4 reasons tech partnerships DOES NOT work! (how to create a successful insurtech partnership)
The insurance industry market is overflowing with smart solutions for insurers to optimize their sales and operations - many without the need for coding skills at all!
But as long as the insurer's organization doesn't play along, nothing happens
This is what tech companies need to understand - they must approach working with insurers from another angle and provide much more assistance in getting the new solutions to work - this is close to real consulting work, where the tech companies need to work with the insurers’ teams to make the change happen
How to approach this? First, the insurer need to understand there will be a problem in implementing the new tech:
Available resources
Limited knowledge
Resistance to change (kingdoms, not invented here, job threats)
Not fully understood by all involved teams - and not fully mapped, so not all involved units and teams has been identified …and this is something the tech company can (should?) help with
For the tech company, it’s very important to do a thorough stakeholder mapping as an extension to the above exercise so unforeseen objections and roadblocks can be identified and mitigated It sounds obvious, but is often not, that next step is creating a project plan - the trick here is to identify, quite detailed, the resource requirement from the insurer so it’s known upfront and the insurer can allocate the people needed - or ‘borrow’ them from the tech company
Here it’s important to understand the nature of the project; is it a longer-term software installation project or a short-term adding of features to an existing solution? Depending on the size and characteristics of the project, the way it’s managed should be either waterfall or agile
How does the tech companies work with the insurer to mitigate the other risks
Resources - clearly identify and ensure enough by adding from the tech company
Limited knowledge - awareness sessions, tech company ‘academy’ that insurer stakeholders must complete (also good for the CV and general digital quotient)
Resistance to change - change in processes, ways of working and inventive structure (BIG change, but necessary if the tech spans across multiple units and departments)
Process and stakeholder mapping should identify all touch points within the insurer - important to include key external partners too to ensure all parties have been involved
And, as always, clear responsibility and accountability with the project groups, targets and incentives - follow up, encourage, solve issues immediately Good luck