My top 6 trends– A snapshot view

While I was sipping my coffee on-board my flight back to KL, I was running my head around what would the top 6 trends be in our industry. A generalist view for South-East Asia, without covering for too many country specifics. Note: Some of these are being done already sporadically

1.       Omni-channel won’t be a buzz word anymore – Customers would seemingly move between channels for interaction and choose their most preferred mode of buying. Real Chatbots with ML/AI, plugged on to customer and distributor portals will facilitate the sharing of information and greater standardization

2.       Hyper customization/hyper personalization and commoditization of lower involvement products – We would see both in equal amounts in my view. Lower involvement products would be commoditized but the solutions would be hyper customized across the lower and lower-middle income groups. For e.g. while PA, travel, home, etc. at the core are simple products, there may be country/segment specific customizations required. These would be largely delivered through digital and partnership channels

3.      Intermediaries will remain at the core of the more complex life insurance and commercial insurance space. These solutions require advice, trust (relationship selling) and multiple touch points. But, I do see lower involvement products like motor, travel, home, simple protection being sold more and more through digital channels. Intermediaries may sell these more as a part of the larger relationship they have with their clients. Most of the service would be done digitally, including around sales, service and most notably claims

4.       Liability as a product profile will significantly pick up in the days to come and will not be restricted to businesses. Professionals and individuals will be more aware of the gaps they are sitting on with respect to cyber, personal liability, professional indemnity and so on

5.       APIs will be available everywhere and this will foster more partnership driven sales for lower involvement products. Minimal friction and sales along with a linked product through a service provider one has more affinity with. For e.g. travel insurance through a telco player who can remind you every time you travel (Roaming packages)

6.       Simplicity will be more of a reality vs. today as people become more aware of the risks of complexity for all parties concerned

Bonus: As I have written couple of years back, I do see significant parts of insurance becoming like a utility bill on the back of greater stability around IoT (Connected cars, home, wearables, etc.). For e.g. USD x for travelling twice a month, USD y for driving my car 1,000 kms and 80% of it as a good driver (good driver discount), USD z for my health insurance (and 10% discount for walking xxxxx steps). So the bill could be linked to anything. Be it a telecom or an electricity company!

Note: These are my personal views and does not represent the views of the company I work for.

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Keep It Simple Silly – It is all about the economy!!!

I wanted to pen my thoughts on what I think the government should do in light of the sheer magnitude of opportunities ahead of us.

1.     Last mile delivery

a.     One of the reasons for the success of the last government was their ability to drive some specific programmes (LPG gas cylinders, houses for poor in some states, building toilets, power generation and roads) – we need more of this

b.     We need to over-invest on urban infrastructure development by way of solving the serious water crisis we have and in building more flyovers, highways and airports!

2.     Get the tractors working

a.     Agriculture declined at -0.1% in the last quarter and we continue to have no clear plan or purpose behind the agriculture turn-around. We need experts at the helm and not politicians. Politicians at the helm have simply not worked for decades now. Agriculture as a contribution to our GDP has continued to decline, yet more than 50% of our population depends on it

b.     3 key measures that need to be executed on a war footing are –

                                                  i.     MSP is an absolute necessity in the wake of potential “El Nino” fears, trade tensions and crude price escalation. Failing which, we will not be able to do this again as the “window” would have passed and the current low inflation situation may not last. During high inflation, fixing a higher MSP will not be viable. And for those worrying about MSP impacting costs, the issue is not MSP, the issue is middlemen and the issue is the cost of not doing something for the farmer!

                                                 ii.     Do not give free money or waive loans off – It has only put our state governments in serious debt crisis and doesn’t solve the purpose. Instead, we should make organised financing easier for agriculture and agri-based industries. We should also ensure the crop insurance schemes are monitored and administered well

                                                iii.     Over-invest on technology across the entire value chain, with special emphasis on irrigation. We need to educate, excite and engage farmers in this massive transformation programme and the fact that if they don’t do it now, there is no coming back. This needs a holistic vision backed by a multi-year execution plan. Don’t expect immediate results here, barring a few success stories

3.     Minimum government, maximum governance – Err, the forgotten quote

a.     We need to continue to do away with unwanted ministries, processes, rules and roadblocks. Like how large organisations have a BAU and transformation target, this government should also give each Ministry a target to do away with say 20% of their processes

b.     Reduce expenses on deadwood projects and subsidies that don’t create jobs

4.     Sell our diversity story to tourists

a.     We keep missing the magnitude of opportunity we have, to be the “tourism” capital of the world. Where else do we get this level of diversity from snow to beaches to forests and from deserts to mountains!!!

