Outsourcing services and cloud computing to escort business growth

As the saying goes, insurance is not too much.

But which insurance should we choose? According to SNL Financial's view, the noise of television commercials featuring Gecko,flo, and the "like a well neighbor" and "well hands" This type of insurance advertising is only part of the $5.1 billion cost of advertising in the industry in 2010. It's hard to say which insurance company can stand out.

However, a small mutual insurance company is taking a fast-growing pace and a business model of concern to its members. PURE (Privileged underwriter reciprocal exchange) is a professional insurance company for high net worth individuals and has recently insured 10,000 members.

Pure was launched in 2006 by three former executives from AIG's private client group, which employs outsourcing, cloud computing, and especially telecoms technology to cut costs, deliver services and expand to new countries. However, the growth of pure is not just because of these technologies. Senior vice president and CIO Stuart Tainsky says this is about it innovation: weighing strategic and tactical technologies, prioritizing needs, and creating a culture of innovation that drives the company forward because of it.

No traditional technology

There is some advantage in this industry, especially in building IT infrastructure, Tainsky explains: "We're lucky because we don't rely on traditional systems." We have a large expanse of green space (which can be built in a blank area). Our competitors are being hobbled by traditional technologies that may have mainframe based systems or even older systems. He singled out the Chubb, the Firefighter Fund and ACE Group, and Chartis (the predecessor of AIG's Private client group).

"We need rapid growth in our business, and we have some processes that can support expanding growth in other countries," Tainsky said. We can develop markets in two countries a month, and some companies may take 8-10 months to do this. We only need six weeks, and our schedule of work is constantly rolling. ”

Tainsky explains that expanding to each country is the biggest challenge to growth (pure can write a policy in 18 countries, 36 are authorized), and the insurer has built a flexible system to manage growth. "Each country has its own requirements and needs, different projects and applications." You need to define these requirements correctly to determine if they are consistent with what you are submitting. ”

Is it a strategy or a tool

To keep up with the pace of the times and maintain control of the business, pure has broken down technology in two ways-as a business solution or as a tool, Tainsky said. The priority of IT requirements is then judged on three fronts, and these three areas are the obligations that are essential to the performance of the day-to-day technology, business drivers and operational efficiencies.

Tainsky said: "Therefore, we will take technical strategy characteristics (within)." That is business needs and some outreach activities. We develop business intelligence functions in-house, project management, program management we also do in-house. So what we have is a lot of generalist scholars who focus on strategy and function. ”

Tainsky said: "Our maintenance level is quite low." We use a lot of secure cloud computing, and email and file servers are externally managed. But you never know that this is not an internal solution. My infrastructure team is just one person. ”

Selective outsourcing

In pure, the key factor of innovation motivation is its business model. As a member of all insurance companies, pure is not owned by shareholders or governed by shareholders, because the company is public. Therefore, Tainsky said: "For us, our members are the most important factor in submitting innovative ways of interacting with the company." We want to be proactive when seasonal events like hurricanes occur. ”

Through the so-called selective outsourcing strategy, pure that it needs an innovative way to submit policies and electronic instruments, because the cost of printing and mailing these documents is increasing, hampering business growth.

Tainsky said: "We looked at the members ' idea of building a membership portal, but according to the feedback, they didn't really like it. Therefore, by default, we deliver the policy and the bill in the email by the partner (Oneshield company to provide the policy issue, the Striata company provides the safe e-mail delivery), which is, of course, password-protected. So they can be forwarded to financial advisers, accountants or family members. They can pay their bills online in electronic form as prompted in PDF. ”

Tainsky, who manages 15 IT staff in the 100-person company, says 48% of the new business is being done electronically.

For remote offices, another area of outsourcing is the cloud-based telephony system, which is provided by the vendor M5 Network company. "I don't need to have people training at Cisco or have a rack of call center equipment," Tainsky said. When new users start, all we do is send them to the phone and have them connect to the Internet. This is a very good solution and we pay each user a fixed fee each month. ”

Innovation culture

Delivery of technology and services is carried out in accordance with business planning steps, requiring Tainsky in-depth involvement in other areas of the business and working regularly with marketing, finance, and project sponsors.

But when Tainsky said that the leader of Pure's creative culture was Ross Buchmueller, he said it was clear. Tainsky said: "I am sure that the idea of the arrangement has been completed, whether they are projects that bring growth to the business in some way or ensure that we have a system to support it." ”

"Innovation should not be done only within groups," Tainsky said. The right approach is for everyone in the organization to be involved in innovation, not a specific team that focuses on innovation within the organization. The best ideas come from places you don't always pay attention to. We get creative ideas from all sides. Part of the beauty of our culture is that it does not make people pessimistic and insist on trying to innovate within their own group. I personally prefer not to look at people as a technical leader, but also to see if someone is responsible for helping drive the business forward. ”

"We should always be in a ready state," Tainsky said. We have a five-year plan that focuses on business growth and continues to provide the best service to our customers and agents. You have to have a little leeway (in the schedule) to respond quickly, with a trade-off between strategy and a better understanding of how to submit a service. ”

(Responsible editor: Lu Guang)