Faisal Siddiqi discusses the firm’s new approach to help insurance customers improve their operations
Rebecca Gibson |
This article was originally published in the Spring 2019 issue of The Record. Subscribe for FREE here to get the next issue delivered directly to your inbox.
Face-to-face meetings play a key role in helping insurance companies to build trusted relationships with customers. However, customers now want to access their insurance providers’ services while on the move. Netherlands-based insurtech start-up Surfly has the ideal solution: a web-sharing application programming interface (API) and (video) chat functionality that enables insurance agents to share a browser session with customers when explaining product offerings in a personalised way.
Surfly is one of many start-ups that is collaborating with end-to-end IT provider DXC Technology to deliver innovative technologies that will help its insurance customers boost operational efficiency, reduce costs, improve employee productivity and enhance the end user experience.
“Although DXC regularly develops new capabilities for insurance companies, innovation takes a lot of time, resources and creativity, so we can’t do it all by ourselves,” says Faisal Siddiqi, chief technologist for Innovation and Ecosystems at DXC Technology. “Insurtechs are exploring how technologies such as the internet of things, blockchain, artificial intelligence and analytics can be used in new ways to help insurers create more compelling experiences for their customers. Hence, the best way to accelerate the innovation cycle and give our insurance customers quick access to the newest and most advanced technologies is to partner with these start-ups.”
To find start-ups that are developing the best digital insurance innovations, DXC has created the DXC Invitational programme. This challenges start-ups to present a solution that can be plugged into DXC’s end-to-end, cloud-based Digital Insurance Platform to help insurers gain actionable insights from data, simplify how customers purchase insurance online, or provide new ways to distribute or bundle insurance. Alternatively, start-ups can develop a standalone solution that enriches the insurance experience by preventing losses that lead to insurance claims, accelerating the claims remediation process, or drive ongoing customer engagement.
“A panel of DXC product managers and clients evaluate the capabilities of every solution, choosing two winning start-ups who are invited to partner with DXC globally and market their solution to our customers,” says Siddiqi. “The initiative has been very successful to date; we’re constantly surprised by the types of innovative insurance solutions our DXC Invitational candidates present.”
DXC has created a Developer Central portal to give its customers, partners and third-party developers access to its comprehensive collection of proven platforms, services and APIs. Developer Central is used by DXC Invitational winners to integrate their solutions with our Digital Insurance Platform. “We wanted a way to easily share our capabilities with customers and the development community and showcase how they can build new products on top of our Digital Insurance Platform and APIs to create custom solutions that meet their specific needs,” says Siddiqi.
Not only will the Developer Central portal be key to driving digital insurance innovation, but it will also benefit stakeholders across the insurance industry – from DXC, to start-ups, insurance providers and their end customers.
“One of the hardest challenges for start-ups is to break into the crowded insurance marketplace and grab the attention of insurance providers who are used to implementing solutions from more established technology providers,” says Siddiqi. “DXC has a long-standing reputation and a solid customer base in the worldwide insurance industry, so we’re well positioned to help start-ups refine their ideas, develop viable use cases for their apps and then put them in front of major insurance companies.”
At the same time, DXC benefits because it can offer insurance customers niche capabilities and innovative apps and services that it wouldn’t necessarily have developed itself.
“Rather than spending time trying to figure out which of the different processes we should be innovating, we can focus on providing and enhancing the core end-to-end Digital Insurance Platform and then provide apps and functionalities from our start-up partners as and when our customers require them,” explains Siddiqi. “For example, it wouldn’t have been top of our agenda to build a co-browsing solution to improve the call centre experience for insurance customers. However, when Surfly brought it to our attention through the DXC Invitational, we could instantly see how it would help our customers to save time when handling support cases. That’s just one example of why it makes great sense for DXC to partner with start-ups who are already offering the types of capabilities that will transform the employee or customer experience.”
Most importantly, DXC’s insurance customers – and their end customers – will reap the rewards. “Our customers have access to both our core insurance platform and niche innovations that help to take it to new levels, enabling them to rapidly optimise operations, empower agents and brokers to work more productively and improve the customer experience,” he comments. “Plus, they’ll save money because they won’t need to invest in developing their own capabilities to provide the types of experiences their customers want.”