b.     We haven’t done enough in this space. Instead we must be working with state governments to create unique selling propositions to domestic and foreign travellers

c.     Statues and bullet trains are not needed to achieve this. We need cleaner facilities, better security and more awareness

5.     Wake up and smell the coffee (Confidence building)

a.     Strength of India lies in our democracy and the independence our institutions have more or less enjoyed, barring some brief periods. Hence, it is imperative to show the world “real data” and “independence” in our decision making, particularly with RBI

b.     Close to 200 million “minorities” which on their own are bigger than all but 7 countries in the world (a tad smaller than Nigeria) need greater confidence. Confidence comes from actions and we need to ensure that they aren’t secluded from our system (Only one minister is a Muslim in the new cabinet!)

Finally, in the 1990s to 2010s – IT services and BPO was a major job creator for us. It definitely will grow, but not at that pace anymore and automation will disrupt the industry a lot. Do we as a nation know what we stand for? China has modelled itself on new age industries/tech, many other South-East Asian countries on tourism and so on!!! Because of our sheer size, it cannot be one area. For me, it has to be around (1) Agriculture for rural areas (2) AI, IoT, etc. for new age industries (3) Tourism – mass market
We should focus the next decade on 3 areas and put all resources to play in that space!!!

Some of you may term my article utopian. But, I never said I was writing this article as the President of any party that depends on certain segments for votes anyways!!! I am fiercely independent and will remain that way.

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#VivaTech – What did I take away?

Since the World Economic Forum Event in Dalian in 2017 that I attended, the VivaTech event in Paris was by far the most inspirational one I have been to.

As always, one is left wondering how “small” we are in this world of break-neck speed disruption. But, what excited me more was 3 specific elements:

1.     How relevant the disruptions were and how focused they were in making people’s lives easier?

2.     Health is the “Oil” industry and billionaires and trillionaires will come from this space – On a lighter note, we might have Healthcare specialists owning football clubs in a decade or two ;) Much like people who own oil fields today.

3.     AXA was the only insurer at the event and it made me very proud to see how relevant our innovations are. We are clearly in the forefront of insurance disruption at a scale significantly larger than what some others are aiming to achieve!

Health insurers today aspire to build strong health services proposition encompassing care coordination across different age groups/conditions, tele-health, new age clinical support and more safer treatments. I was delighted to see many AXA supported start-ups at the event. These range from VR to Doctor co-ordination to tele-medicine and specific support services for patients (for e.g. Fertility treatments)

Here are some random examples I saw:

1.     Use of technology and AI to really support customer experience (For e.g. Virtual Hair Advisors)

2.     Use of chatbots and AI to automate customer communication and experience significantly (For e.g. guest services at Accor, Amazon contact centres, etc.)

3.     Sanofi aiding elderly healthcare in a world increasingly moving away from traditional family systems (covers a wide spectrum of detection and support services)

4.     Some of the health solutions from apparels and wearable companies will definitely help life expectancy, but customer experience still has some way to go. Imagine walking around with sensors all over the body and reminders on a regular basis on what we should do! The next phase of innovation for me would be to find the balance between intervention and annoyance!

5.     Power of mass customer acquisition and what that insight can do. Be it Facebook or Google (Future of what a Google Home can do was pretty inspiring, but also left wondering what impact it would have on people if they really don’t need to do much after coming home from lights to music to even cooking

6.     Increased focused on data privacy – One of the speakers mentioned more than 60 million people have opted for their data to be purged every 3-months and Google doesn’t really need it any longer as ML has already studied the behaviour

7.     High precision robotics operations – As they become more commercial, their costs will reduce drastically

8.     Physical robots which have part evolved and part at where I saw them as a 8/9-year old when my Dad gave me my 1^st robot

With this level of disruption all around, I can see 2 things happening

1.     The one with customer data will rule the world! One can always say – who didn’t know that ;) I never said I will say something you didn’t know. Ha ha ha J

2.     Innovation will become more and more specific and target “micro” moments that are scalable across multiple markets vs. all-encompassing innovations that are no different to what we tried in the past (large scale ideas with no clear foundation)

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Jobs!!! An impending global crisis or a massive opportunity that we are unprepared for? (Part 2 of 2)

I was extremely humbled at the number of comments I got across various social media platforms. Interestingly, it was a rough 30:70 split between those who don’t see a reason to worry and those who do! My intention was not create panic, but to set in motion a dialogue process on jobs, which is a topic of grave concern in some of the more mature and large emerging geographies already.
I would like to divide my solutions into 3 parts:

