Allianz futurologist Professor Markku Wilenius talks about the developments that will shape the coming decade.
 | Markku Wilenius, Allianz SE, Group Development"The future belongs to these aggregators, companies that have a website where you can get different best-price offers. " (Photo: Allianz) |
The financial crisis will probably keep us busy for some time. Will we see another Dubai in 2010?
I think in 2010 we will see a lot of hesitation about whether we have already overcome the financial crisis or not. For a company like Allianz it is very important that whatever happens out there, we have already thought about it. How do we stand in terms of serving our customers? What do we think about the new regulatory requirements?
Climate change and the environment have been important topics in recent years, but has the economic crisis shifted public attention?
Well, the big issue in the background is resource scarcity, not only in relation to climate change. We have come to a point where we cannot continue to be so wasteful with our resources. The carrying capacity of the Earth won’t stand that.
Most ecosystems are in decline, whether tropical forests or freshwater sources. And people are becoming aware of that. Our challenge is to find out how we can be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
So we move from simply investing in renewable energies into designing products that actually help people use their resources more intelligently. This is a megatrend that will not go away.
Is it justified to speak of the current economic crisis as a turning point where new centers of powers emerge and old models fail?
Well, I think this crisis has been a wake-up call for a lifestyle where you consume more than you produce. There is an imbalance between how much is spent and how much is earned.
This is the latest in a long line of banking crises and we can assume that there are more to come. But we should learn to read the signs to avoid something like this happening again. It is in such a crisis that we should construct a set of simple rules, and the financial industry shouldn’t be exempt from that.
If we look beyond the crisis, what are the opportunities that will shape the coming years and decades?
Definitely the digitalization of business and services. This is fed by two sources. First, companies need to reduce costs and become more effective in their operations. Secondly, customers want better and more flexible services.
These two factors make digitalization the key issue, particularly in the industrialized world where new competitors with advanced business models attack the established players.
Where will these new competitors come from?
From companies like Google, who can easily go into other territories. The future belongs to these aggregators, companies that have a website where you can get different best-price offers.
To face this challenge we look at what is our unique offer. For Allianz, it’s the fact that our product portfolio is so large that we can offer packages that others cannot provide. But it calls for a really clever strategy, because price competition is getting harder.
If you look beyond business, what will digitalization mean for our everyday lives?
It is supposed to make our lives easier, but sometimes it also makes them more complicated. The good thing is that we have more flexibility. There is more citizen and consumer empowerment.
In the old industrial model consumers were really subordinate to the companies that were giving them products and services. It was something like a mother and child relationship.
Now we enter a phase where there is a partnership, and this calls for a different kind of interaction between the customer and the service providers.
If digitalization means empowerment of customers, what do you make of negative side effects like the loss of privacy or concerns about data security?
Data protection is definitely an issue. The problem is that we as a service provider cannot serve our customers if we don’t have sufficient data.
It is the same thing if you go to your doctor. If he is totally ignorant about your past—what kind of operations you have gone through, what kind of medicaments you have taken—you won’t get good service from him, even if he is really good.
It’s the same thing with insurance. But we need to do that in a way that protects consumer rights. The only way to do this is by being very sensitive about how we use this information.
But at the end of the day, we already have a huge amount of information about us dispersed around this world and its digital systems. We have to accept that this is the world we are living in, while making positive use of the fact that this can benefit the customer.
Are there any other trends that will be relevant for 2010 and beyond?
Another key trend is definitely demographic change. Not just the aging of societies and the longevity of people, but also the dramatic generation change that is now happening. The baby boomers are making way for a new generation in the job market. What’s more, their wealth is being inherited by this new generation.
Who are they? What are their habits, their demands, their lifestyles? That is what we have been researching for the ‘Rejuvenating Allianz’ project. They definitely don’t want our post office-style service model where you go into an Allianz agency and buy your products.
Modern consumers have more convenient ways to reach their agent. It is a cultural change that occurs with this generation change. We need to be prepared for that, or we will lose the game.
What kind of skills do we need to live up to these challenges?
For Allianz the issue is how to use our tradition to meet the challenges of tomorrow. We have always been close to the people through our agents. And the quality of service has been quite high. We need to transfer these qualities that have carried Allianz for more than a century and apply them to the future.
If we are able to do this, Allianz has a great future. If not, we will be one of these great conglomerates that at some point stagnate, suffocate, and collapse.
editor: Thilo Kunzemann
publishing date: January 22, 2009
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