Kevin Findlay presents some trends on technology at the Digit event in Edinburgh

1. Busting technology myths
Kevin Findlay
kevinfindlay@fteca.com
+44(0)7710402357

2. Kevin Findlay
Kevin has recently led the IT, e-commerce, business intelligence and pricing functions of a
private equity backed insurance broker with two large call centres selling non-standard
automotive insurance. The business has been transformed from a loss to a profit. Prior to my
role at Complete Cover Group I led the transformation of the e-commerce teams at
Waitrose.com and associated brands.
This was preceded by 13 years working with PWC and Hosted Analysis as a strategy consultant
and interim CTO focused on data analytics. I also established Hosted Analysis as a business to
extract and analyse retail pricing trends. This was shut down after it accidentally became a
consultancy!
Kevin is a veteran of the first dot-com boom having worked at an $300m incubator/accelerator
(Antfactory) and the start-up of lastminute.com. He has a PhD in Machine Vision and
Electronics from Edinburgh University and was a research engineer with Siemens in Munich
when he was not at the Octoberfest.

3. Some Digital Commandments Stated in Most
Technology Investment Cases
• Every business model is about to be disrupted
• We should be totally customer centric
• Mobile must be done first
• Recent artificial intelligence (AI) improvements mean that a human brain
equivalent is round the corner
• Everything must be made Apple simple
• Data rules the world and must be at the centre of every decision
• Everything will be in the cloud
All need to be challenged?

4. • New CIO Appointed in 2012 across entire retail business:
• IT department was behind the times
• Lack of new ideas
• Lack of speed
• Waitrose.com was set up to take advantage of online growth
• 120 person E-Commerce team had been set up without Agile and was
behind the times
• Large off-shore vendors delivered sub-standard software for the
online shopping platform.
Waitrose.com Background

5. What was done
• 120 person team was restructured so that no separate mobile and
web teams existed
• Off-shore suppliers were removed and development on-shored in an
Agile format
• Sub-standard Waitrose hybrid app was cancelled – everybody says
you have to have a mobile app – OK true – however with 80 item
shopping baskets only a really good app is worth having
• Focus was on supply chain improvements – most online grocers lose
money due to delivery costs

6. Key projects
• Web site performance improvements
• New search engine technologies
• Improved supply chain technologies and customer experience
• Lots of new test automation
• Weekly releases
• New developer methodologies

7. After “Digital Transformation”
• IT and business teams were far more efficient with on-shore staff
• Costs had been significantly reduced
• IT staff were far more motivated
• New innovative ideas began to flow
Key messages:
• Improved user experience does not always flow into revenue!
• Good people are often held back by process

8. Performance – what’s the customer saying?
• 7 second average page load time
• Declining Net-promotor-score (NPS) -
Marketing department putting the pressure
on
• Angry customers phoning in about web
speed.
• OK we reduce average page load time to 3
seconds – there should be an improvement
in customer metrics such as NPS
• BUT THERE WAS NO IMPROVEMENT
Guess what – net promoter scores and customer surveys are often
wrong and used my marketing departments to beat up IT
departments

9. • Complete Cover Group sell specialist car insurance to “hard to insure
people”
• Business had previously tried to go for the volume market. However
cost base was too high to sell low premium insurance
• Company lost a lot of money and a new management team was put in
• Private equity backed – very cost conscious!
Business and Technology
Turnaround

10. Complete Cover Groups customer journey is deliberately off-line
Price Comparison Site
Comparethemarket.com
etc.
Lead
Inbound or
outbound
phone call
Conversion
• Insurance sales conversion is on the telephone
• Complete Cover Group sell specialist car insurance to “hard to insure people”
• Business had previously tried to go for the volume market. However cost base was too high to sell
low premium insurance
• Company lost a lot of money and a new management team was put in
• Private equity backed – very cost conscious!
Online user
journey
The Automotive User Journey and Business Model

11. • Customers don’t always fill in the forms correctly – or, dare I say it
don’t tell the truth
• To get to the top of the list on an insurance price comparison site you
have to discount heavily.
• Some insurers rely on the inaccurate filling of online forms to offer
the customer alternative usually more expensive products. Business
model trade off between write-offs (you have to honour the
advertised price) and the number of customers who have to be resold
a product post telephone validation
Why do insurers use a call centre rather than
an online user journey?
Result: Online business can lose money unless
volumes are extremely high

12. Conclusions
• Data analysis and insight always needs a human insight
• While mobile will rule the world, it won’t rule everywhere