Smart tactics to accelerate growth

Following my keynote at InsurTech Hub Munich showcase, I decided to share my discussion points on how to build a smart enterprise taking mostly the process of building a sustainable business model as part of this equation.

Let's get started...

A smart enterprise is doing things differently. It builds resilience within its business by adding agility and flexibility, developing the right level of leadership acumen, shaping a culture that retains the talent of today and tomorrow, and delivering on a highly focused "no-nonsense" execution strategy.

A smart enterprise is young in its mindset and effective in its execution. It wants to build the scalable businesses of tomorrow – ready for anything that comes along.

So, how do we know what smart enterprises are?

Smart enterprises are not like any other business. They aren't just about the technology or product – they're actually a movement.

Their success relies on moving in unison to overcome industry challenges to build the customer experiences of tomorrow. Smart enterprises depend on orchestrating all elements (people, processes, and products) to allow these elements to work at scale across the entire organization.

Why do insurers need to pay attention to smart InsurTech enterprises?

Smart enterprises are reinventing the insurance sector. During the showcase, we talked with many new entrants: Wakam, WeFox, and ZhongAn Tech.

Smart InsurTech enterprises are developing unique business models that enable breakthrough ideas and value propositions to come to life.

They are designed to create business processes focused on outcomes and aligned with changing customer needs and expectations. They create market opportunities by disrupting traditional ways of thinking about business, products, and services.

Many are keeping established insurers awake at night and are transforming our sector as we know it.

Which InsurTechs are smart enterprises today?

Well, there are a few. It is important to note that most InsurTechs don't necessarily have to be venture funded to be smart enterprises. However, as many of you know... That helps. Still, they have a clear vision, mission, innovation strategy, and user experiences that are both micro-engagement-led and mobile-first. They take a holistic view of the customer, their entire life stages and design experiences through data tools, business applications, and digital channels that fit their individual needs.

Cloud technology, data center, mobile devices, apps, and AI-led strategies remain at the core of such business. They need:

Knowledge workers to process and analyse massive amounts of heterogeneous data and to collaborate and monitor things.

states Joe Lonsdale, a founding partner at San Francisco-based venture capital fund 8VC.

InsurTech Oscar Health is a great example of a smart enterprise:

Since its launch in 2012, Oscar's digital health platform aims to simplify health insurance with a mobile-first app that creates more than just an amazing customer experience. They use various digital solutions to ease serviceability through accurate data analysis across the customer health journey.

Hippo transformed our expectations around smarter homeowner insurance:

One of their smart initiatives is to have smart home devices connected to a smart home platform that acts as a mediator between smart home devices and the smart insurance policy. This means that users of its services can remotely connect with smart hardware, such as sensors working on Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, and get important data about what's going on in their homes remotely... and insure what matters to them.

Root has built a direct-to-consumer insurance platform that simplifies access to series of mobility-led personalized services.

Root scaled fast since 2015 to help car users to save lots on their car insurance. The business has grown to offer telemetry-led evaluation of drivers' behavior. With the platform, users can achieve up to $900 per year in savings.

In the commercial lines, Relayr excels with preventative Equipment-as-a-Service solutions:

Relayr is bridging the gap among the internet of things, sensors, and dashboards. Espresso machines are equipped with AI geared smart sensors. The machine learning algorithms within the smart sensors allow the company to gather data, such as the location of a machine or its working hours. Smart contracts are then triggered with this information and innovative business interruption insurance issued. Smart contracts trigger notifications that can be processed by smart insurance policies, which results in payments for customers using when the device is not operational.

While Relayr is not an InsurTech, the smart technology they utilize acts as a customer-facing interface to validate the terms of the smart insurance policy.

A smart InsurTech enterprise can be defined as a business with an insurable product and/or service,?a standardized output for delivering said product or service, and a digital media presence. Such a company uses artificial intelligence at its core. It has huge advantages over traditionally designed organizations. These smart environments easily use smart technology within their insurance products to drive the transparency, and trust customers seek to protect themselves from devastating losses.

The established market players also understand the need for designing and launching smart enterprises.

Smart enterprises are not just about incremental change. They are organizations with a drastically different way of thinking about the world and game-changing initiatives. They know that those initiatives need new strategies, architecture, knowledge workers, and the ability to adapt. Nowadays, we have smart companies shaping the next 100 years of what smart customer-centric businesses and experiences will look like.

Did it all start with Tesla? Maybe not, but Tesla and Elon Musk have been great enablers of the smart enterprise movement.

With its electric vehicles and smart batteries, Tesla has changed the way we look at sustainable design.

As a market shaper, Tesla combines smart design, beauty, AI technology, and efficiency in every smart car they have produced since the first electric vehicle - Model S. It definitely feels for some of us as "Déjà Vu." Each smart car has all the features they need in an automobile like GPS, Bluetooth, music streaming, and much more without killing the planet or draining your wallet on petrol. And then, the AI kicks in to enable Telsa's geniuses to monitor the vehicles remotely. As many of us know, Tesla is getting into insurance right now.

Enel X has developed programs to deliver smart enterprises in many markets:

Enel X has developed smart enterprises that deliver new "made-to-measure" energy service models that provide people with energy efficiency measures and renewable sources that support smart grids, smart traffic management systems, and smart community development projects.

Smart enterprises aim to deliver green and flexible solutions that meet the needs of enterprise customers, employees, and communities. Enel's smart enterprise program combines energy efficiency, renewable energies, and the latest smart technology across 19 countries. It utilizes smart energy engineers who continue to develop and evolve emerging technology-led use cases personalized for many international markets from Asia to Latin America.

Smart enterprises' initiatives are not restricted to the technology field. They also exist in other sectors such as bottling, automotive, and logistics.

