As a Board of Directors or C-Suite, How do you stand in the innovation stakes?
"The majority were just beginning to work their way through the challenges of governing innovation, some more deliberately and successfully than others."
HBR The Boards New Innovation Imperative Dec 2017
Insurers are by nature risk averse and a "safe pair of hands". That is the opposite trait required to manage transformation at the fast space of digital disruption.
Have the skills and experience of the last decade prepared insures for the next few years never mind the next decade?
Some are bringing fresh blood from the bleeding edge of technology innovation- Open Source hardware and software, The Internet of Things (IoT), retail digital disruption. Astute CEO's demanding they "shake the business up".
Yet success in one field does not guarantee success in another. The "Digital Winners" will be those that build on the traditional strengths of insurance carriers:-
- Balance Sheet
- Investment Funds
- Broad Range of Products and Services
- Global Reach
- Big Data Assets
This is the route to disrupt the digital disrupters. When you see Chief Digital Officers, Directors of Digital Transformation, Chief Data Officers with adequate resources you can see evidence these will be the potential digital winners.
See "Should Carriers & Brokers appoint Chief Digital Officers from outside the industry?"
Why is this important?
There is only room for 4 to 5 digital winners in each market segment who will share the majority of profits.
See "Winner takes most in digital transformation"
The rest will scrabble for the remaining meagre pickings.
In addition, most board members we spoke with wanted more people with technology experience—so-called “digital directors.” They believed that directors from organizations reputed to be tech pioneers were likely to be more familiar with the challenges that come with doing innovative work and better prepared to offer informed advice on how to address them. They also wanted directors with the capacity to assess whether or not their companies were investing sufficiently in technology and associated talent.
https://hbr.org/2017/11/the-boards-new-innovation-imperative