The Role of New Markets Advisors in Healthcare Case Study in Health Insurance Innovation

General challenges facing health insurance companies 2Copyright 2016 New Markets Advisors Slow industry progress toward innovation Lack of deep connection between insurers and patients Sudden transparency related to policy prices and benefits Uncertainty over the effects of new health insurance exchanges Heavy competition for healthy, low-cost patients Need to adapt to changing regulatory environments

The challenge 3Copyright 2016 New Markets Advisors The Client: InsureCo A global health insurer with tens of thousands of employees worldwide and sales in more than 30 countries Fortune 500 company with tens of billions of dollars in annual revenues The Challenge: InsureCo felt that its overall innovation progress was slow, even in an industry that is notoriously slow to change New offerings were generally copies of competitor offerings Most innovation manifested in the form of “top down” directives

The approach 4Copyright 2016 New Markets Advisors Building innovation capabilities: New Markets started with a diagnostic assessment to evaluate existing capabilities and to determine how to integrate new learnings into existing practices New Markets and InsureCo decided to focus on two primary levels of capability building - At the organizational level, the focus was on developing a consistent innovation process and determining how to promote innovative behavior throughout the organization - At the project team level, the focus was on introducing core innovative behaviors and teaching project teams how to inject those behaviors into ongoing project work

The results 5Copyright 2016 New Markets Advisors Macro-level impact: New Markets and InsureCo were able to transform innovation into a repeatable process, rather than mere luck or happenstance Through the new process, ideas for both process innovations and new offerings come from throughout the organization, significantly increasing the volume and quality of innovative ideas Daily impact: InsureCo employees spend less time on theory and more time interacting with real customers - They spot emerging trends and design offerings that account for real customer needs InsureCo employees have tools they can use to advance stuck projects, create better solutions, and ensure that output aligns with organizational strategy