cmos: time for digital transformation...executive summary digital is changing the world and...
TRANSCRIPT
The Digital Insurer
CMOs: Time for digital transformation Or risk being left on the sidelines
About the research
Global respondent distribution:
Industries surveyed:
Respondent demographics:
Countries included:
The survey was in the field from November 2013 to January 2014.
36% North America
33% Europe, Africa and Latin America (EALA)
31% Asia Pacific Countries (APAC)
Results are based on the responses of key marketing decision makers around the world:
This report presents the findings that are specific to insurance CMOs. The 2013/14 CMO Insights survey is the fourth in a series of studies sponsored by Accenture and aimed at understanding the opinions, challenges and points of view of senior marketing executives from around the world. This report presents the findings that are specific to insurance CMOs. Countries
11
Industries
10
Senior marketers. Includes 38 life insurance CMOs and
49 P&C insurance CMOs
581
FranceBrazil Canada GermanyAustralia
UnitedStates
Italy UnitedKingdom
Japan Singapore
Travel and tourism
At least $1 billion in annual revenue
Significant sales growth (>5%)
Business-to-consumer (B2C)
At least $500 million in annual revenue
Little or flat sales growth (0-5%)
Business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C)
Negative sales growth (<0%)
Business-to-business (B2B)
91%9%
14%31% 55%
30%38%32%
BankingAutomotive Consumer goods ElectronicsInsurance
Life sciences Retail TelecomsMedia
2
China
Executive summary
Digital is changing the world and insurance chief marketing officers (CMOs) know it. They are embracing digital channels with fervor, but it’s time to do more. The prize is not mastery of the channels but command of the opportunities to delight customers and drive superior business outcomes. Then the reward for customers and marketers alike becomes relevant and seamless experiences from brand promise through brand delivery.
This is a digital transformation that requires an outside-in or customer-focused orientation. Given CMOs’ understanding of the brand and the customer, they are the natural leaders, able to envision a transformation that bridges the entire customer experience, including sales, service and product. The ability to wield, rather than be overwhelmed by, digital technologies will be critical, as will cutting across current functional boundaries. By collaborating with other C-suite executives and drawing on external partners to boost internal expertise, CMOs can become more visible change agents for digital transformation.
These are some of the key findings from the 2014 Accenture Interactive CMO Insights survey of nearly 600 senior marketing executives from 11 countries and 10 industries. The study included 38 life insurance CMOs and 49 property & casualty insurance CMOs from North and South America, Europe and the Pacific Rim.1
The findings suggest that insurance CMOs are selling themselves short. The question isn’t whether they can effectively take advantage of digital channels–they are proving they can–but whether they can be catalysts working across the organization to welcome the broader digital opportunities and protect against the digital threats.
Insurance CMOs that win will be those who:
• Forge closer working relationships with other members of the C-suite.
• Lead and transform the marketing role as a digital perspective transforms the enterprise.
• Embrace the full omni-channel customer experience.
• Integrate channels with real-time analytics and then act on the insights.
• Invest in agile technologies and cloud-based services.
• Focus on the winnable battles in the war for talent.
• Reorient the marketing operating model and integrate new talent to harness digital innovation.
As every insurer becomes a digital insurer, C-suite executives will need to collaborate to drive successful digital transformation. No CMO wants to be left on the sidelines. A new generation of digital natives is fast approaching–with emerging roles such as chief digital officer, chief customer officer and chief experience officer included in the digital lineup.
Sidestepping the confines of traditional marketing to deliver a more relevant and integrated customer experience across the business will help ensure the future of the insurance CMO on the digital playing field.
Insights from insurance marketers around the world
3
Areas of fundamental change for marketing over the next five years (%)
43Analytics skills will be a core competence of marketing
37Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service will be merged into a single function
21Earned media will be more important and receive more support than paid and owned media
39Marketing will become more of an on-demand information provision function
30We will not know what a marketing campaign will look like in advance: campaigns will unfold in real time, depending on the individual needs and intents of each individual customer across every device and channel
20CMOs will be the most important relationship for CEOs, surpassing the CFO and other C-suite executives
19We will be known as a digital company
41Mobile will account for over 50% of the marketing budget
37Digital budgets will account for over 75% of the marketing budget
21Marketing and IT will be merged into a single function
Seeing the full digital opportunity The insurance industry is changing fast. Marketing and distribution are among the areas most directly affected and digital opportunities are leading the charge. More than four out of five respondents (84 percent) to Accenture’s research believe that marketing will undergo fundamental change over the next five years. Also not surprising: of the top three changes cited, analytics, digital and mobile are the key drivers. High-growth insurers2 in particular say their investments in these three areas are paying off, especially to improve the customer experience.