Part A: Government sponsored programmes targeting entrepreneurship within agriculture

Part B: Government, Schools and Corporate led up-skill programme for those who are engaged in manual/repetitive tasks

Part C: Corporate R&D centres aimed at not only doing R&D, but also on investing in building skills that people would require in 5/10 years

Part A: Government sponsored programmes targeting entrepreneurship within agriculture

As awareness increases, we will see a dire need for organic produce and real farm food over all the cans and tins we consume today. It’s a cycle and as the world gets more conscious, this demand is going to increase again. It is pretty much going back to the basics. But, today such produce remains expensive and contributes a miniscule portion. This is driven by 2 factors – (1) Agriculture in emerging markets is still limited to largely the uneducated or undereducated (2) Agriculture is not “cool enough” as a profession

The lack of sufficient use of technology in agriculture has made it un-attractive for too long. Significant under-investment in irrigation, market pricing, marketing and supply-chain has rendered it a simply unviable profession for many. For instance, 50% of India depends on agriculture, yet less than 20% of our GDP comes from agriculture. While in more mature economies like the US, only 3% of the people depend on agriculture, but contribute almost 10% of their GDP.

In my view, this will happen only if government heavily invests and sponsors disruption within agriculture across the industry to make it “sexy” and “viable” for young professionals. We see FinTech festivals, how many AgriTech festivals have we seen?

20 years from, some of the “coding” generation may run out of codes and their fascination behind it. They may find excitement in nature and what it offers as a business opportunity!

Part B: Government, Schools and Corporate led up-skill programme for those who are engaged in manual/repetitive tasks

We need a massive up-skilling/re-skilling programme targeting middle aged individuals who are engaged in manual/repetitive tasks. A key part of the services industry ecosystem, are the massive number of people who depend on manual tasks for their bread and butter. And many of these tasks are primed for disruption and extinction in light of automation over the next 1-2 decades depending on which country we are talking about.

We need to create “Back to school” programmes like the one currently being explored in China to get employees proactively into class-rooms and re-train them around either new age skillsets like coding or new industries. This will require intervention at never before seen levels!

Part C: Corporate R&D centres aimed at not only doing R&D, but also on investing in building skills that people would require in 5/10 years

Large conglomerates and organisations needs to heavily invest in re-building their employee base keeping in mind medium to long term future. For e.g. do we need to build a large contact centre team to take standard calls or do we need to train them to be real Advisors to only handle high-end calls?

These centres need to aim at being the disruption engine from within to thwart what otherwise new entrants would anyways. I.e. fundamentally transform the business model. This will help define the skill-sets we need to acquire and build over the next decade.

Funding a once a life-time transformation of unmatched proportion

To invest the kind of money these schemes would require and to reduce social inequality emanating from the impending job crisis (no jobs to jobs not being commensurate to the skillsets acquired), I recommend a period of “wealth tax” for individuals and “automation tax” for corporates. Some may call me out for sounding like a socialist. I am far away from being one. But, we need to address the societal imbalance and hence, I am a firm believer in Bernie Sanders and his “wealth tax” model for a certain period of time. Further, like some schemes we have around “Plant a new tree for every tree we cut”, we should introduce an “automation” tax. This will amount will help build a pool to drive the large scale up-skilling/re-skilling programmes we would need to execute over the next 1-2 decades.

Further, we can explore long-term government backed education bonds to fund some of the larger scale projects which have clearer ROIs

I refuse to believe funds is the issue. Key challenges impacting dynamic changes to our job environment is lack of execution, foresight and government will to take up a topic that may not reap instant results.

Finally, there would be millions of new jobs created across various new fields and this article doesn’t aim to list what they could be. For e.g. Who would have thought someone would get paid 5 and 6 figures for posting messages on their social media feeds even a decade back, when Facebook didn’t even exist. Time moves very fast and hence, the process is more important than what jobs would be created.

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Jobs!!! An impending global crisis or a massive opportunity that we are unprepared for? (Part 1 of 2)

Note: This article covers my personal views and does not represent the views of my organisation. Further, it is written from an Asian emerging markets context covering the service industry.

