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Follow UsMy biggest Wow moment happened when we embarked on the journey of launching a new Life Insurance startup in 2008 within a limited timeframe of 3 months. This was during my earlier assignment with Star union Dai-ichi Life as head IT.
Being an insurance startup and with greenfield operations, we had to evaluate and implement systems within the limited time and also ensure that the organization was operational with all possible critical systems from day one.
Being promoted by two large public sector banks, the company had an advantage of riding on the retail outlets of the banks. It was mandated by the company to sell the insurance products from day one. This practically meant having access to insurance sales related applications across 6,000+ retail outlets of the banks.
When we went live in February 2009, we were ready not only with the sales front ending application but also had planned and successfully implemented a tier-3 data center hosting-an industry leading Core Policy Administration system, state of the art portal for customers, applications for managing investments, financials/GL, a call center and an ITIL based IT helpdesk.
In addition to this we also built custom applications to support smooth functioning of the business. The first issued set of policies were handed over to the initial few customers during the launch ceremony of the company. At that moment I felt like having conquered the world by taking up the toughest challenge of enabling a new entity to start the business within a very limited time.
Meticulous planning, detailing, and scenario rehearsal are a must for any complex project. Also a leader needs to exercise clear, energetic and visible leadership. Engaging and consulting with stakeholders from the early stages of the project is important just like sponsorship and support from the top management.
My biggest wow moment happened when we embarked on the journey of launching a new Life Insurance start-up in 2008 within a limited timeframe of 3 months.