4
49%
41%
5/107/10
71%
57%
83%83%
84%
10%
1%CMO
OTHER
35%CEO
39%
2014 –2019
Insurance CMOs predict that:
• Analytical skills will become a core competence.
• Digital budgets will account for more than 75 percent of the marketing budget.
• Mobile will account for more than 50 percent of the marketing budget.
What is surprising is that insurance CMOs do not seem to be fully engaged. The evidence? Many of them lack confidence in their ability to deliver the performance expected of them in a market where the threat of digital disruption is real and growing. What is more, only 19 percent believe their company will be known as a digital business in five years.
As insurance customers become more empowered, more demanding and more likely to switch providers (see Accenture’s 2013 Consumer-Driven Innovation Survey3), marketing will only become more critical to insurers’ growth ambitions. As it is, in 2013, the top three advertising spenders in the US (State Farm, Geico and Progressive) invested a total of $2.6 billion in traditional advertising (up 27 percent on 20104). They also paid Google no less than $110 million for keyword advertising5. While these numbers may seem staggering, they need to be viewed in the light of Accenture’s estimate3 that there was, in 2013, $400 billion in global personal-lines premiums in play as insurance customers weighed up the merits of switching providers.
To be part of the enterprise digital transformation that every insurer needs to undertake for survival, CMOs will need to extend their vision of marketing and its scope.
5
A crisis of confidence
Facing a volatile market where competition is coming from new rivals, new customers are scarce and existing customers are increasingly fickle, insurance marketing executives believe their marketing functions are ill-equipped to deliver the performance expected of them and to support the objectives of their business.
Only 53 percent feel assured that they can meet the performance objectives of their organization, fewer than their peers in any other surveyed industry.
Marketers in insurance appear concerned about their performance across five key dimensions of marketing: customer analytics, customer experience, digital orientation, marketing operations and offering innovation. Many assess their marketing organization’s current performance level as “average” or even “below average” in several of these areas.
In the face of the growing threat of disruption by digital-savvy players from other industries, insurance marketing executives also appear to be struggling to form a vision of what their organizations will look like if they embrace digital transformation. Only 19 percent believe their company will be viewed as a digital business in five years’ time. This echoes the findings of Accenture’s Europe, Latin America and Africa Digital Insurer survey6, which found that only 40 percent of insurers have a digital strategy that spans the value chain.
In-person contact with the front-line employees
3733 70
Existing customer recommendations (word of mouth)
4424 68
Sponsorships/ partnerships 2335 58
1738 55Print advertising
2331 54Media coverage
2131 52Email
2823 51TV advertising
2031 51Events
Branded content 2334 57
Corporate web site 2426 50
Mobile 1832 50
1528 43Education channels
2023 43Direct mail
1726 43Video
2121 42Online display advertising
1526 41Social media
28 40Telemarketing
1720 37Radio advertising
1717 34SMS/text messaging
Search engine 15
12
31 46
Perceived effectiveness of channel usage (%)
Fairly effective Very effective
6
53%
>$1 billion
$501–750m
$251–500m
$101–250m
$51–100m
$26–50m
3
$751m–1 billion 2
5
5
15
7
8
Size of 2014 digital marketing budget (%)
Expected change in 1 year (%)
$25m or less
Don’t know
40
17
Increase 11–15%
Increase 6–10%
Increase 1–5%
Stay the same
Decrease 1-5%
Decrease 6-10%
Increase >16% 7
5
22
30
30
5
2
Investment risingBudgets for digital marketing are, on the whole, climbing in the insurance sector. Thirty four percent of CMOs expect to invest in excess of 5 percent more in their next fiscal year. Only 7 percent see any kind of cutback in digital marketing spend next year, but 30 percent expect their budgets to remain static.
This raises the question whether insurers are investing heavily enough in digital marketing to keep pace with the high performers from other industries. These trend-setters are raising the bar for digital customer experiences and setting the expectations that insurers will inevitably have to meet.
