The late, great English actor and singer Bernard Cribbins was the most popular storyteller on the children’s TV show Jackanory, with millions of viewers – young and old – hanging on to his every word.

When asked about the secret of his success, he replied, “I talk to the camera as if it’s the only person in the world.  it’s just me and them, and that makes it personal and special”.

Endava has been in the insurance transformation space for over 20 years and over that time, unsurprisingly, we’ve seen a lot of change in behaviours, in ways of working, and in the huge advances in digital technology.

In recent years, we’ve seen the rate of change accelerate considerably and, more than ever before, that’s being driven by both higher consumer expectation, and the providers’ appetite to leapfrog their competition with disruptive products and superior levels of (self-)service.

Today’s customers expect simplicity and choice. Being able to secure those consumers’ advocacy, requires a user experience that is head and shoulders above the standards we saw even just a couple of years ago.

But delivering that simplicity and choice relies on ever more sophistication under the covers; sophistication that is only made possible with the adoption of more flexible and powerful systems to quickly and accurately process consumer data and present that unique and rewarding experience.

To keep up with demand, systems vendors are now faced with the triple-whammy challenge of reducing the overall time to implement a transformation system, providing a system architecture that allows future flexibility, but one that also allows the user to effect change quickly and easily.  Providers no longer want to simply catch up with the competition, they want to leap-frog the competition and make sure they have the right tools to retain that advantage.

In my view, the old ‘build or buy’ argument is obsolete. With the latest generation of low-code/no-code platforms, combined with microservice based architectures and mature API integration, users can now get the best of both worlds: the advantages of mature OOTB functionality and automation, combined with user-modifiable processes, business rules, etc.

As customers become increasingly more demanding with providers, those providers have become more demanding with their suppliers. The ability to personalise specific products and services to the customer’s individual needs (rather than tailoring offerings at a product level) is a trend that is really starting to gain momentum in the insurance industry. Personalisation to specific demographics and micro-territories will soon be with us.

This needs to happen, because customers want to feel special and enjoy a uniquely individual experience that shows that the provider really understands their uniquely individual requirements.

Modern systems allow insurers to capitalise on the value that customer data provides, enabling them to define and refine their product offerings with increasing granularity, and as a result, their customers will be far more likely to feel special and remain loyal.