In a 2001 follow-up book, Now, Discover Your Strengths<\/strong>, Buckingham and former Gallup chair, Donald O. Clifton, built on that idea by helping individuals identify their strengths so that they could focus on what they do well. This concept also works well in the macro sense for insurers. How well an insurer knows its strengths and weaknesses will determine its ability to proactively and aggressively make the right strategic and operational moves. <\/p>\n If we think about what has transpired the last twelve months during the COVID-19 crisis, we see a pattern emerge that is crucial for insurers to re-visit.<\/p>\n For the past five years, Majesco has been helping insurers look in the mirror and to gauge their efforts in light of the marketplace shifts and trends and other insurance organizations. In what ways are these companies leading? Are they doing enough to be considered Leaders? Are they Followers, still in the race, and trying to close the gap? Are they, perhaps, Laggards\u2026desperately needing to look in the mirror and reconsider their activities in light of their strengths and weaknesses?<\/p>\n This year\u2019s comparison and analysis has been tinged with the presence of COVID-19. How are companies reacting? Has it modified their plans? Majesco\u2019s latest thought-leadership report, Strategic Priorities 2021: Despite Challenges, Leaders Widen the Gap<\/a>, sheds light on how COVID-19 has negatively and positively impacted insurers and their plans for the future. We\u2019ll share some key insights from Majesco\u2019s report below.<\/p>\n We have seen the significant impact of the COVID crisis on the growth and strategic activities last year for all three segments; even the Leaders were not immune. But what distinguishes Leaders from the others is how much better they were prepared and responded to the crisis. Our research suggests the pandemic could be an inflection point that redefines every company in the industry \u2013 by pushing Laggards into further irrelevance, testing Followers to recommit to a new digital future, and providing Leaders a springboard to accelerate innovation, competitive differentiation and growth. <\/p>\n Leaders are able to take advantage of the unique conditions of the crisis that can create the springboard which sparks innovation. A recent article in MIT Sloan Management Review<\/em> helps explain these unique conditions, highlighting there are \u201cfive interdependent conditions that characterize a crisis and boost innovation.\u201d[ii]<\/a><\/p>\n Leaders are undoubtedly viewing these conditions as an opportunity to seize a competitive advantage, which is reflected in their stronger optimism for the future compared to Followers and Laggards.<\/p>\n When assessing the outlook over the next three years, the impact of COVID is clear, as seen in Figure 1. Both Laggards and Followers have the same level of decreased optimism for the future as they had in the assessment of their companies\u2019 growth and strategic activities in 2020 vs. 2019. However, Laggards also had nearly a 25% decline in their outlook for both last year and the next 3 years whereas Followers, while less, still showed smaller declines of 10% in both. <\/p>\n Leaders, on the other hand, show much more optimism.<\/strong> Despite a 5% decline in their future expectations compared to last year\u2019s survey, this is less than half of the 12% decline in their assessment of their companies\u2019 performance in 2020 vs 2019. <\/p>\n Figure 1: COVID-19\u2019s impact on outlooks for company growth and strategic activities over the next 3 years<\/p>\n The most compelling result was a<\/em><\/strong> staggering, game-changing 103% gap<\/em><\/strong> between Leaders and Laggards in how they envision their companies over the next three years, a significant increase from the alarming 64% gap on their assessment of the past year (Figure 2).<\/p>\n While less, Followers\u2019 28% gap does not bode well for their future and contradicts earlier evidence suggesting they are keeping pace with the Leaders. While initial appearances may have been encouraging, digging deeper highlights that the breadth and impact of what Followers are doing is not enough for the future. The gap is slowly growing and with another crisis it could substantially impact their future. Given we have seen multiple major events or crises nearly every 4-5 years over the last two decades that have accelerated change \u2013 dot.com, 9\/11, 2008 financial crisis, emergence of InsurTech and COVID \u2013 the likelihood is great!<\/p>\n Figure 2: Gaps between Leaders, Followers and Laggards in assessments of company growth and strategic activities over the next 3 years<\/p>\n Even more discouraging for these two segments is the continued growth in the gaps with Leaders in their optimism for the future. This is especially alarming for the Laggards, whose gap swelled by nearly 40 percentage points.<\/p>\n While not encouraging, Followers and Laggards must remember that every challenge has an opportunity or solution, some of which are incredible and give hope for an exciting, new future. They just need to proactively plan and execute on these to create an optimistic future.