Zurich

In a highly competitive market such as the insurance sector, guaranteeing the company’s growth depends on the ability of its current and future executives to make the best decisions.

• In addition to management skills, the professionals in charge of Zurich must have in-depth knowledge of the sector and fully internalize the corporate culture in order to guarantee and maintain the company’s leading position today and in the long term.
   
• The aim was to achieve greater efficiency in the internal processes in order to improve the response to the market. 

Zurich needed to find the extra motivation which would push the executives to participate in a new improvement process which required a considerable workload.

• The insurance market is very specific, with constant fluctuations, and therefore any kind of action which wants to have an impact on improving the performance of the professionals must be highly specialized and with a fast time-to-market.
   
• The idea was to support innovative professional development, which would bring benefits to the company but which would also be seen by the professional as a unique opportunity for growth.

“Insurance Leaders of the Future” is the advanced executive training programme designed by Zurich, the Institute of Lifelong Learning of the University of Barcelona and the RiskCenter research group of the UB, in order to guide the company’s middle managers to achieve excellence in their management, considering the specific characteristics of the insurance market.

• The programme helps professionals in their current decision-making processes so that they can meet market demands and changes, and ensures their preparation to guarantee optimal management succession for the future of the company.
   
• This solution is especially designed for the training needs of Zurich executives, relies on the sound insurance sector knowledge base of the network of experts of the Institute of Lifelong Learning of the University of Barcelona, and includes a strong practical component with application of the knowledge. 
   

• The programme has revealed all of the knowledge existing in the company: 80% of the contents are generated internally.
   
• Valuable work dynamics are being promoted within Zurich: inter-departmental communication has been improved, there is more collaboration between teams and the decisions are made in a smoother manner, since the directors understand the internal process that takes place in relation to these decisions.
   
• The participating professionals, who obtain the qualification “Insurance Leaders of the Future Expert”, endorsed by the UB, are already promoting initiatives to improve the company’s competitiveness: three of the final projects of the programme have reached the Management Committee which is assessing how to implement two of them.