Coca Cola is another established leader with an amazing transformation program that foster smart enterprises:

So, what about Coca-Cola and its smart enterprise program? Coca Cola has worked on:

• Smart products, including smart vending machines, smart billboards, smart shopping carts with sensors, smart cooling systems in backrooms that will help for energy-saving and prevent waste
• Smart supply chains including smart warehousing, smart distribution software, smart RFID tracking, and so on.

All driving emerging sources of risk and opportunities for great innovators to think through how to protect those with more relevant data-driven prevention and risk mitigation services.

So what are the three commercial models you need to pay attention to:

I hope you are following. As I take you on the next phase of this journey, I have highlighted some keywords to think through what a Smart Enterprise is for you!

I think that a smart business does not want to be coined as purely a digital business only. It will likely use advanced technologies in many different ways to assist customers, employees, product creation, and delivery. The smartest startups build learning organizations that are smart from day one because of the constant need for innovation to start, develop, and build excellence within many industries.

Yes... the lines are blurring significantly!

Some of the business models I like talking about today include:

• Service-led or subscription-led engagement models focus on the accessibility component of the offer rather than the ownership of a product. Such models will include sharing, streaming, and leasing services to improve a customer’s ability to maximize capacity utilization and reduce resource waste. This business model requires a new set of resources, competencies, and capabilities. Julien Teicke from WeFox highlighted the value of the model during InsurTech Munich Hub's Showcase discussion... Think about your iPhone update program. Rolls Royce engine per the hour.
• Circular economy engagement models replace the traditional linear business model that “takes, makes & disposes of” with a “closed-loop circular and resource-efficient model which enables the “re-use, repurpose and re or up-cycling” of assets to counteract resource depletion and reduce pollution. This model results in new revenue streams and better risk management as unique engagements across defined customer journeys. Oliver Jaillon from Wakam highlighted those key drivers within his showcase commentary. Think about repairing a broken fridge or re-using parts of a TV rather than full asset disposal.
• Ecosystem-led engagement models consider collaboration as a crucial differentiator of a company’s long-term profitable strategy. Ecosystem solutions are developed in alignment with the most prominent market drivers. Entire ecosystems of companies are linked through their supply chains to become an instrumental ingredient to make the whole better than its parts. Adrien Lebeque from ZhongAn Tech has been part of building an ecosystem-led business that is now number 9 in China's insurance market. Think about ways to accelerate your proposition design and access global markets and a network of capabilities fast. Think about some of the successful SuperApps.

Your action plan and roadmap to success

1. A smart enterprise knows that it cannot do it alone and must engage with growth networks to innovate. Can you really think outside the box when your business relies on internal resources? The leaders in the field have built programs and systems to accelerate their transformation by involving others in their smart enterprise design journey.
2. A smart enterprise understands that "thinking-outside-the-box" also means bringing non-insurance experts from many fields of life to the table to create successful learning businesses. Such a company is open to change. They embrace a fresh mindset and can adapt quickly based on feedback from their customers. Smart Enterprises are clear about what they do not want. How to avoid waste. Equally, they are clear about the type of culture they must deploy to succeed.
3. A smart enterprise thinks in terms of open ecosystems. It knows that it must bring strategic partners to the fold. Smart enterprises are open to change. They adapt quickly from customer feedback and think in terms of a 360° approach. They align external and internal perspectives. They empower employees and create an environment of inclusion and flexibility to maximize active contributions. Don't close your doors. Many of the innovations of tomorrow will come from adjacent sectors and as shared by several keynote speakers networks sit within networks.
4. A smart enterprise has learned to monetize real value-driven services to deliver long-term growth. Such a business looks at its ecosystem and sees how it can participate in developing underserved markets. We know that the world is changing faster than ever before. Your business cannot focus solely on its traditional book values of assets. It must think of an entrepreneurial way of reusing and repurposing via digital assets. Merci Olivier!

How do smart enterprises differ from traditional businesses?

They build a resilient environment by using a spectrum of techniques to scale sustainably. It is no small investment in time, resources, or deployment of effective business applications and practical use cases.

In today's world, it must be aligned with PURPOSE.

Final points from the afternoon session:

Olivier Jaillon shared: The future is about #Purpose driven companies. Every business out there should define what is its #socialimpact to drive economic stability

Adrien Lebeque shared: #FinancialInclusion is not just for emerging markets. Financial access and affordability should be for all

Veit Stutz from Allianz shared: We must remain meaningful for #society. Solve for #prevention. Easier said than done.

Julien Teicke shared: Let's move from boring products that people don't care much for to service-led offers that #peoplelove

We are at an inflection point shares Peter Hinssen earlier. A time of reinvention. The #NeverNormal where our focus should be on the #dayaftertomorrow...

You find more about key topics to join the dots:

23 InsurTech unicorns you should know about here

Scaling with speed like a FinTech unicorn?here

Are insurers ready for AI??here

AI & the Cloud: A practical guide to scaling with speed?here

Great sessions. Great talks. Great startups. Check out the replays on InsurTech Munich Hub site

If you do not know me:

I am the CEO, and Managing Partner of?Alchemy Crew,?a Venture Lab focused on R&D validation and venture commercialization using open innovation, experimentation techniques, and ecosystem thinking to accelerate the deployment of digitized services. I pioneered in building innovation ecosystems working with InsurTechs and Insurers, among others, a co-editor of bestseller?The INSURTECH Book, a multi-award winner, and a top 50 InsurTech Influencer.?I am also an Honorary Senior Visiting Fellow for recently renamed Bayes Business School for my InsurTech business model disruption work for the faculty of management. You can follow my views on?LinkedIn,?Twitter,?YouTube and Slideshare