<\/p>\n Instead of asking the famous quote by the evil queen in Snow White – \u201cMirror, mirror, on the wall \u2014 who’s the fairest of them all?\u201d \u2026 Insurers should ask themselves \u201cMirror, mirror on the wall \u2013 am I a Leader, Follower or Laggard?\u201d<\/p>\n This is where Majesco\u2019s high-level analysis is meant to help answer that question. The most important analysis happens at the individual insurer level. Some form of introspection and analysis must occur within each insurer to confirm their locations within the realm of Leaders, Followers and Laggards. For a quick review, assess your own company against these definitions, below.<\/p>\n The Leaders:<\/strong> Companies that understand the market dynamics and have rapidly moved to planning and execution across most of the key areas. They are focused on a two-speed strategy by investing in modernizing and optimizing today\u2019s business, while also investing in the future business nearly equally. They are or have moved from legacy or non-platform core to cloud platform core solutions, leveraging an array of platform, digital and emerging technologies to elevate customer experiences, launch new products, expand channels and embrace ecosystems to transform the business. <\/p>\n The Followers:<\/strong> Companies that understand the market dynamics but are not moving as quickly or broadly into the various areas for planning and execution. They are solidly focused on modernizing and optimizing today\u2019s business, but less so than Leaders on the future business. While they are relatively close in many areas to Leaders, the pace of execution when looking out three years is not the same, meaning that the gap will steadily increase. Because of this, they may not recognize the danger in the gap until it is too late. <\/p>\n The Laggards:<\/strong> These are companies that generally understand the market dynamics but are clearly stuck in the past and have failed to rapidly move to planning and execution across the array of strategic areas. They are not moving to new cloud platform solutions, or incorporating platform and emerging technologies. They are keeping their business solely focused on the current business model, which lacks the level of automation, digital capabilities, and more, needed to meet the rising demands of a new generation of buyers. If not already, they are approaching a downward spiral of relevance that will be nearly impossible to reverse.<\/p>\n Because Leaders are so far ahead, their investment will be substantially less than Followers or Laggards who have waited, hesitated, or just moved too slowly. Playing catchup is expensive \u2013 both in outlay of resources but also in lost opportunities. The key is to confirm where you are, then never lose focus on it. Your organization deserves to know where it stands.<\/p>\n The significant gaps between Leaders versus Followers and Laggards are becoming so great that there is a danger of Followers constantly trying to play catchup rather than their own game to win, and for Laggards entering an accelerating downward spiral. If you are still relying on the past and pre-digital age, pre-pandemic business models, now is the time to reevaluate.<\/p>\n It is time for bold moves. It\u2019s time to skip some of the traditional steps involved in transformation and pull in support systems that will help your organization play to its strengths. It\u2019s time to ask the hard questions to the Mirror on the Wall!<\/p>\n Majesco has designed a transformation model that artfully and efficiently combines your industry expertise with the digital tools<\/a> and ecosystem supports<\/a> you need to make the leap forward.<\/p>\n Begin by assessing where you are in the Knowing-Doing Gaps, from our Strategic Priorities research<\/a>, that defines Leaders who are accelerating digital transformation with resilient digital business models. Rethink and reprioritize your strategies to take advantage of the shift and opportunities unfolding. And execute on these priorities with a sense of focus and urgency.<\/p>\n [i]<\/a> Buckingham, Marcus and Curt Coffman, First, Break All the Rules: What the World\u2019s Greatest Managers Do Differently, p.164, Simon & Schuster, 1999<\/p>\n [ii]<\/a> Johnson, Elsbeth and Murray, Fiona, \u201cWhat a Crisis Teaches Us About Innovation,\u201d MIT Sloan Management Review, November 30, 2020, https:\/\/sloanreview.mit.edu\/article\/what-a-crisis-teaches-us-about-innovation\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was 1999 and everything about business was changing. The Internet was hot and growing! Ebay and Amazon launched within the previous 4 years. Napster debuted the peer to peer music file sharing network \u2013 the precursor to iTunes. It was all about e-business! Fast Company magazine was putting out 300-page monthly issues that covered…<\/p>\n\n
Finding Opportunity and a Way Forward in a Crisis<\/h2>\n
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<\/figure>\nMirror, Mirror on the Wall<\/h2>\n
Fast-Tracking Transformations That Play to Your Strengths<\/h2>\n
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