Oliver B\u00e4te, CEO of Allianz SE, opened the 44th annual Insurance Conference in Sun City, South Africa, with a keynote address on the conference theme ‘Disrupt, Debate, Deliver’. In his speech, B\u00e4te addressed the profound transformation of the insurance industry wrought by digitalisation. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn today\u2019s fast changing world, it\u2019s critical to innovate quickly and to change course rapidly if necessary. The insurance industry, like other customer service industries, is transforming because of the all-encompassing impact of digitalisation on our lives. Customers have new expectations, a growing number of disruptors are taking the stage and new megatrends, such as artificial intelligence (AI), voice-based smart assistants (i.e. \u2018Alexa\u2019), telematics, wearables and drones are fundamentally changing the traditional insurance model.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are completely rethinking the way we serve our customers, not least because of the competition posed by disruptors from the fin-\/insuretech space, who have an impressive facility with mobile technology and analytics. Today\u2019s customers will choose a product primarily because it\u2019s easy to use, transparent in terms of price and quality, and personalised \u2013 and because it\u2019s available to them via the digital channels they want it from.\u201d<\/p>\n
Digital comes naturally to African customers<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWhile traditional markets, such as Europe, are struggling with their digital transformation process, Africa is digital by nature. Mobile is the fastest growing sector and innovation enabler on the continent with an expected 1.2 billion African subscribers by 2018.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cBy leveraging the Internet and mobile penetration, African countries can leapfrog innovation. African customers will rightfully demand and drive insurance innovation in Africa as they expect offerings and channels to be fully digitalised. This, and the fact that rules and regulations are favourable for innovation in financial services, puts Africa in a great position to become the digital insurance leader of the future.\u201d <\/p>\n A \u2018Single Digital Agenda\u2019 to meet disruption <\/strong><\/p>\n To transform Allianz into a truly customer-centric, \u2018digital by default\u2019 company, the Group established a Single Digital Agenda. Allianz is spending over \u20ac700 million ($800 million) annually on shaping and orchestrating the digitalisation of its 127-year-old business.<\/p>\n The \u2018Single Digital Agenda\u2019 is a portfolio of change initiatives built on five pillars, the cornerstone being the Allianz \u2018Global Digital Factory\u2019, a place where experts from all parts of the company rethink customer journeys from our various business segments and make them globally scalable. The second is \u2018Global Digital Partnerships\u2019 to foster collaboration with tech and sharing economy companies. The third is \u2018Digital Pure Play\u2019, the conception of 100% digital insurance and assistance offerings. The fourth is \u2018Advanced Business Analytics\u2019 with the aim to increase customer satisfaction and the effectiveness of the business. And the fifth is \u2018Allianz X\u2019, a fund and incubator, for which the company has set aside \u20ac430 million ($500 million) over the next four years. The fund invests in promising startups that are part of ecosystems relevant to the business, such as connected property, connected mobility, health, asset and wealth management.<\/p>\n In Africa, where the Group is already present in 16 countries, Allianz will focus its digital activities on increasing customer reach in key growing markets, where insurance penetration is still low, and efficiency in markets with higher penetration. <\/p>\n \u201cInsurance companies have much to offer to the African economy. Digitalisation allows us to gain considerably better insights into our individual and institutional customers and thereby to better serve their needs. We believe deeply in Africa\u2019s huge long-term growth potential and we will leverage our global footprint and extensive expertise to strengthen our market position and to attract African talent,\u201d B\u00e4te said in closing. \t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Oliver B\u00e4te, CEO of Allianz SE, opened the 44th annual Insurance Conference in Sun City, South Africa, with a keynote address on the conference theme ‘Disrupt, Debate, Deliver’. In his speech, B\u00e4te addressed the profound transformation of the insurance industry wrought by digitalisation. \u201cIn today\u2019s fast changing world, it\u2019s critical to innovate quickly and to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":13819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[136,399,19],"tags":[385,1694,2222,2223,983,1019,1844],"class_list":["post-13818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-expert","category-more-news","category-regional-news","tag-africa","tag-allianz","tag-digital-by-default","tag-digital-insurance","tag-digitisation","tag-innovation","tag-insurance-industry"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}