From Zero to Hero

Last week I had the chance to attend a C2C (Classroom to Client) Event in Madrid. When I was assigned to this event as an SME (Subject Matter Expert), I wasn’t to excited or sure what to expect – may be another OI Session with “no outcome”, or just some deep dive into clients industry …. Honestly we have been through such events and in most cases the outcome was just for the records.

With this in mind, but anyhow open to learn better, I came to Madrid. A very nice Hotel, well directly at the airport so not much sightseeing included, and among 250 people. That was the first “aha – moment” – meaning that our company does not fly 250 people from all over the world around to create just another bunch of paperwork. So I was looking very much forward to what this C2C really means.

Main Tent / Grand Opening and Morning Sessions
As expected a number of SVP’s and Executives came on stage to tell the audience why they are here and what they expect – wasn’t to much news in that. But than not only a motivational speaker – Prof. Mark Weber – came on stage, he guided the whole Team through the 3 days with advice and tipps how to create another “client experience”. He encouraged the teams to leave the traditional sales routes and try something new, different – just like a  “Sales driven Design Thinking” process. He really was inspirational and the following days he had most of the airtime, which made the main Sessions really entertaining.

Breakout Sessions
Around Lunch Time the first Teams had picked their SMEs and started to discuss their “Bold Ideas” – here we go with the first expected outcome –> a “Bold Idea” – something that the Account Team sees as an Opportunity (of course a very large one) but has not the time nor the capabilities or resources to pursue on top of their daily business.
So this “Bold Idea” was the subject to work on and create a Business Case, a Roadmap to pursue and of course it includes naturally a “call for support” to the Exec Staff.

As Cloud  SME  I was assigned to 4 Insurance clients –> Unipol from Italy, AVIVA from the UK, ERGO from Germany and Groupama from France. I showed up at all 4 and got a “ok good to know, we’re set but will call you when needed…” from 3. Only the French Team was really appreciating the support offered, so I decided to help them and just react upon call to the others, as you suspect they never called me in. So I stayed 3 days with the Groupama Team.

Goupama – Team / Account / Our Proposal
Honestly I had never heard of Groupama before that event and had no clue of what they are doing beside that it was an Insurance client. I joined a french speaking Group – of course we agreed on speaking english, but 40% of the conversation was french. To me it was like a refresh class and I’m now re-thinking my vacation options 🙂
The Team (a group of 12) came to this event with no “Bold Idea” so our first To Do was to create something alike. Tuesday afternoon at 5 we had to present to our “Advisory Board” what we would suggest as “Bold Idea”. It truly was amazing what a Team of 12 (+ me)  with different background and literally  no or not much client insight has achieved in only 3 hours. Guided by our amazing Facilitators who not only guided the Team through the Process but really helped gathering all Ideas, Input and Thoughts and structured them to a “Bold Idea” – and violá – at 5pm we were ready to present.

Here’s  a little background about Groupama

With more than 100 years in the insurance business, Groupama has developed and adapted to emerging economic challenges, as well as to the changing needs of its members and customers. By constantly adapting to social change and maintaining the principles inherited from agricultural mutual insurance, Groupama is able to offer the best services at the best prices, day after day. The Group is committed to both economic performance and guaranteeing the satisfaction of its members and customers.

So mutualism is a very high topic for Groupama and their traditional business is Farmer insurance. Of course our “Bold Idea” addressed those 2 Topics –> Farmer insurance and increase the Mutual Relation with and among them.

Our Bold Idea / The Presentation
The Bold Idea was all about “Helping Farmers making smarter Decisions” which would lead to less production losses and less claims towards Groupama. With a 60Mio € payout in 2014 in 1 Region only, the Business Case is really compelling if we could help Groupama to reduce the claims by 1 or 2 percent only,

Day 2 we started to discuss how to structure our Idea and create the high level proposal. For the whole session the rule was given “NO POWERPOINT” – which should foster the creative thinking of the Teams. So we started to draw and created  White Board Graphics about Gruopama’s financials, prospected savings etc. We weren’t to satisfied with the outcome so the idea came up to tell a story from a  Farmers perspective. That was when we designed our Story Board around a Client Experience. With that presentation (a White Board drawing) we showed up at 8pm, as the very last Group of the day, at our Advisory Board. Guess what – we got top ranking of all Insurance presentations – style, story, Business Case …..
Remember – there was no “Bold Idea” at 1st Day, we had to create something with no Power Point, the Account Team is relatively new assigned to the Account ….

Final Proposal / Next Steps
The spirit around the Team could not have been any better that evening. Out of the blue we achieved top ranking, and to be honest – our competition was not that bad.
So for Day 3 and our final presentation we had to do some home work and incorporate the Advisors Feedback. Within only 2 hours we draw a whole Customer Journey, created Personas for the Advisor to act as clients, and worked out a more specific Business Case. By 2pm we had to present our final proposal to the whole insurance Team and the Advisor Board again. We also saw what our counter parts had accomplished and all presentations have been very sophisticated. We saw a lot of really cool drawings and even Videos that told customer stories.

So at 4 pm we came back to the main Tent and closing session. Exhausted, tired but also proud of what we had already achieved we listened to the closing statements and the Winner Announcement – out of 16 client teams 4 were picked as “best Idea” – “best presentation” and “best business case”  – those Accounts will now get support from a broader IBM Team in order to launch the Idea to the client and make it a successful project.
The Winner were
Handelsbanken from Sweden
Postbank from Russia
Julius Baer from Switzerland – and
Groupama from France !! The only Insurance client!

Closing 
I feel very honored an proud that the Team had picke me as SME and that I was able to help the Team not only to create a “Bold Idea” but finally got announced as “Winning Team”
Overall it has been an exciting experience to see and be part of the process from
Create an Idea – Visualize the Idea – Present a Business Case
Thanks Team Groupama and all the best to make the Idea a reality!