7
High performers harness digital potential
49%
41%
5/107/10
71%
57%
83%83%
84%
10%
1%CMO
OTHER
35%CEO
39%
2014 –2019
High performers believe it’s essential to respond to the changing consumer:
83% vs. 47%
49%
41%
5/107/10
71%
57%
83%83%
84%
10%
1%CMO
OTHER
35%CEO
39%
2014 –2019
High-growth insurers find it easier to succeed with digital channels:
41% vs. 27%
49%
41%
5/107/10
71%
57%
83%83%
84%
10%
1%CMO
OTHER
35%CEO
39%
2014 –2019
High performers place great importance on data and analytics:
83% vs. 73%
Digital channels and technologies are proving pivotal to how an entire insurance organization competes, innovates and enhances the customer experience. High-growth insurers in Accenture’s research give analytics and digital channels a significantly higher importance rating than those that are achieving low growth.
And while many high performers find it easier to succeed in these areas than they did two years ago – the rewards of more intense investment and resourcing – the fact remains that as many if not more are still struggling to master the technologies that are transforming marketing. Among low-growth carriers, fewer than one in three marketers say it is easier than before to succeed in these areas.
These CMOs, in low-growth insurance companies, should take note of the areas their better-performing colleagues rate as important to their success. Gaps of between 15 and 35 points are reported in the very areas that help marketing perform better – analytics, digital channels and technology, for example.
Nor should high-performing marketers be complacent – they need to improve their mastery of the innovative tools and techniques that have transformed their trade, because these are critical to delivering the performance their organizations expect.
As high-growth carriers demonstrate, digital’s potential stretches way beyond a new distribution channel. Digital represents a wave of transformational opportunities – and threats – that comprise the ecosystem in which we live, work and play. In this digital world, technology is changing the game and consumers are making – and breaking – the rules. That makes every insurer a digital insurer. This requires a digital orientation, meaning a digital focus in all business processes and functions.
High-growth vs. low-growth insurance findings
8
High-growth insurers place a greater importance on digital capabilities than those achieving lower growth (%)
Q: How important are these issues in achieving your marketing strategy? A: Very important or extremely important.
Measuring return on marketing investment
Enabling agile, timely and relevant marketing
Improving the effectiveness of marketing operations
Using data and analytics to improve marketing impact
Internally synchronizing the end-to-end customer experience, across marketing, sales and service
Making more or better use of digital channels
Responding to shifting consumer demographics
Using technology to improve marketing impact
High-growth Insurers Low-growth Insurers
83 47
79 53
90 53
69 40
83 73
76 40
76 60
69 53
High-growth insurers are finding it easier than low-growth insurers to succeed in key areas of digital marketing – but only a minority are comfortable in these areas (%)
Q: Compared to two years ago, how difficult is it to be successful in these areas? A: Easier or much easier to succeed.
Measuring return on marketing investment
Enabling agile, timely and relevant marketing
Improving the effectiveness of marketing operations
Using data and analytics to improve marketing impact
Internally synchronizing the end-to-end customer experience, across marketing, sales and service
Making more or better use of digital channels
Responding to shifting consumer demographics
Using technology to improve marketing impact
48 13
48 13
48 33
48 13
34 27
41 27
45 27
45 20
High-growth Insurers Low-growth Insurers
9
Customer experience lags behindThe point of efficient digital channels, of course, is to ensure that they are effective as well, and the biggest proof of effectiveness lies in the customer’s interactions with the brand.
Some 74 percent of insurance marketers say it is essential or very important to deliver an effective customer experience for their company, but only 64 percent think they’re doing a good job. Across all industries, high-growth companies are more focused on the importance of customer experience (89 percent), compared to only 60 percent of low-growth companies. And customer experience is the number one recipient of investments among high-growth companies (at 69 percent) out of 26 options, versus 40 percent for low-growth companies. Clearly, high-growth companies have grasped a key insight: today’s digital customer expects a relevant and delightful customer experience at all times and across all channels.
Here, too, insurance lags the overall trend. Just 13 percent of insurance marketers say their online and offline analytic capabilities are completely integrated. Banking and insurance receive the lowest scores on this metric compared to the other industries, while retail leads the pack with a score of 35 percent. The reality is that challenges still exist for all companies looking to integrate offline and online channels, even in leading-edge sectors of the market.
