Challenge
One of Ninety’s US clients, a Fortune 30 company and c.$30bn P&C insurer, had a long history of innovation. The launch of a new strategy demanded a new focus on transformative innovation mechanisms. They appointed a Chief Innovation Officer, reporting to the CEO President, and set about looking at how best to equip the organization for effective innovation.
Ninety were selected as a strategic partner based on our insurance innovation specialty, tools & methodologies, and philosophy of equipping every level of an insurer.
Solution
We deployed our 12-month Innovation ABCTM program in the USA, taking the great existing practices, then augmenting and reconfiguring them for maximum effectiveness:
- Healthcheck: we ran a series of workshops for key innovation evangelists across all business units, capturing needs and pockets of good practice.
- Stage A: Op model design: we introduced new philosophies around democratized innovation, and designed a lightweight internal ‘innovation agency’ at the center.
- Stage B: Training, IP & team: we helped the transition from the older op model to the new one, training 150+ innovation practitioners across all business units and functions, helping build new teams, and embedding our 123 FrameworkTM methodology for insurance innovation.
- Stage C: Portfolio & delivery: we worked with our client to introduce and build up an innovation portfolio, and provided a temporary team to run that portfolio whilst the permanent team was built. Part of that portfolio was delivered through a new 12-week Innovation Accelerator program, taking both Exec and grassroots ideas through cohort-based acceleration.
Benefit
Our client’s new group-wide innovation function was launched in Q4 2020, bringing a new philosophy and service offering to the business.
The new slimline central function is geared for maximum efficiency, and uses an approach that combines 1) highly democratized, empowering innovation enablers to all staff; and 2) highly focused innovation portfolio, targeting the top table’s strategic value chain initiatives.
At the end of Ninety’s 12-month Innovation ABCTM program, the new innovation function is self-sufficient and running a wide and high-performing set of insurance innovation initiatives across the group.
Testimonial
“Ninety’s singular focus on cracking the code for innovation in insurance was one of the key reasons we chose them as a partner, and the resulting insights and assistance that they have delivered during our year-long engagement have unquestionably accelerated our innovation maturity.”
Chief Innovation Officer, $30bn US-based P&C insurer
