How Switzerland's oldest insurance company started building StartUps
An Interview by Felix Staeritz and Sven Jungmann
When Andreas Bruelhart started as Head of Innovation at die Mobiliar he was fully equipped with the latest and best innovation tools, but quickly had to learn that “a fool with a tool, is still a fool”. He realized that he had to drastically change the way of approaching innovation. With Ralph Rimet, he found the perfect partner to execute this vision. Here is how he built Tooyoo, an award-winning digital platform.
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Leaders’ commitment is at the core of innovation, and this is more than clear in the case of Tooyoo, an award-winning digital platform developed in die Mobiliar’s “Innofactory.” For die Mobiliar, it’s not just about investing in the right technology, but in the right people, and because they did, this corporation captured a practically untouched market and propelled this “digital safe” to success and awards.
Filling an important niche, Tooyoo offers secure, legal and uncomplicated planning files for end of life matters. This unique digital aid supports customers by creating a direct channel of communication with loved ones, centralizing access to information concerning advance medical directives, management of digital assets, funeral arrangements, handling of paperwork, and estate planning.
We recently sat down to talk with Andreas Bruelhart and Ralph Rimet, instigators of innovation at die Mobiliar, about implementing change and how they made Tooyoo happen. Our curiosity was piqued: Why, as one of the oldest private insurance companies in Switzerland with a secure position in a safe industry, does die Mobiliar invest in innovation?
Andreas Bruelhart, Head of Ecosystems & Innovation, explains that “it’s a market where we do not have that huge transformation right now, but we’re starting to feel that more and more aggregators are popping up.” Additionally, he notes that direct access to customers is limited. For example, bundling is a common trend; rental cars include insurance, but the insurance provider itself has no direct customer contact, which means no potential to cross and upsell.
Thus, that original question broadens: How do corporations transform to maintain market share, adapt with changing technologies, and prioritize finding new customer channels?
Commitment from leadership.
Effective leadership can create meaningful change to drive innovation and build successful ventures using digital solutions, transforming corporate structure and culture. In this vein, we decided to ask Bruelhart and Rimet our favourite question at FoundersLane…
What needs to happen to make corporate venture building work?
1) An Entrepreneurial Strategy
Due to limited market opportunities, this team had to find a new way of thinking. “Our strategy mainly focuses on being part of [an] ecosystem, either as a partner or as a leader in certain fields; a lot of ventures that we bought or projects that we started with our corporates are going in that direction,” says Bruelhart.
2) A Strong Purpose
A strong purpose, or raison d’être, is key. Mobiliar has long differentiated itself with a promise to customers: Live life. We will be there. Both Bruelhart and Rimet credit this raison d’être for enabling an environment in which Tooyoo emerged. “The purpose of our company, it’s very strong — this allows us also to change and stay within that purpose,” asserts Bruelhart. The team searched for contact points with customers where they could “be there,” not only in the insurance segment, but also in areas where digital solutions could be employed.
Rimet, senior managing consultant at Mobiliar and Tooyoo cofounder, expands further: “Basically we want also to be part of and present in different life steps […] we identified where the opportunities were, and what we saw is that, at the end of your life, there was nothing which was really digitalised.” Thus, Tooyoo came to fruition as a “digital safe which [stored] all major questions about end of life.” Mobiliar deals with financial protection, Tooyoo is a platform for personal protection — “it was a clear complementary product.”
3) A Progressive Mindset
A progressive mindset plays a large role in speeding corporations towards innovation. And that mindset, it starts at the top. “The CEO has really even a large input in the culture,” believes Rimet.
As a leader himself, Bruelhart describes this mentality as acknowledging: “OK, we want to do that, we want to allow new opportunities to be seized, to work on that might be outside of our business, [and] that might disrupt our business, that might be uncomfortable.” Bruelhart goes on to emphasize that leaders can “set impulses,” but create safe frameworks that allow others to learn and manage projects in an agile way.
4) Effective Leverage
The right leverage is crucial to make ventures succeed. In order to compete with start-ups, Bruelhart and Rimet discovered that corporate leaders must adapt their approach to leverage existing assets into new purposes and vice versa. Rather than consider this a disadvantage, Bruelhart has this view: “I like to call them business APIs, where you can pluck easily new stuff into the old company.”
However, leveraging assets is no simple task. According to Bruelhart, “I think again it’s a top management task that is super important here, to find the right distance between being as independent as possible but, at the same time, building on what’s already existing in order to move more people.”
Leveraging incentivization is a different challenge to be addressed. For Tooyoo, a framework was developed that gave everyone a voice. There were representatives at the table from each department that contributed resources. While this meant more people were involved and could interfere, “at the same time you have access to these resources, so that’s always a trade-off,” Bruelhart points out.
We also wanted to get the duo’s opinion on leveraging internal and external entities of change, such as accelerators and startups. “The difficulty was to find the real match,” Rimet observed. Accelerators could identify interesting potential use cases, but not all of them were applicable. Rimet details their strategy to address this:
“We integrated the accelerator people or the expertise of those people into the company. We set some strategic fields where we wanted to find solutions, specific pains that we had internally, or specific exploration areas that we wanted to cover, and afterwards, we went into the market to identify the start-ups.”
What do you wish you knew before starting your current position?
“I wish I knew earlier in the process […] something that you need to focus on, it’s the people,” Bruelhart reflects on this, adding, “A fool with a tool is still a fool.”
Rimet agrees with the opinion that leaders’ mindset can drive employees to embrace innovation. Coming from a non-corporate background, he was surprised to discover that “if you have the mindset to do things, you have all the tools, all the elements and all the support…[this] was really a perfect playing field.”
Corporations need the right people at the top to impact change, to seize new business opportunities that enable new customer channels, and to create a culture that is continually learning and motivated to take action now. To find out more about how leaders can take charge to shape corporate innovation or about venture building, read our book FightBack Now or get in touch.
FoundersLane, the leading Corporate Venture Builder for climate and health, was founded in 2016 by Felix Staeritz, Andreas von Oettingen, and Michael Stephanblome. The team develops digital business models in the health and climate sector by combining the agility and the mindset of technology entrepreneurs with the strength of corporations. FoundersLane draws on more than 20 years of experience by the founders in building up new companies.
FoundersLane creates new, fast-growing digital companies in categories that are highly topical and current. FoundersLane counts more than 100 founders, experts and entrepreneurs with great expertise in the fields of medicine, health, climate, disruptive technologies such as IoT connectivity, AI, and machine learning. Clients and partners include SMEs and corporations as well as more than 30 Forbes listed companies, such as Trumpf, Vattenfall, Henkel and Baloise. FoundersLane is active in Europe, MENA and Asia with offices in Berlin, Cologne, Vienna and London.
