Interview with Spixii CEO, Renaud Million
On Spixii’s 4th birthday, we interviewed Spixii’s CEO Renaud Million on his journey over the past 4 years and his plans for the future
As Spixii turns 4, what are the key highlights and learnings you have had in the past 4 years?
Four years can seem a short amount of time on one side but on the other side when we spend a lot of energy in building a new venture, it is amazing to see what can be achieved when we are very focused. Spixii has worked with half of a dozen blue-chip insurance companies. This experience raised the standards of our processes, technology and operations. Although it was very difficult to adapt to such expectations back in 2016, it set-up the company on the right track for servicing large enterprises. Spixii gained recognition, when Zurich UK, one of our clients, won awards thanks to our collaboration and use of innovative technology. Seeing the adoption of what we are building at such a big scale was inspiring and the learnings from both parties continue to flourish. When defined well, the vision remains the same. For Spixii, it is “Helping More People Get Better Protected”.
Spixii has been recognised by the industry by winning more than 3 awards per year. It helped the company to be visible which benefited recruitment, signing new contracts and initiating new partnerships. Last year, Michael Sicsic, the former head of General Insurance and Protection at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), joined Spixii. When we started Spixii, the 3 core principles of the FCA shaped our thinking in creating technology that will help the individuals to buy insurance products more confidently and the markets can better service complex products that insurance can be. Having Michael as advisor of Spixii amplifying the advocacy of the value of Spixii in helping more people get better protected.
What are your expectations for this year for Spixii?
Now the foundation is right with one person in each function, we are focused on scale and enabling our technology for even more insurance players. Spixii is renowned for the effective claims proposition and we are experiencing a growing demand for it. Therefore, more line of businesses and languages capabilities are in the pipeline to serve the needs of our clients. Scaling a company also means scaling the talents. We will do it in two ways, by increasing our investments in training and also recruiting both full-time employees as well as advisors.
What do you think separates Spixii from the rest of the market and chatbot providers?
Our unique focus on end-user experience through the improvement of processes related to that combined with the ability to generate knowledge out of the multiple data points gathered through the chatbot.. Having developed proprietary technology, since 2016, we managed to pass the internal compliance and stringent regulations allowing our client to innovate in a heavy constraint environment. Being successful with digital and technology projects, in general, involve the right culture, the right process and ultimately a valid business case. Being aware of such forces which are beyond that simply building technology-enabled Spixii to make a dent in a digital transformation of the insurance industry.
With the Brexit bill being passed recently, how do you think this will impact business, if at all?
Brexit was distracting for our clients and prospects as innovation was not gaining the attention it should have had. Therefore the discussions around creating customer-centric propositions were not prioritised. We navigated it by accepting clients outside the UK and even Europe allowing the growth of the company and our technology. Now with the Brexit bill being passed, we are expecting a higher velocity in partnership with InsurTech in the UK and hopefully more customer-centric initiatives.
You had started Spixii with the mission of ‘helping more people get better protected’ because of the problems and confusion faced by the general public- Has there been a significant change in the industry with respect to this? How do you plan to continue working towards this goal?
Yes, we saw new direct to consumer or B2C proposition trying to address this confusion with more personal products. Trying to attract consumers to a new brand in very challenging exercise on its own so the impact is still relatively slow. At Spixii, we took the approach of empowering existing players with a brand legacy and existing customers. We provide them with technology to deliver more effectively customer-facing processes from distributions to claims. Benefits are both measured and observed on the customer satisfaction level, thanks to the calculation of the Net Promoter Score, and on the business level through KPI on the conversation rate or claims cycle time.
As Spixii continues to grow, what advice would you give other startups and scaleups?
Hiring the right people is of paramount importance. For Spixii, implementing a robust recruitment process was a critical moment. We understood our past mistakes and put in place a process to give us confidence in attracting the right talent for whom Spixii could offer the opportunity of growth and development. Then, the alignment from the vision of the company down the daily priority allows speed in the execution. A lack of alignment will transform any purposeful action into meaningless movement. As a lean company, ambiguity and lack of alignment can be very damaging.
