Mendix, a Siemens business, aims to be the engine of the enterprise digital landscape. Its low-code platform and ecosystem integrates technology to support solutions that boost engagement, streamline operations, and relieve IT logjams. The platform is cloud-native, open, extensible, agile, and proven. Mendix’ enterprise low-code platform has been adopted by more than 4,000 companies in 46 countries.

Zühlke is a global innovation service provider. It envisages ideas and creates new business models for its clients by developing services and products based on new technologies – from the initial vision through development to deployment, production and operation. Its 1,600 employees are based in Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Hong Kong, Portugal, Serbia, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam, serving clients from various industries.

For this thought leader article, we spoke with Tim Srock, CEO Mendix and Dr. Christian Straube, Head Value Proposition Insurance, Zühlke Group. Both of them will be on stage at DIA Munich 2022 where they will focus on how low-code can boost Sales, Distribution and Underwriting. This sneak peek is the outcome of a discussion we had with Tim and Christian.

In your message you frequently mention ‘low-code’, why is this so core to you?

“Low-Code is a much-discussed and sometimes critically viewed trend. We can illustrate that the vision of Low-Code can become reality.  With Low-Code, cost-effective iterations foster to build new application faster and incorporate user feedback on a new level.

This is key as we see that the customer interface, customer experience and higher efficiency in internal processes are becoming more important. Basically, because changed customer needs and the limited software developer capacity to meet the new requirements, result in unperforming user experiences, poor times-to-market, and legacy systems being insufficient. Thus, the need to disrupt it grows and using Low-Code the right way, the digital landscape can become a tool, not a hurdle.

Ecosystems and new business models will urge for even more digitalization as the need for efficiency in internal processes will urge more integrated, digital, and smart processes along the insurance value chain. New ways of application development become more important since development capacity will be limited and the war on talents will increase.”

What is the biggest benefit for digitisation?

“In the past, IT projects tended to be costly, time-consuming, and complex due to a lot of dependencies to other areas. In this context, digitisation was not always an enabler, but a task. With Low-Code, roles and responsibilities in digitalization projects can be revised, communication can become clearer with less misunderstandings, and existing core systems can be used easier – if Low-Code is understood as a paradigm, not only as a technology.

And you can also see the benefits of it, with portals that are less prone to errors than previous Excel-based solutions and much more efficient, thanks to no media discontinuities. Or think of improved employee satisfaction thanks to simple quotation process.

In our view, Low-Code is the solution for digitalization in the insurance market. That is what we based our platform on.”

So what is your vision for the future?

“Differentiation will become more crucial, be it in terms of digital channels and assets, customer-oriented processes, interaction with eco-systems, or employing new offerings With Low-Code solutions it will be possible to create hyper-personalized apps and user interfaces. Plus, it can be done in a way that it protects existing core systems, which is a much better investment.

We also see that a close but lean involvement of the user in digitalization projects will become commodity. The big challenge there is to differentiate between ‘we can’ and ‘we should’ and find ways to assess the value of digital assets for the insurer to avoid tons of apps nobody is using. More general speaking, setting the right focus in the abundance of solutions and technologies and select those that really match the concrete problem.”

In your experience, what do insurers need to do now to grab these challenges?

“First and foremost, they should apply a strict outside-in perspective whenever it comes to planning and executing digitalization projects. In this context, be aware that “User Experience” does not mean a cool design, but how it feels for a customer/user to interact with the insurer in every single step of the customer journey.

Insurtechs can help insurers by being the flexible speed boat that simply does things. In other words, they implement the parole ‘we did it because we didn’t know that it is not possible.’ So, try and find the best partner!”