Middle East Insurance Review: Cognizant’s Global Practice Head of Insurance Says Insurers in the Middle East can Apply Game Mechanics to Create a Culture of Continuous Process Improvements
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“In the Middle East, insurers can apply game mechanics to increase brand awareness, educate customers on financial protection and savings, boost customer and employee engagement, generate innovative product ideas, onboard agents, and create a culture of continuous process improvements,” says Muthu Kumaran.
One potential area of behavior modification through gamification is promoting safe driving, he says, citing that Qatar Insurance Company has launched a pilot telematics program to enhance road safety through innovative insurance offers and incentivizing the customers.
Cyber breaches in the GCC region have put cyber insurance in the spotlight. “Gamification can play a key role in educating and raising awareness on cyber security issues and incentivizing the usage of preventive tools,” says Kumaran.
The region’s low insurance penetration offers a key opportunity for future growth, he says. “Considering the low life insurance penetration rate in the Middle East, such innovative initiatives can be tailored to suit the cultural preferences of the region and piloted to measure customer behavior and business impacts,” he adds.
Gamification initiatives targeted at motivating the agents to enhance their productivity is one area that holds great potential for insurers in the Middle East, says Kumaran. Cognizant has helped a major insurer based in the Middle East utilize gamification techniques to encourage agent’s CRM adoption, and developed a comprehensive rules engine to analyze agent’s activity and drive friendly competition. “This has helped improve agent efficiency and effectiveness by 25% and reduce the response time for all inquiries by 30%,” he reveals.
Other emerging trends such as IoT, artificial intelligence, robotics, virtual reality, Big Data and blockchain will pave the way to newer business models, says Kumaran. “By combining IoT adoption and gamification, insurers can reinvent customer engagement, mitigate risks, and maximize cost efficiencies. We believe huge opportunities lie ahead for insurers in the Middle East to drive business transformation through technology innovation,” he adds.
Click below to read the article that first appeared in the May 2017 edition of Middle East Insurance Review (MEIR).
