Satishwar Balakrishnan, MD & CEO of Aegon Life Insurance Company Ltd. On how the company is harnessing the data potential.
CEOs play a crucial role in spearheading digital transformation efforts and helping their organizations achieve competitive differentiation.
Satishwar Balakrishnan, MD & CEO of Aegon Life Insurance Company Ltd., is one such leader who has led the company’s digital transformation from the front. With 20+ years of experience, his expertise has propelled Aegon Life to become India’s premier digital-only life insurance provider, using data and technology to drive strategy and innovation.
In this interaction he highlights the transformative power of digital and data, enabling Aegon Life to achieve economies of scale, faster operations, and enhanced customer experiences. Excerpts:
Q. What has been your digital strategy?
Around four years back, we took a call to go completely digital. It was a bold move. The company’s promoters strategically decided to transition into a digital-only life insurer, eliminating the need for physical touchpoints.
This forward-thinking approach underscored our commitment to a purely digital business model. The target was not to achieve business growth or profitability but rather to prioritize the development of a robust technological infrastructure. Today we have emerged as a digital-only life insurance company.
However, the point of a digital transformation isn’t to become only digital; it is to generate value for the business and customers.
There are three key pillars to our renewed strategy. One is to create a digital platform on which we keep our business running smoothly. The second is the intelligence piece that is delivered and driven by data. The final pillar is focused on taking services directly to customers.
Q. As CEO, how are you driving the data agenda? How is data helping you make better business and customer-centric decisions and at the same time tap growth opportunities in the insurance space?
Insurance traditionally has been a push product. Using data, we carry out minimal stuff which we internally call as ‘Zero Ops’ process, meaning that it is all third-party validated. Take the instance of our underwriting team.
There are only five members in this team. They don’t run through any applications. They are needed only for exception management.
In another case, if we are taking digital KYC, there is no need for documents or scans. The application is filled using the digital KYC inputs. Here there is no need to carry out a third-party validation. This makes processes faster and effective, both for customers and us.
Q. While businesses across the world are trying to make more effective use of data, analytics, and AI, a key challenge holding many of them back: ‘The lack of a culture.’ As a CEO, how are you driving a data-driven culture and what are the challenges?
Organizational culture has the potential to drive the application of analytics, amplify its effectiveness, and guide companies towards favorable outcomes while mitigating risks. Driving this is more about change management and this must start with the top management. Driving this change was not easy. It also meant saying “no” to a lot of things.
A lot of pace in driving this culture was laid down by the promoters. Our management’s top responsibility is towards building a robust digital platform, and not merely looking at profits. This gave us the momentum to drive a specific behavior or culture. Our approach has been to identify problems and create data-driven solutions to these problems.
Q. Over the last 12 months, what percentage of overall decisions in your organization have been driven by data?
Our KYC has been 100% digital. In our financial underwriting process, we have been able to carry out around 80% of our cases without asking for any documentation. The decision to issue an instant policy stands at around 70%.
Q. When data is used to improve a product or service, consumers generally feel that the enhancement itself is a fair trade for their data. What’s your opinion?
People are worried about their data being shared without their consent. However, customers also realize that when they share data for a specific purpose it is for their benefit. We need to keep their information safe and use it only for their benefit. This is a clear case of give and take, and it is working for us.
Q. Do you have “data conversations” with other C-suite leaders?
I have data conversations not only internally but across the industry. In the insurance space, the Regulator is also driving conversations around data. We also have the Insurance Information Bureau (IIB) supporting us with sector-level data to enable data-based and scientific decision-making including pricing and framing of business strategies. There are times when they also share data related to fraud instances reported to them which helps us to be cautious.
(Satishwar Balakrishnan, MD & CEO, Aegon Life Insurance Company Ltd., was in conversation with Ashwani Mishra, Editor-Technology, ET Edge Insights at the 4th Edition of DataCon Summit and Awards held in Mumbai last week)