Insurance marketing executives recognize the improvement of customer retention and loyalty as their most critical business issue, with 84 percent agreeing that this is “extremely important” or “very important”. This finding is hardly surprising, since Accenture’s Consumer-Driven Innovation (CDI) research reveals that 40 percent of personal lines P&C customers said that they are “somewhat likely” or “very likely” to stop doing business with a current provider and switch to a new one in the next year. Similarly, 35 percent of life customers said they are “somewhat” or “very likely” to take out a new policy with a new provider in the next 12 months.
Despite the importance of attracting new customers and retaining existing ones, insurance marketing leaders are not keeping pace with the market and technology trends that demand they take a new approach to the customer experience.
For example, the CDI survey highlights the shopping, switching and technology usage behavior of the younger consumer generation as both a significant challenge and an opportunity for insurance marketers. Yet insurance CMOs rank “responding to shifting consumer demographics” relatively low on their list of business priorities.
Insurance marketing executives still place a high degree of faith in traditional channels —for example, face-to-face interaction− for reaching, influencing and interacting with customers. But their confidence in their effectiveness in the use of selected digital channels such as mobile and email is growing. What’s more, there is scope for insurers to use mobile technologies to enable agents to deliver more satisfactory face-to-face interactions with their customers.
The confidence insurers have in their use of mobile (49 percent feel they are using it effectively) resonates with the findings of the CDI study, which shows 46 percent of customers with tablets, and 37 percent of those with mobile phones, are already interacting with their providers using these devices. And since 67 percent of insurance customers are interested in new services being offered on mobile devices, there is still scope to extend the use of this channel.
10
74%
64%
Less encouraging is the fact that insurance CMOs seem to be treading water when it comes to leveraging social media as a digital channel, especially considering that 48 percent of insurance customers in the CDI survey say they rely on social media comments when buying insurance.
A seamless brand experience is key for today’s tech-savvy, multi-device-owning customer. Interestingly, only one-third of high-growth companies report their online and offline analytic capabilities are completely integrated across all functions—although that is considerably more than the 14 percent of low-growth companies and 19 percent of average growers. The reality is that challenges still exist for all companies looking to integrate offline and online channels.
How important is delivering an effective customer experience to your company?
How successful is your company in delivering effective customer experiences?
Customer experience ranks very highly on the insurance CMO agenda but performance is lagging importance
By sales growth (%)
By business type (%)
Business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C)
Business-to-consumer (B2C)
Decreased (<0%)
Business-to-business (B2B) 76
53
72
Stayed the same (0–5%) 74
86
65
63
Increased (>5%) 97
80
76
53
62 10
55 10
50 13
43 33
44 22 66
Importance: Important Essential Performance: Very successful Extremely successful
7427
33
31
23
17
22
43
80
47
43
63
58
11
Who’s driving digital transformation? A digital orientation can enable nothing less than complete transformation of the operating and business model. More than half (52 percent) of C-suite executives recently surveyed by Accenture and The Economist Intelligence Unit expect digital to cause significant change or complete transformation in their industries.7 So great is the expected transformation that 42 percent of executives expect the biggest barrier to implementing digital business initiatives will be managing change.
So where is the CMO in this transformation? Barely visible. One-third of C-suite executives (35 percent) say the CEO is responsible for digital innovation. The chief technology officer and chief information officer follow closely at 23 percent and 22 percent respectively. The CMO, however, is at 1 percent.
The question is not whether insurance CMOs can effectively take advantage of digital channels; it’s whether they can be a change agent to help the organization embrace the broader digital opportunity and protect against the broader digital threats. The CMO is well positioned to assume this role because the opportunities and threats are all about the customer, the brand, the interface with the customer and how the customer is empowered. No one should have the pulse of that better than CMOs.
However, they are so focused on leveraging digital channels that they are missing the full potential of the broader digital playing field. This has given rise to a variety of new roles, such as chief digital officers (CDOs), emerging to fill the gap and join the team.
The rise of the chief digital officer It’s a title you hear more and more as digital capabilities take hold. Chief digital officers (CDOs) are deeply committed to a digital vision. They act as a catalyst for digital transformation, someone the CMO should work closely with to enable a cross-functional focus on customer experience.
CDOs are concerned with every digital touchpoint—where data is going and how it is used. According to the survey findings, CDOs think they do a very good job in areas like efficiently running the same content
and campaigns across multiple branded websites (60 percent vs. 50 percent for CMOs) and improving the e-commerce platform (60 percent vs. 45 percent).
