Abstract
IndiaFirst Life Insurance (IFLI) became the 23rd entrant in India’s life insurance industry by launching its operations in November 2009 (IndiaFirst Life Insurance, 2015). IFLI went on to break-even within 6 years of its inception by declaring maiden profits in FY 2015–2016 (IndiaFirst Life Insurance, 2015). The company stated its vision as—‘To become a Life Insurance and Pension business leader that provides significant value to all its stakeholders enabling a true customer delight’ (IndiaFirst Life Insurance, 2015). In order to implement its vision, IFLI worked its human resource policies and processes around the ‘Employees First’ approach (IndiaFirst Life Insurance, 2015). These processes had helped IFLI to become the fastest-growing company in the life insurance sector, and it was ranked 12th amongst the private insurers in terms of market ranking in individual annual premium equivalent for FY 2016–2017 (Times of India, 2017). The company aimed to become a top 10 life insurance provider in the next few years in India in terms of retail premium business (Times of India, 2017).
IndiaFirst Life Insurance and Vision 2020
IndiaFirst Life Insurance (IFLI) started in November 2009 as a life insurance company in India with its headquarter in Mumbai. It was a joint venture between Legal & General (LG), 1 financial and investment company from the United Kingdom, and two public sector banks (PSBs) of India—Bank of Baroda 2 (BOB) and Andhra Bank 3 (AB) (Times of India, 2017). BOB had a 44% stake in the venture along with a 30% stake held by AB while LG had 26% share-holding. IFLI started by selling insurance products which included policies such as life insurance, 4 group insurance, 5 term life insurance, 6 and pension insurance (refer to Table 1 for list of products offered by IFLI as on 31 March 2017). 7 IFLI followed the Bancassurance model based on the relationship between a bank and an insurance company and aimed at offering insurance products or insurance benefits to the bank’s customers (Srivats, 2018). Under the Bancassurance model, IFLI used the existing customer base of BOB and AB through their 6000 bank branches in India (IndiaFirst Life Insurance, 9 January 2018, 2015).
Products of IFLI (as on 31 March 2017)
IFLI had come up with a Vision for 2020 in 2015 November (refer to Table 2 for vision, objective and value statement of IFLI). In order to make IFLI employees understand how they could contribute to achieving the Vision 2020, IFLI introduced the objective (IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company Limited, 2016). The company had also clearly defined values and the values were the expected behaviour which all the employees needed to demonstrate and were non-negotiable for the company (IndiaFirst Life Insurance, 2015).
Vision, Objective and Values at IFLI
IFLI believed that the values defined by the company represented the essence and culture of the company. For instance, IFLI was about innovation, and that is where the first dimension of value—‘think new and do more’—came in. IFLI claimed that its employees did not mis-sell products (Srivats, 2015) and they focused on selling the right product to the right customer. The second dimension of value—‘be honest and be helpful’—captured this attitude. IFLI wanted all its employees to follow the values which were considered the base accepted behaviour. Senior management at IFLI felt that capabilities could only be developed over a period of time when employee values were aligned with the company-defined values. If values were not aligned, then developing it became a challenge. IFLI also had a forum named ‘Cultural Champions’ whereby employees received rewards for displaying exemplary behaviour in living company values (IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company Limited, 2015).
Organization Structure at IFLI
There were four different bands, that is, operational band (OB), tactical band, strategic band and leadership bands in the organizational structure of IFLI. Within each band, there were defined roles, clubbed into designations. For example, the leadership band had designations such as President, Executive Vice President, Senior Vice President, Chief People Officer (CPO), Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) and Chief Operating Officer (COO). Similarly, the strategic band had designations such as Vice President, Deputy Vice President (DVP) and Assistant Vice President while the tactical band had designations such as Senior Manager, Manager and Deputy Manager. The OB consisted of designations such as Assistant Manager, Senior Executive and Assistant/Deputy Executive (refer to Figure 1 for details of organization structure of IFLI). The roles and designations within each band were across different functions such as human capital, sales and marketing, strategy and product, operations and information technology (IT), investment, actuarial, finance and governance (refer to Table 3 for details of functions of IFLI). IFLI had an employee strength of 1377 on 31 March 2017 (compared to 1241 on 31 March 2016) (IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company Limited, 2016) spread across India with Millennials 8 contributing about one-fifth and Generation Z 9 contributing close to one-tenth of the workforce at IFLI. About two-thirds of its employees were in the sales function as sales executives or business development managers.
