The Digital Transformation of Northwestern Mutual
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Northwestern Mutual has spent the past several years transforming its digital operations, and as a result shipped 4,000 digital releases last year. Senior Director of Product Strategy Roman Geyzer will share how the 160-year-old insurance giant was able to accelerate innovation at such a rapid pace in just three years time. He will share how his team deployed several key strategies and introduced a culture of experimentation to develop meaningful products for every client and advisor. Their work has resulted in a 4X improvement in leads, 1.3M in digital registrations, 154K mobile downloads, and a digital business that is growing quickly.
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The Digital Transformation of Northwestern Mutual
- 1. Congratulations to our Outperform Award Winners! Most Dramatic Business Impact Most Customer- Obsessed Company Culture Most Transformative Innovation Most Inspiring Social Impact
- 2. 2 Welcome to Day 2 of Opticon! Sessions will be recorded and available after Opticon Share your feedback and rate sessions on the mobile app
- 3. Roman Geyzer Sr. Director of Product, Northwestern Mutual The Digital Disruption of Northwestern Mutual How we did it. What you can learn from it.
- 4. About Roman Sr. Director of Product Strategy
- 6. Milwaukee
- 7. 1857
- 8. 1857
- 9. a bit of perspective 1857 Abraham Lincoln Light Bulb American Civil War 2 World Wars + Great Depression 1861 1861-1865 1879 1914-1945 1950’s 1990’s 2007+ Mainframe Computers The Internet 1st iPhone
- 10. Legacy
- 11. Today
- 12. Our client experience … circa 2015
- 13. The experience was cluttered and lacked self-service features. We had… • No mobile footprint • No pre-client experience • Minimal digital adoption 3.6% Digital Adoption Clients registered for digital experience
- 14. Anyone want to download a white paper?
- 15. So how did we go from this…
- 16. 16 Today’s CONSUMER experience Jargon-free, easy to navigate, and inspires consumers to take the next step.
- 17. 17 Today’s Client experience Clean, mobile-friendly, & engaging for clients. 1.4M Digital Clients Clients registered for digital experience in 2018
- 18. 18 How did we do it?
- 19. 19 We had to radically transform the way we worked...
- 20. 20 Product managers focus on research, design & iteration.
- 21. 21 Small “pizza-pie” teams releasing features every 2 weeks.
- 22. 22 Structured our organization based on the client journey
- 23. 23 And they lived happily ever after?
- 24. 24 And they lived happily ever after? Nope.
- 25. 25 Org change alone won’t work. This is about culture change.
- 26. 26 A Typical Product Development Cycle Someone high-up said we should build this So we did Good Job Idea Research Design Build Test Launch
- 27. 27 Mindset Shift 1 From We should build <insert prescriptive> solution To We agree on the problem that needs solving Idea Research Design Build Test Launch
- 28. 28 Mindset Shift 1 Idea Research Design Build Test Launch This is an experiment. It is likely to fail at first. ? ? ? Should we build this? Why are we building this? What can this teach us? NEW ETHOS:
- 29. 29 Mindset Shift 2 From Debating about the right solution To Running interviews and experimenting pre-launch Idea Research Design Build Test Launch
- 30. 30 A typical debate… Is this an easy to use form-fill experience? Product Manager Yes, we should go with this. Tech Lead The age should be a drop-down Business Stakeholder It’s too many fields. They’ll drop off.
- 31. 31 A typical debate… Is this an easy to use form-fill experience? Stop Debating. Start listening to users. Question: What, if anything, do you like about this form and why? Actual User Interview Response: “It’s not too complicated and the scroll selectors work really well.”
- 32. 32 Mindset Shift 3 From Building everything including the kitchen sink To Building enough to validate early hypotheses Idea Research Design Build Test Launch
- 33. 33 Mindset Shift 3 Idea Research Design Build Test Launch Build the right product, build the product right. Measuring performance Rapid iteration Getting the data/learnings NEW ETHOS:
- 34. 34 Mindset Shift 4 From The launch is the end of the build cycle To The launch is just the beginning Idea Research Design Build Test Launch
- 35. 35 Mindset Shift 4 Idea Research Design Build Test Launch The launch is our starting line Analytics & Reporting Rapid Experimentation Focus on big wins NEW ETHOS:
- 36. 36 A B Changing “Let’s Talk” to “Get Started” improved click-throughs by 190%
- 37. 37 A B Changing from a drop-down to icons improved click-throughs by 182%
- 38. 38 What’s the common theme?
- 39. 39 Successful digital disruption lies in an organization’s ability to (once again) take risks. People Practices Decision-Making
- 40. 40 You can’t lose what you don’t put in the middle. But you can’t win much either.
- 41. We unlocked tremendous potential in our organization… 2015 2016 2017 2018 89 177 1405 4002 Over 4000 Releases to Production in 2018 4X Digital Leads 1.4M Digital Registrations $77B External Accounts 49% Paperless Delivery 154k Mobile Downloads 2.1M Mobile Sessions
- 43. Head to the Expo Hall for morning refreshments Up next…learn how to build a world class experimentation from our panel of experts
Editor's Notes
- A little about me… Started out as an engineer – did that for a about a decade doing everything from web development to database engineering My company Launch Partners – a NYC digital agency doing a lot of product management and building digital experiences for clients In 2016, joined Learnvest a NY-based fintech building financial plans for millennials that had recently been acquired by a company I sort of heard of before called Northwestern Mutual.
- As I’m on the phone during my phone screen, the recruiter said, “you may have some travel to Milwaukee”. Of course I confidently replied, “Sure, that won’t be a problem” while I feverishly Google’d where the heck is MKE?
- It’s here by the way And Northwestern Mutual’s been around for a long time. I came to appreciate just how long it’s been around for just by virtue of it’s name. Why is a company that’s squarely in the MIDWEST, called NORTHWESTERN Mutual?
- Because that WAS the Northwest of the US in the year it was founded
- This was Milwaukee in 1857
- Since NM was founded a lot has changed….
- But some things haven’t changed…
- If you want to create great experiences for your clients, you first have to look within. Know your customer, know your self. 160 years in business Survived 2 World Wars Survived 1 Great Depression Survived 1 Great Recession 7000+ Financial Advisors
- And while we knew how to deliver tremendous FINANCIAL product value for over a century, we hadn’t developed the skills to deliver a great digital experience. This was what NM’s client experience looked like around the time I joined
- We believed we could drive leads digitally to advisors … but the experience was lackluster Consumers had do figure out the right advisor amongst a directory of over 9000 advisors Despite millions of visitors to our website, very few were connecting with advisors ERRONEOUS CONCLUSION: Consumers don't want to connect with advisors digitally
- The presence was cluttered and lacked self-service features. We had no mobile footprint and no pre-client experience. 3.6% digital adoption – clients registered for digital experience
- We needed an experience that made it more inviting for millennials and young professionals to be re-introduced to our storied brand.
- Clients now have the ability to do more and more digitally. But they also have the ability to phone our call center or call their advisor for a more white-glove experience.
- A focus on output instead of outcomes…
- Talk about how this mindset shift occurred. Instead of arguing about whether to build x or y, instead convince folks to just run an experiment. It’s easier to do than convincing them they’re wrong. Except me. I’m never wrong.