From building relationships to closing deals in EMEA and APAC, EIS is expanding its reach across the globe. Today’s insurance carriers are navigating uncertain waters. To help these insurers get where they are going, the first port of call for these adventurous and progressive companies is EIS. We spoke to the person who steers the ship for EIS in these regions.
Rupert Jarron, general manager for the EMEA & APAC markets, made time to speak with me about what lies ahead for EIS, our partners, and our customers.
Tell us a bit about yourself and how you came to EIS
My background is in technology-driven transformation. I’ve spent time in leadership roles for both start-ups and technology disruptors, and more recently with bigger tech players, like Oracle and DXC. In these roles, I’ve always focused on growth and driving the go-to-market. I like building highly motivated teams and developing great relationships with prospects and clients. This focus was a natural fit with the growth ambitions of EIS in the EMEA and Asia Pac regions. And of course, I was inspired by our platform and the market opportunities we have in front of us.
What is your strategy for EIS in EMEA and APAC?
We’re focused on aggressive growth. We aim to capture key multi-geography and multi-line insurers where possible, leveraging a progressive engagement model. This stems from our focus on specific insurers, target markets, and the application of a business-problem-first approach. It’s clear these markets have very different challenges and characteristics. And even within these markets there are a number of varying territories.
However, EIS Suite offers many differentiators that are universally adaptable. We’re the ecosystem-enabling platform for ambitious insurers, and we need to help them understand how and why that’s important. Equally, we need to grow our team and adapt our operational approach to these markets and the unique qualities of each one, creating resonance with the hot topics and business problems associated with each. We’re building our brand around this, developing our sales funnel, and successfully executing by bringing the best of EIS. This will establish us as a market leader in these regions.
What issues do insurers need to address over the next 12 to 24 months in the EMEA and APAC markets?
Insurers are facing a number of key challenges and Rory Yates, our head of strategy, has been clear that the market pressure has never been so high. These pressures include:
- Stop competing on price
- Adapt more quickly to macro environmental factors
- Develop new products and markets
- Globalize best practice in technology-driven change to maximize profitable growth
- Optimize capital expenditures and ensure the growth required is achieved
We’ve even developed a clear view on some of the new business models and propositions we feel will continue to drive insurers – embedded, risk removing, adaptable, human centric, and carbon neutral – and EIS is happy to explore these with interested insurers. This is all about having a high-velocity platform, enabling ecosystems, efficiently developing new products, entering new markets, and developing new customer propositions.
What are your plans for expanding EIS’ reach and customer base with partners?
We aim to deliver an aggressive number of new logos this year and then next year we need to double it. To do this, we will continue to work with our partners and alliances from a client perspective and then engage the partner/alliance early in the sales process. In a lot of cases, the prospect will make it clear who they want to work with. Having said that, we need to maximize their success and ours. We also have partners that invest in us, have more experience with our platform, and who will drive a much better success path. This will continue to be a balancing act.
Plus, under Brad Worth, our global partner and alliance leader, we have brought on board Paul Wishman, senior director of EMEA alliances, to develop our EMEA partnership strategy. In Asia Pac specifically, we have already started to develop partnerships and new ways of accessing this massive and varied market, for example our recent acquisition of Metromile’s EBS from Lemonade.
Over the next 12 to 18 months, which markets are most important to EIS and why?
For EMEA, we have initially focused on group life and P&C. But on a case-by-case basis, we’ve worked with EIS general managers and strategists on prospects in other markets, such as cyber insurance. We have also focused on tier 1 & 2 insurers with the right levels of scale and transformative need. The rationale is relatively straight-forward: with more than 3,500 insurers in EMEA, we need to focus, find relevance and relationships, and scale effectively. So, rather than try to be all things to all insurers, we have focused on where we have the best initial strategic fit.
In APAC, perhaps more than in any other market, forming trust is critical. To speed this up, we have made the EBS acquisition. But prior to that, EIS had already established two key customers with Tower, in New Zealand, and Mercuries Life Insurance Co., Ltd., in Taiwan.
Our overall approach will be:
- Assess and quickly identify target carriers, building on-the-ground regional intelligence
- Build awareness and form relationships within the target markets, focusing on key entry points, network acceleration, introductions, and partnerships
- Drive the operational footprint needed to sell, covering legal, regulatory, product development, and delivery resources in tandem with sales and marketing
How is EIS set up to address trends in the market and how does this inform your sales strategy?
Our platform is fit for the future of insurance, but insurers don’t always know what this looks like. They look to us for some of these answers. One insurer recently said to us: “You do this ten times a year, we do this once every ten years,” so it seems reasonable for us to convey our experience and knowledge wherever possible. Also, when we make this clear, we tend to win. Having said that, the EMEA and Asia PAC sales team can’t do this on their own. Trust in our ability to deliver is critical, so I am making sure we act as a team. This needs to be coordinated from sales back through strategy and general management and into marketing, delivery, R&D, etc.
What are the highlights of your EIS experience so far?
I love building highly-motivated and high-performing teams, and we have built the best team in the industry. That’s super exciting for me. As we grow, we need more talent, and our recruitment is being built quickly off the back of two aspects: People in this region are starting to realize how brilliant this platform really is. And: We are growing and challenging the market, which resonates well with talent and prospects. As I often say to this team: We’re just getting started!
I know you like your Golf. Are you any good?
Not really but I enjoy it. I don’t get to play that much, but I am very social, love to be around people, plus I enjoy being outdoors. Golf is often a great opportunity to have a good time, form relationships outside of the office, and maybe uncover one or two hidden business opportunities on the course or at the nineteenth hole!
Want to learn more about EIS? Talk to us.
