Max NewYorkLife InsuranceCreate a Breakthrough Strategy
The joint venture between NewYorkLife and Max Financial Services was expected to take the Insurance sector by storm through NewYorkLife ‘Sales Agency model’ in India.
The Challenge
- The India joint venture had tried the NewYorkLife Agency Model for 18 months but it was not working. There was growing frustration and statements like ‘This won’t work in India, this market is different’ were common. It was at this point that the Organisation chose to partner Erehwon to create a Breakthrough Strategy.
The Breakthrough
Breaking through the Mental Model Boundaries
Erehwon started by conducting an Orbit-shift Diagnostic to uncover the Mental Model Boundaries that were limiting the Organisation. Then the Agency Leadership was brought together for a ‘Breakthrough Dialogue’.
The First Breakthrough
The first mental model boundary got broken through when the Leadership recognized that they had fallen victim to a mental model prevalent in most MNC’S ‘Cut & paste a successful formula from one market to the next’. They broke-through this self- imposed boundary and decided that they needed to constructively but fundamentally challenge this 150 yr old model. They took on the challenge to Innovate In India. And further they decided to act empowered and not seek permission but create and then enroll the global stakeholders.
The Second Breakthrough
The second set of boundaries that were broken through were those underlying the existing Agent & Customer engagement practices -the industry reality was that most Agents did not last more than 1-2 yrs, once the Agent had finished approaching his personal network of family & friends his business hit saturation. Most agents had not been able to go beyond this point.
This had let to a ‘use & through model’ across the Industry – the focus of most organisation being to hire more agents in place of those who had hit saturation.
Breaking-through these boundaries Erehwon facilitated the Agency leadership to create a Breakthrough Strategy to transform Agent & customer engagement. This paved the way for the new practices like:
- ‘New Practices to build the ownership of Agents by not imposing but co-creating Goals’ – such that they met not just the Organisation’s need but also the person’s and his family’s aspirations.
- ‘New Practices to generate new leads from existing customers’ such that each customer became the source to minimum 3-5 new leads These mindset shifts and Practices paved the way for the development of a unique Indian model that inspired and enabled a transformation in customer and channel engagement.
Breaking through the boundaries lead to the development of a unique India Model – that ‘transformed other Customer & Channel engagement’.
The Impact
A New Reference Point for The Insurance Industry
The new model was first successfully adopted by two Offices and then scaled across the country to finally to touch more than 15000 Agents. As the model was institutionalized over the next 3 years, it led to an average MNYL insurance agent becoming 3 times as productive as the industry average at that time. MNYL’s ‘Agency model’ not only became an industry standard for the Indian insurance sector, but a role model for NewYorkLife – the parent organization.
This breakthrough was a key driver in the organization achieving a 3x growth over the next 3 years – from USD 100 Million to USD 300 Million.
Anuroop Tony Singh
“It gives you recipes for Success . It gives you insights into leaders risking all to pursue Quantum goals. It leaves people enthused .. Leaves them with a ‘we can do it feel”
Engage With Erehwon
Have a challenge that you would want to be solved differently? Want to know more about Erehwon and its work? Or explore how you could take up Orbit-shifting in your Organization?, do get in touch with us and lets have a great conversation.