Amit Garg, Allianz Partners: “For us, the number one priority is the customer, and we develop everything around the customer”

“A lot of things have changed in our industry. And Allianz has always been the leader in the insurance world globally. We know this. And we always beat the strict expectations,  even on stocks. And so, it does happen with a lot of things.

We were a very traditional insurance company, 130 years old. We are stable around volume, very slow growth. But at various stages, Allianz has really innovated.

It’s not about the prioritization we have been fixed. One thing which has been with Allianz is being very agile. And really, really being innovating. And changing quickly to the market.

My latest example is the kind of profits we declared in the Q1 are record profits for us in history. And just because we adapted to the latest trends in the market, latest customer trends. For us, the number one priority is the customer. And that’s where we develop everything around the customer,” Amit Garg, Global Head of Service Delivery and Shared Services, Allianz Partners said at Romanian Business Services Forum organized by Outsourcing Today and The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“So, that does not change for us. So, only as my chairman gives me, the targets on the customer satisfaction increase. It starts from 4, then goes to 4.3, and 4.5, 4.6, on a 5-point scale.

And I know how difficult it is to get there. So, all of my things remain prioritized around customer. So, we realized as an example that first, if it’s customer centricity, we need to adapt quickly. We need to adapt ourselves.

And our prioritization became processes. Products. Can we simplify our products? Can we simplify the process from a customer angle, not from an insurer angle? While keeping the risk management same. Insurers are the business of risk.

So, that does not change. The second thing was, for us, that prioritization is technology. So, if we are left behind, the competition catches up. If you look at disruptive banks, they’ve been really able to disrupt the banks.

But the disruptive insurtechs have not been able to disrupt big companies like Allianz. So far. They’re coming up, but way behind. Because we are really moving ahead.

The third and the most important thing is people focus. So, that is a very high priority. So, these things, customer, processes, technology, and then employee. There’s always the biggest priority for us.

Some of those things may appear like old priorities, but we center around these areas. So, we talked about the workforce, hybrid and other working. We adapt very quickly.

When the market was going on the COVID wave, we were the ones struggling the most with thousands and thousands of claims. So, we adapted our people. We adapted the hybrid working. We adapted processes very, very quickly.

We said, okay, if it’s a thousand euro claim, just go ahead. And, I mean, you know, so these are the four big priorities for us which does not change.

Things have dramatically changed after COVID. And after that, sorry to mention this word, AI, things have also changed very fast.

I’ve never seen a cost pressure more than this in my entire life. So, we understand the cost pressure. What it does is, it forces us to really innovate. Instead of scaring people with the AI for a target, we are upskilling every individual in our company with every all these things.

While we manage the cost, for example, we have moved a lot of our center of excellence to really places where the talent was or talent is. And yet at a low cost. Instead of disrupting the business and taking a very far shot of a low cost target. And I decided that one word which works in our company is TDI, which is top-down indicator. We have to accept it. There’s no choice.

So, we accepted, and we said okay. So, we innovated. We created a lot of talent. We invented a lot of processes, designs, and created centre of excellence which created a lot of cost reduction and yet at the same time put us ahead in the industry. And at the same time, people saw that they really invested in that. And it’s not that they’re just firing people randomly.

And the third thing that we did was we invested a lot in the processes and designs which made life simple for our advisors. Obviously, they back the customer. Customer is first, like I said earlier. We changed our products completely.

We took feedback from employees. The result was that employee engagement score. I heard all these surveys. Are the engagement scores dropping? Believe me, our employee engagement score in Romania is 93%. And attrition rate is lowest ever I’ve seen.

One of the other things which I think is very important as a balancing act is the risk management because the world is changing so fast. The compliance aspect of it, regulatory aspect of it. It’s extremely hard.

So, as a leader, while you’re balancing the cost and you’re balancing people, you’re also balancing these risks. Today, while I invest into AI, but my data risk also is very high. And one exposure is the entire company. So, that’s also something that we have to keep in mind as a balancing act.

So, I wouldn’t agree more that today’s leader has to really balance on four legs instead of two legs today. I’ll be honest. Which means four pillars. So, it’s really divided between the risk, between the cost, between the shareholders. But all of these balancing acts are working very well for us.”