How ANSR Turned a Bangalore GCC into an Innovation Hub
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About the client
One of the world’s leading providers of reinsurance, insurance and other forms of insurance-based risk transfer, this company operates through a network of around 80 offices globally. Established in 2001, their Bangalore GCC is an analytical and operational hub, forming an integral part of the value chain. With 1000+ employees, it is the third-largest office and one of the three global Business Solutions Centres that partner with business functions globally to deliver on the business strategy.
1000+
Third largest
Challenge
In 2015, the entire global organization was evolving, addressing issues such as how to innovate or engage with startups. The company has 150+ years of expertise in underwriting and risk management, however, when it comes to innovation, they were new. So, the challenge was, how a risk management company could go ahead with embedding innovation technology.
Solution
As part of their strategy to embed innovation and drive it from their Global Capability Centre (GCC) in India, they reached out to ANSR. ANSR has been a committed partner of the reinsurance company since the early 2000’s, when they engaged with ANSR to refine, validate and operationalise their strategy for building and scaling the India GCC.
The objective of the startup accelerator programs was to experiment and explore topics such as AI and IoT, which were extremely relevant for insurance and reinsurance companies across themes such as health, automotive, and industrial IoT. They approached ANSR to facilitate the program and ANSR engaged with 24 startups to run 6 cohorts of accelerators from 2016 to 2018.
In 2016, as part of the first accelerator program, they collaborated with six ambitious and exciting startups. The selected startups presented their learnings and achievements at the demo day to the global leadership, industry stalwarts, ecosystem partners and potential investors. Their second accelerator program did not just touch upon startups and the external ecosystem, but also included mid-sized and large-sized organizations.
Ideas that originated from Bangalore by engaging with the startup ecosystem received global mentorship and transformed into a ‘personalized wellness engine.’
ANSR served as the linchpin for the entire program by not only bringing in startups that best met the requirements, but also putting together the curriculum, mentoring the participants and organizing the events.
6 cohorts
20+
Benefits
The company became one of the first insurance companies to work with startups to drive innovation. A series of startup accelerator programs not only put the India GCC on global tech map, but established them as a thought leader and a champion of innovations. They achieved 20+ client engagement opportunities from startup accelerator programs and acquired at least 7 startups as suppliers of innovative solutions for the global insurance industry. An innovative insurance product that would have application in the Brazil and India markets was another significant outcome from the accelerator. Startups too, had access to the global expertise and insights, mentors from the industry, and technical enablement to work on challenging global insurance problems. The company is currently looking at more large-scale holistic innovation driven initiatives and Bangalore will continue to drive that value through the local ecosystem.
