Organizational Redesign Helps Insurance Industry Leader Attain Higher Performance Levels

The Situation

To build on its market leadership position, the world’s largest provider of disability insurance identified a series of goals to be achieved over a six-year period in order to sustain its growth and competitive advantage. The most daunting of these goals involved designing and implementing a new strategic architecture that would enable the organization to reinforce its product leadership position and strengthen customer relationships. A leadership team comprised of the company’s top six executives was charged with directing the initiative, and the team turned to CLG for guidance and support.

The Solution

CLG worked with the leadership team to design a customized process for re-engineering critical components of the organization in support of its goals. CLG then partnered with the client in executing this process, which included redesigning four enterprise-wide core processes and restructuring several other key functions.

Leaders at all levels of the company – from the leadership team through front-line supervisors – were provided coaching to ensure their alignment with the implementation roadmap and to build their skills in how to change the critical front line behaviors required to support it. Fundamental shifts in customer-facing roles also were designed and implemented, with CLG retraining thousands of employees throughout the company’s North American operations.

The Results

The six-year goals were achieved one year early (an achievement that most managers previously considered impossible), and the company’s employee satisfaction ratings increased significantly. The redesign of the company’s field operations resulted in annual cost savings of $5 million in each of two pilot facilities, while increasing the average time spent by the sales force face-to-face with clients from 40% to 80% in an 18-month period.

During formal executive reviews, the technology implementation was rated as the most successful in the company’s history. All levels of leaders, from the top six executives through front line managers, became aligned with the implementation roadmap, balanced scorecard objectives, and expected behaviors. In the end, senior officers elected to sustain the new architecture because of its ongoing strategic value.