Interview with Abraham Alapatt

Interview with Abraham Alapatt – Senior Vice President & Head – Brand & Corporate Communication – Future Generali India Life Insurance & Future Generali India Insurance

PW: As a marketer what would you say are your current priorities?
AA: In this current marketing environment, my priorities include Customer Data Management & Analytics, fostering a Customer Self Service Attitude and promoting growth of our organization’s e-commerce in volume, value and quality of service.

PW: At Future Generali India, how has technology played a role in customer acquisition or retention?
AA: Our portal www.futuregenerali.in allows customers to renew, service and buy life & general insurance policies online. The portal delivers instant, secure transactions and on-the-fly document generation. In just over a year, we have served over 20,000 customers and generated over Rs. 20 Cr. of GWP via the portal.

We also use SEO/SEM campaigns targeted at customer segments to solicit online evaluation/purchase. We are encouraging customers to renew online because it is simpler, instant and convenient for both the customer and us to do this. We also use cutting-edge technology to offer full service presence at over 70 Big Bazaars across the country through our Mallassurance™ desks – to customers to either service their policies, renew or buy our special OTC insurance products. Customers can get their policy document generated at the outlet and can pay at the cash counter along with their other purchases.

PW: How has technology played a role in new product development, market expansion or other areas?
AA: Following our success in the online space, we are dedicating increased focus on developing all our retail products with a view to offer them online as well. In the case of Life insurance, we offer both a competitive Term Plan – Future Generali Smart Life and a unique monthly-pay ULIP that is very much like a Mutual Fund SIP, called Future Generali Select Insurance Plan.
On the General Insurance front, we offer competitive Personal Accident, Travel and Health Plans currently, and will soon be going live with Motor policies renewal and sales online. We have also filed an extremely attractive “online-only” Health Plan and are awaiting approval from the regulator soon.

PW: Do you have a separate budget for the IT component of marketing? And how aligned are the marketing and IT functions in the organization?
AA: Other than our robust, dedicated IT budget, we allocate about 8% of our Marketing budget to digital/online marketing efforts. These typically include SEO/SEM efforts, traditional and innovative forms of banner advertising online as well as via social media investments (including category-brand integrated games developed for our Facebook™ followers) to seed the brand and increase our share of mind in an evolving target customer segment.
Our IT and Marketing efforts are fully aligned and our IT team works with our external partners and agencies to ensure front & back end synchronization and optimization.