Few Interesting stats to ponder over:

1. 65-85% of job that will be created in next decade do not exist today (multiple sources ranging from Dell to famous books)

2. 70% of tasks will be automated over the next decade (Tasks not jobs)

3. 15% of jobs today would be redundant over the next decade (my own estimate is that this could be much higher if indeed 70% of tasks are automated over the next decade)

4. By 2022, no less than 54% of all employees will require re-skilling/up-skilling (WEF: Future of Jobs Report 2018)

5. By 2022, Emerging professionals share of employment will be up 11% points to 27% and legacy roles will decline 10% to 21% (WEF: Future of Jobs Report 2018)

There are many articles which talk about productivity growth post 1970’s being in extremely low single digits only. I even asked this question at the World Economic Forum in Dalian in 2017 to a high power panel. Professors talked about how many of us were seeing significant growth in more advanced industries. But, in rural based jobs, productivity has actually even declined and hence, the overall numbers weren't very high.

But, there seemed to be a massive consensus that the coming decades would be very different as Industrial revolution 4.0 kicks in. Some of the elements include - digital technology, advances in micro-biology, artificial intelligence, driverless cars, robotics, IoT and so on.

This has been a topic that I have been thinking a lot about. Some time back when I was in an Operations role, with the use of automation, lean and digitalisation of processes, we had made roughly 10% of a department redundant. Most of them were still able to find roles elsewhere in the business as Asia is still a growth market with significant manual processes. But, I can’t stop wondering - how long before those processes are automated as well.

From a business objective perspective, it was pretty significant and value creative for the enterprise. But, from a personal side, it was a very difficult exercise and more importantly with social implications on the type of people who may not be easily employable in today’s world.

During that process, I learnt 3 important elements from this exercise - (1) How unprepared organisations are for this industrial revolution? (2) How unprepared employees are to embrace this change? (3) How unaware leaders and employees are of the extent of change ahead of us.

The recent job report (or the lack of it) in India which has given opposition fodder made me wonder. How can a country that is 1 of the 2 fastest growing economies in the world face a job crisis?

This coupled with my personal experience made me do some soul searching as well as some rigorous research on jobs. Without being accused of scare mongering, I am of the view that we are headed for an impending job crisis that can become an opportunity if the state, corporates and other important players like educational institutions get together and come up with a clear jobs plan. I am not worried about millennials and xillennials as they will find new age jobs based on the skill sets they are acquiring today.

I am more concerned about the sandwich generation, the one that supports their kids and parents. More importantly, those who have been doing manual/semi-manual repetitive tasks and never worried or had the time to acquire new skills are at the biggest risk of losing their current jobs.

My view is that any job that fulfils the below condition would be automated over the next 5-10 yrs:

1. A clear starting and end position

2. Manual and highly repetitive

3. Minimal people interactions

The second wave of automation will also cover more high-end roles that include basic people interaction, analytics and the like. (Next 5-10 yrs for advanced industries and more sequentially for others)

Some of you may wonder if I am being conservative as the second wave is already underway in many industries. That is true. But, I am talking about it from a pan-industrial scale type of transformation and not so much specific companies or sub industries with lower legacy (e.g. eCommerce)

And make no mistake, these are sometimes as much as 50-60% of jobs in most industries. How are we going to employ this many people? What social and economic impact is this going to leave our society with?

Many a time, I keep hearing about using them for more high value tasks as their core tasks get automated. But, how many such high value tasks really exist to gainfully employ these people? And, more importantly how many of these employees can really up-skill themselves to undertake high value tasks?

Instead, many a countries are introducing stricter immigration rules, labour laws around redundancy and so on. These do not solve the root cause. In fact as we see in some of the countries in the middle east, it may actually be counter productive and impacting industries even more.

What we need is serious industry-government dialogue and concerted efforts to build a long-term plan aimed at creating jobs that (A) Helps the economy grow without putting undue social costs on the government exchequer or corporates expense base (2) Employ the massive number of people who would be available over the next decade or so (C) Help Gen X, GenY (Not the cream who already are) to compete or co-exist with millennials in the job force

A starting point is to define what does each country want to be specialise or be known for. For e.g. in the 1990s-2000s, it was IT/ITES for India, led by massive cost arbitrage. With that part dwindling, what will be our USP in 2030?

Happy to hear your views! In the next write up, I will focus on my proposed solutions, potential job spaces and emerging opportunities...

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15 yrs in AXA... Aah!! What a ride...

I completed 15 yrs in AXA today... I joined AXA on crutches literally. I had a football injury (ACL tear) and was on crutches for over a month back then.

My 1st Manager (Kshama Pai) used to get me tea sometimes so that I dont walk around.. In a lot of ways - that is AXA for me...  family!!!

From Dec 1, 2003 to today, it has been a thoroughly challenging and enjoyable ride... AXA gave me a lot and I would like to believe I gave a bit back as well... I thought I will talk about 4 factors that I believe have played a role in my career advancement from an Analyst in 2003! I still have a long way to go...