CDOs also are staunch believers in the marketing function. They are very likely to say that CMOs will be the most important relationship for the CEO over the next five years, surpassing other C-suite executives.
49%
41%
5/107/10
71%
57%
83%83%
84%
10%
1%CMO
OTHER
35%CEO
39%
2014 –2019
12
With the increasing pace of technology and device innovation, it is not surprising that one in four CMOs across industries cite a lack of critical technology or tools as the chief barrier to digital integration. That number remains the same whether a company has high, low or average growth, and it represents more than a 10 percent gain over last year.
The biggest barriers to digital integration
CMOs know about a plethora of digital technologies to leverage; their challenge is to choose the right ones for their business. Insurance marketers see a lack of critical tools and technologies as a barrier to success across the areas of customer analytics, the customer experience, digital orientation and marketing operations. This suggests that insurance CMOs need to team closely with their CIOs and technology departments to drive their success.
The volume and variety of today’s marketing technology can easily overwhelm. It offers a range of smaller, more flexible solutions than the big CRM systems of old. This means it is more important than ever for insurers to know a wide variety of providers’ products
and understand their capabilities. Software is thus a core competency for insurers in a digital world—a theme explored in detail in the 2014 Accenture Technology Vision for Insurance.8
New technologies need to be piloted and adapted from experience. They must be agile and modular, allowing a test, learn and “fail fast” approach. Yet most insurance marketers are accustomed to working with legacy systems on internal platforms rather than flexible e-services in the cloud. In collaborating with the CIO, CMOs can stay focused on the customer experience and cherry-pick the technologies that will help them delight their customers.
Barriers to performance improvement: Digital orientation (%)
Our organization lacks critical technology or tools
34 53
167Our people lack the required skills 40
We are not sufficiently integrated with other business functions
22
184 7
We do not have sufficient senior leadership commitment 19 8 20
We have inefficient business practices 1322 20
20We lack the funding 18
11
Low performersStayed the sameHigh performers
13
14
Marketing executives in the insurance industry generally value the same sorts of talent attributes as others, with a few notable exceptions. When developing their talent, they’re more apt to want people who are focused on understanding customers’ needs and expectations and better at applying technology to marketing.
Senior marketers in insurance have succeeded in hiring more talent with digital, analytical and technical skills, but the impact on performance appears to vary widely between different marketing capabilities. In customer and digital analytics, where insurers are making more extensive use of internal resources, 39 percent of insurance marketing executives declare themselves to be fairly or completely satisfied.
In content management capabilities, where insurers report more use of external capabilities, 55 percent are satisfied. And in the customer experience, where insurers are making less use of external resources, 53 percent say they are satisfied.
The bottom line, however, is that CMOs are not moving more capabilities in-house because external partners are doing a poor job. Rather, they want to up-skill their own people and move more core marketing functions inside in the hope of differentiating their customer experience. Over time, they should hopefully become more satisfied with the delivery they are receiving, even in areas where the performance of their internal resources is currently disappointing.
However, insurers must also bear in mind that they are involved in a war for talent— especially for data scientists and analytics experts—with companies both in their own and other industries. Their plans to build and grow internal marketing resources and capabilities must be based on a realistic appraisal of the challenges of attracting and retaining these rare marketing skills.
Insurance marketers’ satisfaction with the performance of their analytics capabilities
is only 39%
49%
41%
5/107/10
71%
57%
83%83%
84%
10%
1%CMO
OTHER
35%CEO
39%
2014 –2019
The talent conundrum
15
Time for insurance CMOs to get in the gameThere’s a larger game being played on the digital field today. Just at the moment when CMOs are optimizing digital marketing channels, the digital opportunity itself is expanding. It’s significantly more profound and potentially more disruptive. To achieve substantial change, here are seven ways insurance CMOs can get in the game and be a vital partner in the digital transformation of their organization:
If you are like most insurance marketers, you’re simply not valuing close working relationships with other C-suite executives the way you need to if you are to elevate your status within your organization. While insurance marketers are just as likely as those in other industries to feel they need to work closely with the customer services organizations, the COO and the CIO are lower on their list of priorities. Fixing this will allow you to play a more central role in your company’s digital transformation.
Set your sights on an enterprise-wide digital ecosystem and the role of marketing within it. Aim to create multi-channel, personalized experiences for each customer across the brand. Don’t wait for all the technology to be ready. Select a few channels now, offer more than one experience and begin to test and learn. Then review data and shift your tactics and technology if necessary. The key is to start now, collaborate across the business and keep at it.
