Page 15 - Life Insurance Today May 2016
P. 15

Agents / Marketing Oriented Employees in the insurance         the concept of strategy from military use for business was
industry suffer from high levels of distress, aggravated by    easy because very little change is required to get adopted
a sluggish economy, growing regulation and outdated            to style. In business, as in the military, strategy bridges the
selling models. Government reforms have not had any            gap between policy and tactics. Together, strategy and
significant impact on the health of this sector and            tactics bridge the gap between ends and means.
insurance companies need to adopt more innovative
models, primarily driven by technology to better their         Agents require:
value and rewards.
                                                               A. To be more professional
What should be the strategy of the
agents / advisors after deployment?                            B. To be more successful in communication and
                                                                    informative to the customers.
‘Strategy’ is a term that comes from the Greek word
'Strategia', meaning 'Generalship.' In the military, strategy  C. To obtain better returns for resources invested.
often refers to maneuvering troops into position before
the enemy is actually engaged. In this sense, strategy         D. Their goal setting requires-
refers to the deployment of troops. Once the enemy has              i. Increase in Business
been engaged, attention shifts to tactics. Here, the
employment of troops is central. Substitute 'resources' and         ii. Increase in Commission income
the transfer of the concept to the business world begin to
take form.                                                          iii. Increase in area of coverage

‘Corporate strategy’ is the pattern of decisions in a               iv. Increase in products variety sold.
company that determine and reveal its objectives,
purposes or goals; produce the principal policies and plans    E. Target prospect in professional manner.
for achieving those goals and defines the range of business
the company is to pursue; the kind of economic and             F. Their action plan require:
human organization it is or intends to be and the nature            1. Setting clear time-bound plan
of the economic and non-economic contribution it intends
to make to its shareholders, employees, customers, and              2. Plan of Action should not include more than 5-6
communities.                                                             issues

Noted experts on 'Business Strategy' suggest that adopting          3. Should be measurable

                                                                    4. Should spell out specific terms.

                                                               3. Specific marketing strategies for life
                                                               insurers:

                                                               3.1. Proper customer segmentation:

                                                               Any life insurance agent should do business across many
                                                               customer segments, as because if he focuses on any one
                                                               particular segment, he faces the same risk as faced by his
                                                               customer segment. Therefore, he should have a basket of
                                                               mixed customer segments.

                                                               For example, if a particular agent works only among the
                                                               diamond market customers in Mumbai then whenever the
                                                               diamond market goes into a recession or faces any market
                                                               challenge, the agent will also face a similar situation and
                                                               his business will be affected directly. An agent should not
                                                               have more than 20 per cent of his customer from any
                                                               particular segment. This will expose him to only a 20 per
                                                               cent risk which can be easily worked around.

The airline business is the biggest team sport in the world. When you're all consumed with fighting among yourselves, your opponents
                                                                    can run over you every day.

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