Sword Insurance in the News
Posted by Mason Power - July 14th, 2010 at 06:07:42 pm
Doug Shillito of Insurance Newslink wrote a thoughtful piece about the formation of the insurance division including quotes and perspective not seen in other coverage. With Doug’s permission, you will find the article reprinted below.
Sword Insurance unfolds global strategy
It is four years since Insurance Newslink interviewed Heath Davies, then coo of French-owned Sword Group, now ceo. Sword had recently acquired long-term London Market software specialist Intech and Davies outlined his vision for the Sword Group to become predominantly software-orientated and a global player-and he planned further acquisitions in the insurance space.
Earlier this month, Sword Insurance was launched. It is a global co-ordination unit across Sword Intech, Sword Health, Sword Open Xposure, and the latest acquisition, Sword AgencyPort, purchased last November. Following Davies’s plan, Sword Insurance is also utilising horizontal Group solutions such as customer relationship offering, Sword Ciboodle, another acquisition, which has been sold to two companies in the UK insurance market.
Insurance Newslink met up with ceo of Sword Insurance, Steve Hauck, in London to obtain further background to Sword Group’s ambition to be a global software provider, particularly in insurance, which is targeted to produce a third of the Group’s revenues this year.
Significantly, Hauck was a co-founder of AgencyPort in the US ten years ago, and his co-founder, Eric Harnden, and other senior members of Sword AgencyPort, are forming the initial global team.
Key roles for Sword Insurance include global product development-the Research and Development budget has been significantly increased with onshoring facilities in Wales and offshoring in India. Strategic sales and marketing will ensure cross-fertilisation of products to the existing 110 insurance customer base across17 countries. Revenue from organic growth is planned to more than double in the next few years, and further acquisitions are likely to complete the global and across-market segment jigsaw. The Group has over 350 staff dedicated to insurance.
Hauck emphasizes the “single unified message” and the aim to achieve an “inventive mindset” across all offerings, with the focus on strong customer interaction-100% client references are a feature of the successful Sword AgencyPort business. He believes the future is component-based rather than “big bang” and the existing customer base is buying into other products across the Group-Sword AgencyPort is working with three major Sword Intech customers in the London Market, and opportunities for multi-channel front-end distribution abound, particularly as Sword Intech has real potential to expand in the US-and Continental Europe, as has Sword Health. ACORD involvement from both sides of the pond is also a plus point-the London Market is a global business with a complex, often lengthy, process chain, and there is an opening to offer streamlining and multi-lingual/currency solutions. Hauck added that Sword Ciboodle makes Sword AgencyPort richer.
Sword Intech has hidden its light under a bushel and a higher marketing profile will spotlight its speed of implementation, its impressive customer base, its readiness for Solvency II, and its wide market knowledge after 40 years of providing insurance software solutions. Sword AgencyPort management bring an entrepreneurial and customer relationship flair and will be the catalyst to implement the Heath Davies strategy-making the whole bigger than the sum of its parts.
There is much to do and Insurance Newslink will be keeping in touch as this potential global player emerges.
No Comments yet »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment