Remember when to be a disruptor got you detention in school? Now, to be a disruptor is a positive accolade, meaning “innovative” ahead of the curve.
WHAT IS DISRUPTION?
dis·rup·tion
/disˈrəpSH(ə)n/
noun: disruption; plural noun: disruptions
1. disturbance or problems that interrupt an event, activity, or process.
So how is disruption applied? How can we become one of these positive disruptors? Basically, anything that already exists—something common, regular, is not disruption. The key is to find something that changes an existing, well-used industry, like how Uber changed the Taxi business, how Netflix reformed entertainment in the home.
Despite the commonality of the examples and ambition to be a disruptor, it is not easy to be a successful disruptor. An idea is one thing, but timing is everything. Most industries, it is said, experience disruption from not one single force, but the collision of interacting forces.
Consider five factors for successful disruption:
- The need to change the customer behaviour from the predictability of the existing
- Offer new kinds of competition within the selected industry
- Shifting regulation within an ever-changing global market
- Other disruptive examples
- The core technologies necessary for successful change
Disruption has most certainly entered the insurance world. Take the pricing of car insurance policies…many insurers now rely on data collected from in-car diagnostic devices instead of classifying customers’ likely driving risk through actuarial statistics about gender, age and residence. This kind of real-time, exact feedback on drivers’ performance allows providers to design more profitable products and return more savings to customers.
The same is true for employee group benefits. With the real-time claim processing, costs are tracked as they happen, bring the margin between paid claims and incurred much closer.
With all of this in mind, in this ever changing, disruptive world, one thing holds true, there is replacing the need for professional advice.
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