“It has been a brilliant three and a half years. And there have been challenges along the way but our progress has been genuinely amazing. I love this industry and I love the opportunity that we have at Open GI to serve this industry.”
Looking back to when he first joined as group CEO of the insurance solutions provider Open GI in July 2019, Simon Badley (pictured) remarked on how incredible it has been to see how far the business has come and how the foundations laid years ago are holding up so well as the firm continues its strategic evolution.
From the beginning, a relentless focus on creating meaningful, lasting change that will deliver for Open GI’s customers, partners and staff alike was the focus. Among the key inroads made, the firm has delivered a significant brand refresh, made multiple critical appointments and expanded its partnerships across a range of industry sectors – but one goal has stood out.
“It’s interesting looking back at our branding refresh because at the time we were thinking a lot about whether we should completely rebrand and change our name,” he said. “We gathered a lot of information and what we found was that there was actually a lot of goodwill around the Open GI name. What was also clear was that the role of software houses had lost a little bit of momentum and needed re-energising.
“We needed to remind ourselves of what we are. Because what our branding research told us was that the reputation of Open GI and the wider software house sector had become a little tarnished. The sector had become renowned for being expensive, for not being easy to deal with and for not being particularly customer-centric.”
The brand refresh allowed Badley and his team to set out their stall for the future – keeping the essence of Open GI which boasts strong domain knowledge, an exceptional team and an in-depth understanding of the sector. He noted that taking the best of what came before and combining that with building out new capabilities, new ways of working and new partnerships is what’s required to create a proposition which is genuinely aligned with the expectations of customers and partners alike.
“It’s easy to think about a brand refresh through the lens of it just being a marketing exercise,” he said. “But for me, the brand change and everything we did associated with that was about so much more than changing the logo and colour scheme. We made a statement to the people who work with us at Open GI and our stakeholders that we are ready to change.
“For us, it was an incredible and powerful way to align the business, to bring everything in line with that brand and the essence of Open GI which is about being a very open partner, being innovative, being collaborative. So, it started at a very hygienic level – it started with trust. One of the values that we’re focused on internally and externally is trust.”
Enacting and making the most of a transformative change programme isn’t about a once-and-done approach, Badley said, but requires constant monitoring to ensure it remains fit for purpose. The team actively tracks advocacy all the time, with everything it does measured against its impact on customer happiness.
The firm’s renewed proposition is resonating across the market, which in turn is opening up new opportunities for further partnerships and for Open GI to proactively seek out and create the solutions necessary to support its partners. Investing in new technology has been critical to the latter, he said, because otherwise, people will look to existing platforms and existing technology which may no longer be fit for purpose for what they’re trying to achieve.
Open GI’s size and standing do not mean that the software provider is unaware of the impact insurtechs are having across the sector. To be able to compete against agile, fleet-of-foot startups requires agility itself, Badley said, and for Open GI the North Star is combining that adaptability with its existing expertise and market knowledge.
However, Badley noted that the firm is not benchmarking itself just against its peers but rather the wider technology and innovation market – and holding itself to the gold standard of customer-centricity set by firms beyond the financial services sphere. Achieving that means doing things differently and going straight to the source – which for him is Open GI’s partners and people.
“I genuinely feel that the two best bits of my job are talking to customers and leading our people. And I believe the two are very closely coupled,” he said. “The thing that’s been most heartening for me in rolling out Open GI’s new proposition is having the ability to build deeper relationships with our strategic partners, whether they are insurers or brokers.
“… And by listening to feedback, and that’s both the good and the bad, I believe we are in a much stronger position to be the critical partner that our customers need. We’ve got some great products and some great plans, which all starts with our great people. And that all starts with having the right values and the right culture – and we are reaping the benefits of our people seeing the very bright future of Open GI with everything that means for them.”
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