By Catherine Loftus / Head of Growth Marketing, Nuon AI
With the Christmas season firmly behind us, January brings fresh energy, perspective and motivation – along with a new set of steep targets to hit in 2023 and beyond.
The Nuon AI team has worked together for 20+ years across a number of technology companies, start-ups and insurtechs, so we understand only too well that growth goals often meet significant barriers.
However, with the insurance landscape becoming ever more competitive, innovation is essential. Insurers are becoming increasingly aware of the need to evolve and explore what new technologies can offer – from AI and machine learning to automation and cloud computing. But how can insurance teams achieve true transformation?
Here are our 5 top tips on getting your growth projects off the ground in 2023.
1: Uncover customer needs
All growth plans for the year ahead and beyond should be underpinned by a solid customer need. Often in the insurance industry, archaic processes create a tunnel vision that focuses the mind on what is possible now. Instead, look outwards to discover what the real customer needs are.
A mix of qualitative and quantitative customer insight and data can guide decision-making to ensure any new features or projects will resonate with customers and deliver on your acquisition and retention goals.
And while your competitors continue to grapple with broken systems, you can get on with solving real problems.
Deep customer insight can often be uncovered within existing data – it’s just a case of knowing where to look. Insurance companies collect and manage huge amounts of data, which when extracted and analysed correctly can provide a window into customer buying and behaviour trends, opportunities and risks.
Not sure where to start? Customer service touch-points offer a treasure trove of insight, along with online reviews, past survey data and CRM stats.
2: Get the right people AROUND the table
Without buy-in from the right stakeholders, it can be impossible to secure the budget, resources, and support needed to drive innovation projects forward.
During planning phases, the RACI methodology can be a useful way of ensuring stakeholders are engaged correctly and no missing links are uncovered that can derail your project. This involves mapping out who is Responsible and Accountable for the delivery of the project, along with who should be Consulted and who should be kept Informed. Read more here.
Another key to gaining the necessary support? Data. Resistance to change and fear of the unknown can often leave teams at a standstill. Ensure that qualitative and quantitative customer insight is collated in a digestible format, to strengthen the case for all proposals.
3: Work with innovation partners
Resources are finite in any organisation, and only a limited number of projects can be successfully undertaken at once. But internal resourcing shouldn’t be a blocker to driving forward meaningful innovation and embracing new technologies.
Collaborating with the right partners unlocks the ability to deliver a layered growth strategy that enables internal teams to focus on their own areas of expertise, while outsourced partners deliver elevated growth initiatives.
Further reading: An insurer’s guide to selecting an innovation partner
4: Keep it simple
Ask yourself: what is the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for this project? That is, the simplest possible solution that still delivers on your project’s objectives. This is a great place to start to validate your hypothesis, analyse early performance indicators and gain customer feedback, which can then guide future developments and improvements.
Creaking IT infrastructure and engineering backlogs can lead to frustrations and delays in delivery. Scoping out your MVP encourages you to think creatively to find a workaround that will work either alongside or outside of existing systems to enable you to keep moving forward.
5: Be prepared to take a risk
Organisations that foster a culture of innovation and experimentation will be the ones we see achieving the greatest results in 2023. Insurers may be in the business of managing risk, but to deliver meaningful growth and innovate, they must not be afraid to take risks themselves.
The good news is that rooting projects in solid customer insight, working to an MVP that can quickly be pivoted, and onboarding the right partners significantly mitigates that risk.
Nuon AI can help you do all of the above. We are working with a number of ambitious and digitally-led insurance organisations across the UK and US to transform their performance through real-time retail pricing AI. With just two API calls, taking an innovative leap forward could be easier than you think: one travel insurer implemented Nuon AI in just one week.
The compound learning effect of our technology means the sooner you start, the faster the growth in your policy sales. We look forward to speaking to you.