Just 46 percent of insurance CMOs agree that “marketing owns the customer experience”. Among high-growth companies across all industries that number jumps to 59 percent. Among low-growth companies, it falls to 37 percent. Clearly, sales growth gets a boost when customer experience is emphasized.
All the more reason, then, for CMOs to own it. Here are some ways to do so:
• Reverse-engineer marketing initiatives around desired outcomes—which aren’t always sales transactions.
• Empathize with your customers. Evolve marketing initiatives to engage, share and help your customers, rather than target, capture and convert them.
• Engage customers in an ongoing dialogue instead of individual transactions. Treat your customer as a continuous relationship that covers the whole spectrum of sales, service, retention and loyalty.
Forge closer working relationships with the rest of the C-suite
Transform the marketing role as a digital perspective transforms the enterprise
Embrace the full omni-channel customer experience
16
To ensure you deliver the right marketing messages and the right product offering to customers in their preferred channels, you need to leverage analytics tools that enable micro-segmentation, product personalization and channel optimization.
Capturing channel analytics and presenting them in dashboards is no longer enough. Apply your hard-earned insights to multi-channel experiences and ongoing experience management in flexible and powerful ways.
As you hire talent with skills in analytics, mobile and digital, integrate them in a way that produces different outcomes. Talent needs to be empowered to work together across the organization in new operating models that recognize the primacy of digital marketing and the importance of customer experience.
What good is it, for example, to plug analytics talent into a traditional marketing operating model when you really want an integrated, end-to-end customer experience driven by analytics? What good are new outcomes in old delivery models?
Integrate channels with real-time analytics and then act on the insights
Today’s technology—like today’s customers —is non-stop. “Test, learn and earn” is the new maxim. Move incrementally and add e-services managed through the cloud. As the focus on systems gives way to a focus on the customer, you can relax your constraints, begin to scale and score more goals.
Invest in agile technologies and cloud-based services
Reorient the marketing operating model and integrate new talent to harness digital innovation
Few insurers will be able to develop the in-house marketing competencies to outperform external service providers in every marketing discipline and service. You need to think carefully and strategically about which services your organization will handle in-house and which it will outsource to third-party agencies and technology providers.
It makes sense to focus your investment and attention on building strong internal skills, processes and platforms in the areas where you can best differentiate the customer experience. You can collaborate with external parties in the areas you consider to be commoditized and those that are peripheral to the goal of providing a superior customer experience.
Focus on the winnable battles in the war for talent
17
The reward for insurers that get it right is not only a more effective and efficient omni-channel capability, but also the ability to meet customers’ needs and preferences more consistently and at a higher level. This translates into more relevant and seamless experiences for the customer, and better distribution performance for the carrier.
The ability to exploit digital technologies, in the face of a bewildering proliferation, will be critical. So too will be the ability to cut across current functional boundaries.
The future of insurance – if not already the present – is digital. To achieve a successful digital transformation, C-suite executives in insurance companies will have to collaborate more effectively with each other, and with external partners to broaden the expertise at their disposal and their range of offerings. They should be led, in this journey, by the CMO, who better than anyone understands their brand, their customers, their products and services, and their customer interactions – and how all of these come together in the customer experience.
In short, the CMO should be the recognized agent of change for their organization’s digital transformation.
The corporate world is witnessing the emergence of a new breed of senior executives in roles such as chief digital officer, chief customer officer and chief experience officer. The chief marketing officer needs to draw on the special expertise of these digital natives, and view the marketplace through their lenses, to escape the limitations of traditional marketing and see the opportunities that abound. The result will be a more relevant and integrated customer experience that spans the enterprise and generates stronger, more sustainable business outcomes.
This means recognizing that digital represents a plethora of transformational opportunities and threats across the ecosystems where insurers compete. In this digital world, technology is changing the game and consumers are changing the rules.
The hallmarks for a strategy for digital transformation include authentic customer-centricity; the provision of more relevant and personalized products and services; and the exploitation of digital technologies to meet their customers’ rising expectations.
The insurance CMO’s role in driving digital transformation and high performance
18
Facing disintermediation by retailers, banks and online giants as well as continual commoditization of their product, it is not enough for insurers to simply embrace digital channels for marketing and distribution. They must also leverage digital technologies to completely transform their businesses.