Functions at IFLI
For managing strategic focus, IFLI had created a leadership team consisting of the top management, that is, employees who were at a designation of DVP level and above, from all the functions in IFLI. The leadership team, named Think First (TF), met twice a year to discuss and finalize the strategic level goals helping IFLI achieve its Vision 2020. Having members from all the functions made TF an open platform for all its members to present their ideas and function plans to contribute towards IFLI achieving Vision 2020. Once the idea or plan got the buy in from the members of TF, company goals and Key Performance Indicator (KPI) 10 tracked accepted idea.
Business Continuity Group (BCG) was a team of people from all the functions and met once a week. The focus of BCG was to discuss the execution of operational level plans, which would help the functions to implement their plans in achieving Vision 2020. BCG members were empowered to implement the plans which had received approval from TF. IFLI created BCG and TF to make the organizational boundaries flexible. The organizational level changes were expected to help IFLI in cascading its strategy to the functional level and making employees a part of decision making so that they could perform their roles better. These initiatives also brought transparency among the employees and created a two-way communication wherein the empowered TF and BCG teams could collaborate and innovate.
Innovations at IFLI
Innovations at IFLI majorly came from three teams—Change Management (CM), IT and product development (PD) team, as these teams were empowered to come up with innovations. CM team was solely responsible for the process and technology-related innovations as this team had an in-depth understanding of the processes and manner in which technology could be used to implement the innovations leading to change. CM team collaborated with the IT team to enable technology for process-related innovation to happen. On the other hand, the PD team was responsible for innovations related to the product. PD team reviewed the existing products and then collaborated with actuarial function to come up with newer products ensuring that the regulatory framework was adhered to and followed. PD team interacted with the sales and marketing function to understand the customer demands and queries, which acted as input for the PD team to create new products.
IFLI decided innovation as the core KPI for CM and PD team. The two teams got time to innovate which was monitored through the Balance Scorecard 11 approach followed at IFLI for performance management. At IFLI, the Performance Management System (PMS) captured the type of innovations done by the employees or teams. If the employee or a team came up with any unique innovation, then the concerned employee or team got more weight and rating equivalent to the effort put in for its delivery. Employees or cross-functional teams got their ratings through PMS, which resulted in higher rewards. The PD team innovated and introduced a new product called Star First Combi Plan (SFCP), which led to sales of 4651 number of policies and realized a premium of US$ 12 0.25 million (refer to Table 4 for details of SFCP and other innovations).
Innovations at IFLI
Financial Express Online. (27 June 2016). IndiaFirst Life, Star Health launch combi plans. Financial Express. Retrieved from
IndiaFirst Life Insurance Co Ltd. (2017). IndiaFirst Life revamps its customer Interface portal [Press release]. Retrieved from
IndiaFirst Life ties up with IFMR rural channels. (5 July 2016). The Economic Times. Retrieved from
IndiaFirst Life Insurance Co Ltd. (2017). IndiaFirst Life revamps its customer Interface portal [Press release]. Retrieved from
Starting Corporate Entrepreneurship at IFLI
IFLI faced various environmental challenges as it went about implementing its Vision 2020. Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India 13 (IRDAI) regulated insurance business in India. As per IRDAI regulations, the novelty or innovations done by the insurance companies could not be patented. Thus, the innovations were short-lived as other competitors copied them. Insurance, being part of the financial sector, was also prone to policy decisions taken by the Government of India and Reserve Bank of India—India’s Central Bank. One such policy decision happened during November 2016 when Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, announced demonetization. He declared that all ₹500 and ₹1000 banknotes would be invalid past midnight of 8 November and announced the issuance of new ₹500 and ₹2000 banknotes in place of the old banknotes (Kumar, 2016).
