Riding the Whirlwind

Strategic Interactive Marketing for the Insurance Industry

Key Points:

Effective use of the new mediums requires a agile and responsive organisation.

Existing capabilities need assessing and where necessary enhancing.

McKinsey's 7 S's model helps organisations to identify the areas to address.

6.9 Develop Organisational & Technological Capabilities

6.9.1 To be agile and responsive to the customer, the business processes need to be re-engineered and the new mediums exploited to the full. All parts of the organisation will need to make adjustments, with departments and individuals reviewing their capabilities in the light of the new commitments to customers. McKinsey's 7 S's Model provides a useful framework for reviewing the impact of change:

McKinsey's 7 S's Model of Organisational Change

Developing Shared Values and Beliefs linked to the Vision is a key to developing all the other aspects.

• Shared Values and Beliefs: A role of the vision statement is to impart to the organisation (and externally) what the organisation stands for and what it believes in.
  • this is a role for senior management. They must not only formulate and constantly re-iterate values and beliefs but also adhere to them if they are to shape peoples behaviour in a lasting way.

Strategy defines key actions and capabilities along the major dimensions of marketing, product and service development, sales and channel distribution, business systems and processes, and management of alliances and partnerships.

• Strategy: States how an organisation will attain its vision and respond to the threats and opportunities of the new mediums. Capabilities are needed in:

  • marketing:

    • market research: customer surveys and data analysis.

    • promotional management: co-ordination across all mediums.

    • media management.

    • consumer management: ensuring awareness of the new communications channels, the processes involved, and the benefits to be gained. Managing expectations. Providing training and support. Gaining timely feedback.

  • distribution:

    • channel management: co-ordination of existing and new distribution channels, PR to existing channels.

    • sales management: training and support, timely feedback, motivation and reward systems.

  • product and service development:

    • customer collaboration, personalisation and customisation.

    • pricing.

  • business requirements analysis: development of architectures, models, frameworks, high level systems and processes, etc..

  • creation and management of alliances & partnerships.

Systems requires capabilities in both information technology and in organisational processes, methods and controls.

• Systems, including Processes: Capabilities are required in:

• IT & IS:

  • design: user interface (HCI), OO analysis and design, techniques.

  • development: prototyping and RAD, OO programming in C++, CGI, Java Scripts, Java Applets; new OO development tools, OO databases, temporal databases, data mining tools.

  • systems delivery: distribution to multiple users, locations, device types, and media types in various combinations.

  • operation: wide-area network management, object resource management, security management (firewalls).

• sales and service:

  • design, development and delivery of new responsive processes to support intimate customer relationships.

  • operation: call handling for promotion, sales, service, claims, legal, etc., 24 hr. / 7 day support.

• legal:

  • personalisation and customisation of products / services.

  • on-line advice, selling, and servicing.

• actuarial: assessment on a 1:1 basis; overall risk management.

Staff need the skills and aptitude for developing customer relationships, service and sales.

• Staff: HR management for developing the skills and aptitude for building lifetime customer relationships, providing quality service and making appropriate sales. Policies, standards and processes re:

  • recruitment.

  • appraisal, training & development.

  • motivation & rewards.

The management style is likely to be a mixture of self management for customer facing activities and task management for organisational activities

- Management Challenge -

• Style: If staff are to treat customers as individuals, then they themselves will need to be managed as individuals. This suggests a self management style.

Relationship Marketing suggests a move to a Self Management style.

Network structures support a responsive and result oriented organisation.

• Structure: Organisations will find that changes to processes and style inevitably require changes to their structure. To be responsive and results oriented an organisation needs to move to a Network structure (see diagram).

Relationship Marketing suggests a move to a Network Organisation.

For staff to develop appropriate new skills requires a learning environment.

- A Learning Environment -

• Skills: If staff and mangers are to acquire all the skills outlined above, then there needs to be an appropriate learning environment. One that:

  • is driven by a desire to realise the vision.

  • has a sharing culture with mutual support.

  • provides space and time for learning, preferably closely linked to specific tasks and objectives (Just In Time Learning).

  • allows risk.

  • tolerates failure, provided it is part of the learning process.

  • has visible recognition for success that is built on new learning.