The National Life Innovation Center was launched in late June. While it is still in the very early stages, we’re seeing so much potential to build our culture.
It drives collaboration and communication, continuing to build our one company and one culture and break down silos. Drop the Mic is always open 24/7 ready for ideas – big and small – and identifying new voices in the organization. Think of it as Facebook for business – a modern social platform for communication and ideation…and it supports our servant leadership values with full transparency and the opportunity to engage from anywhere in the company.
What’s Next? Now, it’s time to move beyond the pilot stage and look at what we’ve learned to date, get resolution on the existing campaigns and identify best practices going forward that will have the most impact. Right now, we are building an Innovation Center Task Force that will build on what we’ve learned and tap leaders across the company who can work together to make innovation and collaboration part of our DNA.
Innovation Center Stats
Active Campaigns 6
Completed Campaigns 2
Users to date: 563
Ideas submitted: 216
Ideas selected for implementation: 13
And here’s a truly impressive stat: Our first Mooseadillo Award winner for being the most active innovator at National Life was Ravi Nurukuthi.
And what, you ask, is the Mooseadillo Award? Good question. Carey Earle, one of the drivers of the Innovation Center initiative, offers this explanation:
“The Moose is one of the unofficial symbols of Vermont – especially in the North as you get closer to Canada. The Armadillo is also associated with Texas. Combining the two together is a pithy way of visually communicating the unification of our campuses and culture. One company. One culture. The Moose and Armadillo working together, coming together to solve complex challenges and innovate.
So all of this led us to wonder what Ravi is up to with all of his innovating. So we asked him. Here’s what he had to say.
Q. What does innovation mean to you?
A. To me, innovation is bringing something to the table that adds value to the processes / products and enhances the customer experience. Innovation does not always need to be about a new idea. We can innovate by looking at something that is already known with a fresh perspective, and then make it better.
Q. How do you see innovation as part of your daily job at National Life?
A. As Architects, we work on various Business process (Product, Policy, Agent and Investment flows etc.) and IT processes most of the time. When we design processes, especially the customer (Buying and Selling customers etc.) facing ones, we make sure they are in line with the industry best practices and emerging trends. For example, when we built the Bank Master a couple of years back (to enable the ClearTran EFT project) we modeled it to accept Credit Card and all the emerging payment types. However, at times, we cannot take these ideas forward due to various constraints
Q. What are your perspectives on a tool like the Innovation Center?
A. Innovation Center is a great tool for all the passionate people to voice their ideas and collaborate with others. A major key to being innovative lies in creating a culture that’s able to take risks at all levels of the company, not just at the top level, but all the way to the bottom and particularly at the middle-management level. Innovation Center should have increased participation from key groups like Actuaries and FMG who have greater insight into the emerging product innovations
Q. How long have you worked for National Life and what are some highlights of your professional career?
A. I have been with National Life Group for 7+ years, had the honor of being part of key Data initiative programs like Agent Portal, Salesforce for Agents, TAI Reinsurance; modeled the various master data systems like Client Master, Bank Master and New Business Application Master that enabled initiatives like Clear Tran EFT, Customer 360 and New Business STP; Design of the Enterprise Data warehouse; Currently working on the Data Strategy and Analytics
Q. What do you like most about working at National Life?
A. Great Office environment, working with leaders having huge passion for innovation; strong and cohesive team to help tackle challenges
Q. Where do you think we have the greatest opportunities for positive change?
A. Reducing the time to market for new products; Improve the critical business processes like underwriting, claims fraud detection and policy studies using technologies like Analytics, Big Data and External Data enrichment
Q. What are your personal passions/hobbies?
A. Analyzing the various innovations around the world in different domains like life sciences, Finance, etc., the impact it will have on human behavior and the cascading impact on other industries like insurance. Currently analyzing the topics like impact of Bitcoin/Block chain, genetic testing and newer sales channels like P2P on the insurance industry
Q. Is there an innovator or innovative company that you admire?
A. Steve Jobs, Nikola Tesla, Elon Musk, Apple and Starbucks
Q. Do you have a quote or a motto that inspires you?
A. “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”. -Thomas Edison
“If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have probably said a faster horse” – Henry Ford
Q. Do you have a CAUSE that you’d like your colleagues to know about?
A. I strongly believe that most of the futuristic operational processes mandate personalization which can be achieved by having the Analytic insights fed to them on a real time. The introduction of advanced analytics tool Alteryx coupled with Data virtualization tool Denodo and Legacy integration tool Attachmate will help this cause. We should always look for opportunities to mature our processes in this direction.