1. "Putting myself out there" - I have never feared the consequences of trying, innovating and expressing my opinion. I have worked in 5 countries and 11 over diverse roles in my 15 yrs!!! Many a times I took up roles where I was in the unknown zone... One such experience was to work in the Regional M&A team. I always say it was the best and worst 3 yrs of my life. I killed myself at work, but learnt more than ever before...

2. Failed many a times - I dont remember a year in AXA where I havent had something go wrong, sometimes more wrong than other times. And it is emotionally draining.

I took 2 things back at that times - I will never die wondering what if and I always wake up from the incident, reflect and get even better... Reflecting and making changes have been my strength

3. People and my Managers - I have been lucky to work with some of the finest Managers. I have always been flexible to different styles.. 3 of them come to my mind - Francois, Benoit and Emmanuel!!! Hmmm must be something between the French and me ;) Wonder if its the Pondicherry connection... They have taught me the value of empowerment, sustainable culture and people development.

Many a times they threw me into the sea. But also gave me a compass and checked in regularly. My Coaches and mentors (Laurent Marvy) always challenged me and never let me rest on my laurels

On the people side, ensure you are surrounded by people who are better than you. That will push you to be better.

4. Had fun@work - Never was there a time at work when I didnt look for an opportunity to party and engage with people.

For instance - I practice a daily ritual of walking around office twice a day when I am around. This helps me meet, know and learn from a wide array of people...

In summary, all I would tell young people with my limited experience (a long long way to go for me as well)

1. Be bold and take risks - High risk/high reward (integrity is a given) - At some point in our lives, we will be staring at being fired!! Else, you havent pushed the boundary

2. Take up challenges and be ready to be the change you want to see

3. Money will follow. Focus on the role (I have selected roles many a times based on what it will do to me 5 yrs later and not based on whether it pays me a few hundreds more today)

4. Attitude wins over aptitude. Remember no project or achievement will be remembered 3 or 5 yrs from now. The only thing you leave back is your impression on people...

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Social media selling - How and where to start?

A lot of Agents asked me about using social media for sales and whether it works. I am happy to see that a few of them are embarking on this journey.

I recently heard an impressive success story in Penang of a young 20 something-yr old who did decent business in month 1 of his joining us. Business good enough to qualify for one of our conventions as well. But, more importantly 100% of it was through Facebook!

At AXA Affin Life, we also supply leads to our EYE Agents (Young Agent Entrepreneurs programme) to grow in their formative years and have seen decent conversion rates on our leads. These are by and large cold leads with no particular affinity (i.e. partnerships)

Before embarking on social media selling, define the purpose clearly. These 3 questions are critical and one should spend time to answer them:

1. Why do you want to put your business on social media? - Awareness, new sales, customer service, etc.

2. Are my customer segments the ones who will use social media for sales and service of insurance products?

3. Do I have the DNA to be on social media? - If not, do I have the resilience to explore now and constantly look at ways at staying relevant.

Once you have answered those broad questions, your approach may vary and I am happy to have more detailed conversations with you (including the technical ones). But, here are 6 simple rules for those who are keen to start off, based on my observations.

1. Content is king!

In social media, content is king. And content doesnt mean curating any content from anywhere and cluttering your profile. Pick content that you and your readers relate to. Constantly put them out there and seek feedback. For e.g. 2 contents a day covering 2 types of topics (i.e. financial planning, economy, business, etc.)

2. Respond to people

Do not post a content and forget it there. Be active and respond to every query or comment within a set time frame. A highly efficient response and response time are equally important and is central to your success

3. Show yourself

Do not hide behind actors and cartoons. Put yourself out there!

4. Do not brow-beat your brand all the time - it can be nauseating

It is important for blogs, Facebook, Insta and so on used for business development purposes to not end up being a constant self promotion zone. People will see no value in it on a regular basis and this will not help readership and engagement

5. Work out your own style and avoid the avoidable!

Do not post irrelevant stuff (i.e. about a movie for instance) and stay away from politics, religion, etc.

Follow your style as new age media gives us that freedom. We do not need to follow one writing or content style.

Share your latest posts on multiple platforms and ask people to do the same. This will help build up your readership.

6. Offline has to meet online

In our industry, it is important to have both styles of engagement. For e.g. once a while may be organise a coffee session on some topic that excited a group of people or that someone in your platform. This will build affinity

The best way to know is by trying it out. Be ready to fail as there are 1000's and millions of social media promoters out there. To be able to seen amongst that, requires a lot of resilience and constant pursuit of differentiation.

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