy new types of materials. Using predictive algorithms, the pattern can be compared against others to evaluate if there is likelihood that the company is now performing new business operations. The avatar could then contact the small business, or could signal human intervention by an underwriter to evaluate the necessity for an endorsement to a policy to cover the new business operation. Eventually, some of these interventions would also be handled through machine to machine communication and would allow the endorsement to take place automatically.

Someone will build a Risk Management Avatar. The question is, who will do it first?

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You can take a horse to water but a pencil must be le(a)d: The challenge of “What does Digital really mean for the industry”?

Recently, I facilitated a roundtable discussion on “What digital really means for the industry”. Over the last couple of years, we’ve run many similar roundtables on the topic. Each time we run one, it never ceases to amaze me around the lack of a common definition for what digital really means, not just across the industry between firms but also between individuals within the same firms. In fact, I’m sure that there is a PhD paper waiting to be written on the topic.

One of my favorite set of questions at these events is to first ask the delegates how they define “digital” and then to follow-up by asking if this definition is shared across their organization. Generally, when you ask the first question, you get very articulate and clearly well-thought through strategic response that makes 100% rational sense. Then, when you ask the second question, you often get a look of despair or, at best, frustration with their colleagues who “just don’t get it” or are “pulling in different directions”. Well, I might be exaggerating a little here but hopefully you get the idea.

From the experience of asking this question repeatedly over the last couple of years, it seems to me that there are two challenges around “what digital really means for the industry”.

The first challenge relates to opportunities presented by technology, which range from the mundane (such as good old fashioned ‘Straight Though Processing’ and even the application of newer more exciting mobile technologies in customer engagement) through to the extreme (such as new device enabled propositions and business models fueled by the Internet of Things). This is the “what?” challenge, the one that we hear most about and the one that we can articulate the best. It’s tangible. You can see it. You can experience it. You can recognize what others are doing that you are not. There is no mystery around this challenge and you can build a program of change to address it.

The second challenge is a more subtle one. It is “as old as them thar hills” and can be aptly summed up by the saying “You can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink”. It’s also one that this industry, as well as others to be fair, have been struggling with every time there is a step-change in pace and direction. If you know where you need to head to, bringing the rest of the organization along with you is the next big challenge, especially when you’re a large and complex one. This is the challenge of “How?”.

When discussing the topic with one insurer, he shared with me his view that “digital” is merely a term used to get his team to think differently about the way things are done. To stop his team thinking about the way they do things today and start thinking about what could be instead. For me, this was a refreshingly honest perspective. It was not about the devices, the technology or the Apps, it was about re-envisioning his business. To achieve this takes great leadership and mustering support around a shared vision.

This brings me back to the title of this blog. Stan Laurel couldn’t have said it better (or maybe worse?) in “Way out West” … “You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be led”. Maybe now is the time to move the debate on to talk more about the “pencils” and the vital role that leadership has to play in addressing successful Digital Transformation? I’d be interested to hear your views about where the challenges around digital really lie for you.

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Quotes from the Innovation Roundtable

They said it couldn’t be done, but we held the latest installment in Celent’s series of innovation roundtables in Tokyo recently. Our innovation roundtables put the focus squarely on interactive discussion among the participants. This is a relatively untried model in Japan, where events typically take the form of conventional conferences with presentations. We’re glad we tried it though, because we got a very interesting line-up of firms. Participants included the whole spectrum: banks, capital markets firms, and insurers; Japanese and foreign firms; traditional mega-institutions and alternative new entrants.

The discussion was lively; below are some quick notes I took of some of the more interesting comments made, to capture a bit of the flavor of the day.

Why Innovate?

“Innovation is not the goal, it is a method and a tactic.”

“We need to innovate because it has become difficult to differentiate us from our competitors.”

“In today’s environment, innovation is necessary if you want to stay profitable.”

Paths to Innovation

“Incremental innovation is an axymoron. You can’t innovate by increments; innovation requires a big bang change.”

“It might be possible to rearrange existing elements to create something new.”

“When to innovate? If our clients think a new service is interesting, we try and create it for them and see if it succeeds.”

“Innovation needs to be business driven.”

“Financial institutions need to have an innovation division; an incubation unit that accumulates ideas from throughout the company.”

IT and Innovation

“IT is not the impetus for innovation, but because IT inevitably evolves, that creates need for innovation.”

“Legacy is a barrier: it is hard to throw things away.”

Cultural Challenges

“We need to justify ROI on any investment each fiscal year. It is hard to show this on an innovation project.”

“If you think about it, financial institutions don’t even have R&D departments.”

Quote of the Day

“Changing company culture is really about changing oneself. I personally enjoy innovation and change. Innovative culture is about getting a bunch of people together who enjoy change.”

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