About the authors
References
Baiju Shah Baiju Shah is the Managing Director for Strategy & Innovation at Accenture Interactive. He is responsible for Accenture Interactive’s market strategy, including acquisitions and new business services to ensure ongoing relevance to our clients. Baiju also oversees the line of business focused on digital strategy, customer experience and customer analytics. He has worked with clients across industries, including Verizon, Samsung and Chrysler, on strategies to take advantage of digital as competitive advantage. Baiju’s expertise lies in digital strategy, customer experiences and market adoption. His market perspectives have been featured in Forbes, MIT’s Sloan Management Review and BusinessWeek.
[email protected] @baijushah
Glen Hartman Glen Hartman is the Managing Director for Digital Transformation at Accenture Interactive. In this role, Glen leads Accenture Interactive North America and has global responsibility for Accenture’s Digital Platforms and Operations offerings, such as eCommerce, Content Management, Campaign Management and Marketing BPO. This role includes management and integration of recent Accenture acquisitions, including Acquity, Fjord and avVenta. Cited by Forbes as a “top 10 influencer in digital” in 2013, Glen leverages his 23 years of experience in digital transformation, multi-channel and data-driven marketing to help Accenture clients engage customers and develop lasting brands. Prior to Accenture Glen was Managing Director, Digital Practice at Harte-Hanks and helped launch the “Agency Inside Harte-Hanks.” His market perspectives on digital transformation and customer experience have been featured in Harvard Business Review, Forbes and AdvertisingAge.
[email protected] @hartmanglen
Brian Whipple Brian Whipple is the global leader of Accenture Interactive, and is a Senior Managing Director in Accenture’s leadership. Brian leads all of Accenture Interactive’s business globally including Marketing Optimization, eCommerce and Content Management, Digital Transformation, and Customer Experience. He brings a unique blend of agency and consulting experience to Accenture Interactive’s largest clients to help with their IT and marketing needs, which often include navigating the complex landscape of agency relationships. Prior to Accenture, Brian was Chief Operating Officer of Hill Holliday, an advertising and marketing services firm headquartered in Boston.
[email protected] @bhwhipple
19
1. All tables and research data provided in this report reference findings from this survey unless otherwise stated.
2. High-growth insurers are self-identified and have an increase of 6 percent or more in annual sales.
3. Accenture Consumer-Driven Innovation Survey 2014: www.accenture.com/insurance
4. A.M. Best
5. Will Google Enter The Insurance Industry? TechCrunch.com 21 June, 2014
6. Accenture Digital Insurance Survey–Europe, Latin America and Africa: Insurers Commit To Digital Transformation as a Lever of High Performance, 2013: www.accenture.com/insurance
7. Accenture and The Economist Intelligence Unit: CEO Briefing 2014–The Agenda for Insurance: www.accenture.com/insurance
8. Accenture Technology Vision for Insurance: From Digital Wallflower to Digital Disrupter, 2014: www.accenture.com/insurance
Copyright © 2014 Accenture All rights reserved.
Accenture, its logo, and High Performance Delivered are trademarks of Accenture.
Disclaimer: Accenture’s CMO Insights survey uses the generic term “partner” to refer to entities such as digital agencies, specialized agencies, marketing service providers, advertising agencies, management consultants, systems integrators and public relations firms. The use of the term “partner” in the survey, the survey results, and in this edition of CMO Insights is not intended to, and does not, imply the existence of a legal partnership.
About the seriesThe Digital Insurer is an Accenture series that provides insights on how insurers can achieve high performance in the Digital Age. Digital is not simply a new distribution channel—it offers an entirely new way of doing business. Leading insurers are learning how to provide significantly easier access to a wider range of more relevant products and services at a lower cost. With these goals in mind, this series presents pragmatic and visionary discussions on analytics, back-office digitization, marketing, mobility, social media, cloud and more. For more information about this series, please visit www.accenture.com/digitalinsurer or join the conversation #digitalinsurer.
About Accenture InteractiveAccenture Interactive helps the world’s leading brands delight their customers and drive superior marketing performance across the full multi-channel customer experience. As part of Accenture Digital, Accenture Interactive works with over 23,000 Accenture professionals dedicated to serving marketing and digital clients, to offer integrated, industrialized and industry-driven digital transformation and marketing services. Follow @AccentureSocial or visit accenture.com/interactive.
About AccentureAccenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 293,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$28.6 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2013. Its home page is www.accenture.com.