Interview: Irene García Sáez, Head of Business and Chief Data Officer at MAWDY
Irene García Sáez, Head of Business and Chief Data Officer of MAWDY, speaks to Michelle Royle about how crucial network supplier agreements are, and the importance of embracing new technology
You have been with MAWDY for almost three years, but in the industry for longer. What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the industry recently?
If we look back, the emergence of new technologies and digitisation have certainly represented a fundamental shift, and a determining factor in understanding many of the industry’s movements.
Digitisation has allowed us to get closer to the user. Thus, the assistance sector as a whole, but especially the travel insurance sector, has been involved in service, making life easier for the customer and designing highly usable products. It is a technology-driven trend that has already been instilled as a much more customer-centric work philosophy. The relationship with partners has also evolved, with companies focused on ensuring more free-flowing communication and providing useful tools for those partners with whom we work.
Ultimately, innovation and the search for new models and services have been ever-present in this period, which has also been characterised by high competition. There are now more of us in this game – with traditional companies, others that are becoming more and more specialised, and the emergence of startups – so being able to bring differential value is key to staying relevant within the sector.
What does your current role involve?
My role as Head of Business is a transversal activity that mainly covers the sales function and technical function, which are responsible for product and price.
As the head of commercial, my key responsibility is to lead the commercial teams in the expansion and growth of the business, identifying market opportunities, developing key relationships with customers and partners, and ensuring that the organisation is positioned to achieve its short- and long-term business objectives.
The relationship with partners has evolved, with companies focused on ensuring more free-flowing communication
I also have responsibility for product and pricing – this area ensures that all business decisions are supported by solid analysis of the profitability of our solutions.
Having a mathematics degree, I am also the Chief Data Officer of MAWDY, and my role here is managing and leveraging company data, performing analytics that help us make informed decisions and enable us to optimise and personalise our offering, our customer experience, and bringing value to our partners using data. One of my objectives is to become a data-driven organisation.
MAWDY is a large global company operating in 23 countries, with over 2,500 employees. How do you continue to operate successfully with such a worldwide reach?
For a multinational company like MAWDY, the key is to maintain a balance between monitoring strategic lines of action and the reality of different markets.
In recent years, we have made progress towards centralised management and a simpler structure, seeking the greatest efficiency. Given this plan, our central services in Madrid deliver strategic coordination based on a global analysis. Between them and the countries, we have regional hubs that are dedicated to being facilitators and promoting the synergies of the different areas in which we operate. But we don’t lose sight of the fact that our teams in countries are a critical piece, maintaining operations, our customer relationships and creating new opportunities in the field.
An international reach like that of MAWDY is challenging, but it profoundly enriches the company. And this is not rhetorical: being present in such wide-ranging markets allows us to observe best practices in certain countries and adopt them in others, creating very positive synergies to continue to evolve.
My international experiences, including that of UK CEO of InsureandGo, or my experiences of working in Italy and Japan, have made me appreciate the importance of being familiar with the local culture and market, for which we have our local teams who are the specialists in the field.
MAWDY has a big presence in Latin America. What challenges does the business encounter in the region compared with Europe, for example?
Latin America is a region with tremendous potential in travel insurance. There are good prospects in both the tourism being exported as well as that being brought in, and everything seems to indicate that it will continue to grow after the Covid-19 stoppage that affected this area more than others, such as Europe.
As a result of a smaller insurer culture than in countries such as those in the Anglosphere, the sector’s supply in Latin America still has a lot of potential, and the capacity to grow. But I think the context surrounding the current tourism boom in the region is a good scenario to move forward in this regard.
There are other particularities of the sector in Latin America, such as a greater homogeneity of the tourist profile. Travellers in this region typically travel annually, less frequently, and their age range is not as broad, with a lower presence of senior tourists. Distribution remains mostly through traditional channels, such as travel agencies, with a share from online sales that remains low.
What new technology has MAWDY embraced recently, and how has it helped the business?
This is a point we are especially proud of, with a clear commitment to innovation that has led to a number of new releases that have revolutionised our offering.
One of the most important is the new Sales Portal, a very sophisticated issuing space that helps the professional with a very high level of segmentation. Application programming interfaces (APIs) have also greatly streamlined our integration with partners, enabling very quick and easy integration. Information systems have been a major advancement in business intelligence (BI), giving the partner complete control of the operation through all of the key business indicators.
For the user, progressive web apps (PWAs) ensure the smoothness of an app without its access barriers, thus achieving the best user experience. We have also reached a parametric insurance agreement to integrate the user’s flight data in real time and to be able to activate the coverage as soon as any incidents occur.
These are some examples of how technology and innovation, with the customer at the centre, enable us to make their life easier.
In 2023 MAWDY became the new name for MAPFRE Worldwide Digital Assistance. Why was this distinction important for the business?
The launch of our new brand is the result of a multi-year process to transform the company, in which, in addition to a geographic refocus, we complete a deep digitisation. To top all of these changes off, we wanted a new identity that would better project who we are: an innovative company focused on digital solutions, and that rebranding allows us to convey our value proposition.
Moreover, we have unified the brand internationally, which gives us greater recognition abroad, with a single brand identity and greater internal efficiency, breaking down barriers and eliminating possible duplicate tasks.
You work with partners around the world. How do you choose who to work with, and why are these relationships so vital?
We’ve talked about the importance of digital, but for an assistance company, a
good network of supplier agreements is, and will continue to be, crucial to providing quality service. We view this relationship with partners and providers as one of our greatest assets.
We wanted a new identity that would better project who we are
We have decades of international experience, where we have enriched not only our value proposition but also our increasingly professionalised network of providers and strategic allies. To maintain the high standards of the services we provide, quality measurement is key, an aspect where digitisation has acted as a huge boon.
Those who deliver on the commitments that come with contracting our products are often the image of MAWDY. That’s why we always take care of this relationship, convinced that a reliable provider network is one of our best allies.
What’s next for MAWDY?
MAWDY has ambitious objectives, but we already have a good foundation to achieve them: over the past three years, we have doubled our size in the countries where we are present today. Our objective is to continue to grow and be in the top three of all of the countries in which we operate.
We also want to continue to innovate and take advantage of the possibilities created by adopting new technologies to advance the relationship with our partners and the service we provide to the end customer. We’ve come a long way in the recent past, but fields like data science or artificial intelligence are standing out as drivers that will allow us to continue improving our proposal.
That said, what we will always have at the centre of our roadmap is a passion for service and for providing a differentiating factor for our partners and users. As we like to say, our objective is to win the customer over, which goes beyond figures, products or specific digital solutions.
August 2024
Issue
In this issue we consider tactics for identifying fraud. We investigate the best defences, from boots on the ground to artificial intelligence. We also look at the evolution of health insurance for expatriates in Asia – examining the regulatory changes and travel trends. We also bring you our reports from ITIC APAC.