The past two years will likely be earmarked as one of the most disruptive years of the last century. It is, however, not nearly the most disruptive period we have lived through so far. While the combination of a global pandemic, a major election year, grassroot business activism and environmental activity influence consumer and market trends and fuel political and geopolitical unrest, history shows that we have not only faced but overcome worse.
We might not be able to predict the future per se. But if there is one thing that we can learn from our past it is the importance of resilience, agility and business analytics quality to successfully navigate an uncertain, volatile and ambiguous environment and find (and walk) the thin line between surviving disruptive problems and leveraging new emerging opportunities.
Trends from lifestyle changes, increasing digitalization and data as well as accelerating climate change have affected and started transforming the insurance industry landscape for the past decade or so. However, a real transformation or paradigm shift has, so far, not happened, and many say it is long overdue.
Motor insurance, to zoom in on one segment, a good area to practice business model transformation. It links very directly to the transportation and mobility industry, which is directly and indirectly touching the life of almost every individual – and which is affected by a multitude of disruptions.
From new technologies and lifestyle trends, its interdependency with innovation in related sectors (such as energy and communication but also revolutions in the manufacturing industry) as well as its global interconnectivity and interdependency create an environment buzzing with opportunities and threats alike – highly volatile, and difficult to navigate.
This is the context in which we would like to invite you to embark on an experimental experience to practice and perfect a probabilistic approach to strategic business model transformation.
This case study has been designed to foster decision-making quality in a disruptive environment under time pressure and practice the strategic and operational skills required in a cross-functional cross-cultural team setting.
You will be taking over the management of a fictive motor insurance company in this industry. We will present you with information and data that highlight the industry background, the company history as well as specific data related to the company you will be managing in a competitive marketplace.
Without revealing too many details about the insurance company and marketplace you will be working on in the second part of the case study, here is a little background information: it will be a relatively new player emerging that wants to differentiate the business model to scale effectively and leverage the flexibility that comes with the smaller size to catch market share from existing incumbent players. These players in the same marketplace that have a significant financial advantage, but are weighted down by legacy architecture and, in many cases, too long decision-making processes.
This case study has been created for you to practice:
– How to overcome organizational obstacles and act on new opportunities
– How to position your organization to turn disruption and change (reactive approach) into an advantage (proactive approach).
– To identify problems before they happen so that you can pre-solve them, customers’ needs before they express them, and game-changing opportunities before the competition.
– To develop the ability to identify the driving forces of predictable change
This case study has four distinct phases:
– Analyzing the ecosystem (radar chart exercise)
– Understanding the business model of the company you will be managing and the environment and market data
– Drafting a strategy for your company
– Operationalizing your strategy
In this first part of the case study, we ask you to
– Read through the information provided to you about the ecosystem of the motor insurance industry
– Conduct a radar chart analysis of the disruptions and/or trends you can identify and map them as either a thread or an opportunity as well as in terms of relevance using the radar chart attached.