“Globalize to Optimize: An Insurance CEO’s Transformational Growth Journey,” was the title of a live webinar hosted by leading offshore outsourcing company Intogreat Solutions on February 22, 2024, which featured the success story of Troy Mansell, the CEO of insurance broking company AB Phillips. Moderating this transformative discussion was a trusted name in the insurance industry, Brandon Okita, IIABCal secretary treasurer and vice president of FIA Insurance Services, who guided the participants through help in developing strategies on how to overcome business obstacles—such as rising operational costs, scarcity of skilled professionals, and evolving client demands—by transforming them into opportunities to improve business operations and client services.
In his opening remarks, Brandon Okita welcomed Intogreat as a new member of IIABCal before going on to introduce Troy Mansell, who explored the benefits and challenges of expanding insurance businesses worldwide, including strategies for navigating operational costs, talent acquisition, and client expectations on a global scale.The following exchanges emphasize the value of real-time engagement through Q&A sessions in webinars, underscoring the opportunity for participants to gain insights, ask questions, and swap ideas with industry experts.
When asked by Brandon, Troy outlined a few details about his brokerage AB Phillips and how the business has evolved under his stewardship as CEO. Asked about how the company has grown during his tenure, Troy outlined the key growth driver as “really good people in the business.”
Offshoring Journey: Identifying Pain Points in Business
In terms of pain points, Brandon asked about the challenges which AB Phillips has faced in the past five years especially in terms of staffing, operational efficiency, and client satisfaction. Troy replied that good people can be hard to find, “and that’s what led us to really look at offshoring, because we couldn’t bring in enough people to service the clients as we wanted to” and we were committed to providing people with “a real broker experience.” He added that onshore staff were rushed off their feet and doing too much admin.
Brandon: “Was there a particular decision you made or strategy you executed that resulted in significant changes for AB Phillips?”
Troy: “Over time I realized that the real value in offshoring isn’t just that cost arbitrage between the staffing costs. The real value means that you can elevate your team onshore to do more client-facing, more technical work. That’s probably been the most significant value that offshoring has added to our business.”
Effectiveness of Offshoring and Managing Potential Barriers
Brandon asked about the ways in which the offshoring staff at Intogreat Solutions Philippines contributed to the culture and growth at AB Phillips and Troy replied that the massive growth is represented by the fact that in Manila “we started with two staff and now we’ve got thirty-five.” He added that cultural diversity has been another significant benefit.
Brandon: “How do you embed your ABP culture into your Philippine team?”
Troy highlighted that “Intogreat really helped us” to get the full benefit of offshoring by forging profound connections with offshore insurance team members: “Almost like a community that you’re trying to create in the workplace.” He added, “We leaned on the team at Intogreat to really get us to firstly understand the cultural differences, how we can work together, and I think it works both ways — the team in Manila understanding how Australians are.” Troy detailed the parts of ABP’s business that have improved as a result of offshoring: Investing time and effort in creating one-way-same-way processes and workflows has reaped rewards, and “Intogreat were incredibly helpful in developing that for us.” After simple processing was in place, broking support also entered the picture, which freed up the onshore team and they are now dealing with significantly larger portfolios and not being paid huge salaries for simple processing work.
Brandon: “What advice would you offer to other insurance industry leaders around the world who are facing the challenges that you faced, especially those who are seeking to grow their business, improve operational efficiencies and improve services to their clients?”
Troy: “First, start off small and easy with offshoring because it is a bit of a process, but with the support of Intogreat it can happen really quickly.” Second, every time we have a resourcing challenge, “I always look to offshoring as a solution.”
Troy outlined how the offshore insurance function participates in handling some of the financial aspects of the business. Whether onshore or offshore — and Troy makes no distinction — what ABP does is protect itself with proper procedures.
Matt Annear joined the meeting for a Q&A with Troy Mansell.
Matt: “How will staff view offshoring and their own job security? How did you approach that change management process with your own team?”
Troy: “We want to elevate your role,” was the message we delivered to the staff in Australia who saw activity being taken away. The advent of automation also gave the initially worried offshore insurance team “the opportunity to elevate,” and “to put it bluntly,” we told them, “you’ll get paid more.”
Probed by Matt, Troy went on to explain what businesses considering offshoring should be thinking about before they get started and what they need to think about before they call someone like Intogreat. He also stressed how offshoring enhanced ABP’s competitive advantage and enabled the brokerage to surge ahead of its competitors.
In his closing remarks, Matt delivered an overview of offshoring as a successful strategy and emphasized Intogreat’s impact on driving business growth, highlighting the potential for cost savings, access to talent, and operational efficiency.
Winding up proceedings, Brandon thanked Matt “for sharing the great services that partnering with a company like Intogreat Solutions can bring to IIABCal members.”
As a proud member of the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of California (IIABCal), Intogreat is committed to building strong relationships within the insurance community and supporting businesses in achieving their growth ambitions. Intogreat would also like to thank the speakers, participants, and event supporters of its first webinar of 2024.
Connect with Intogreat’s Matt Annear for further discussions on how a successful and well-planned offshoring strategy can drive your business growth. You can book a meeting with him at this link.