For IFLI, the disruptions in the external environment had triggered the need to have continuous innovations, in terms of processes, leading to new and innovative ways for IFLI to do business by offering newer products and enhanced customer service. IFLI understood that the organization and employees had common objectives to achieve—growth and profitability. Thus, the new vision of IFLI was to be the change agent to achieve business objectives by meeting employee aspirations through innovative people, practices, policies and processes (IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company Limited, 2016).
For creating an environment of having corporate entrepreneurs, IFLI focused on developing inventory of three things, that is, people skills, people aspirations and offering right kind of role to the employee, that is, adopting a policy of selection of candidates who were deemed to be ‘right fit for the role’ (IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company Limited, 2016) IFLI thought of creating a system and named it as ‘Corporate Entrepreneurship’ (CE). Under the CE system, all the employees of IFLI were able to share their ideas of innovations related to process, products or new business opportunities. Thus, the scope of innovation was widened from existing departments of BCG, TF, PD, IT and CM which were dealing with innovation, to include all departments and employees. These ideas could be related to the employee’s function or related to some other function in the organization. IFLI thought that there could be a possibility where an employee could propose an idea related to a function where he was not currently employed but might have knowledge and understanding of other functions. This thought could contribute towards solving the challenges faced by IFLI, as the employee might have the skills to understand the real problem and to create a solution by proposing the same in the form of an idea.
In order to start the CE system, IFLI allowed employees to share ideas of incremental innovation and changes. Going forward CE system was expected to gradually produce a series of ideas which would represent the value ‘think new, do more’. As IFLI moved forward in CE system implementation, it promoted discussion about the ideas and innovations related to new business ventures, which had business sense, thus leading to a new way of doing the business. To start with the CE systems, IFLI created an email id and shared it with all the employees.
Championing CE
IFLI proposed creating an internal team at the backend who would be responsible for screening and monitoring the ideas received through the email id created for the CE system. The team would do a preliminary check, and ideas with potential would be sent to the next round where would be presented to a high-powered panel. In order to have a 360° perspective, IFLI thought that the high-powered panel should consist of CPO, CSO, COO, Director—Sales and Marketing (DSM) and Function Heads (FHs).
IFLI expected to receive a variety of ideas that could be related to the product, process or existing or non-existing business line of IFLI. CPO was expected to offer a neutral perspective while shortlisting the best ideas for funding. CPO, the head of human capital function, also hoped to get insight into employees’ thinking on the CE system. CPO would also be able to identify the employees who contribute with the most idea within the organization. CSO was part of the panel as any new idea selected and leading to change in the organization would come under the strategy of the organization. FHs, depending upon the function in which the idea got categorized, were expected to validate if the idea made business sense. The COO was expected to act as one-point contact to ensure the availability of resources (IT, finance, etc.) within the organization once CSO endorsed the idea, and hence, was included in the panel. COO would also coordinate with the operations and CM functions for making available the necessary support for the employee who gave the idea. DSM played an essential role in endorsing the concept or idea by assessing their potential for incremental sales and value creation in IFLI.
IFLI understood that screening of ideas received from the employees would add value to the organization. IFLI could invest in ideas from diverse areas, not related to the existing line of business and could reap the rewards. For the CE system to work, IFLI decided to implement a transparent reward and recognition system. To begin with, IFLI planned for both monetary and non-monetary rewards. Employee recognition by way of acknowledging employees’ initiatives and giving the certificate of excellence was the primary way to implement non-monetary rewards. The employees, whose ideas got selected for implementation, were made a part of the implementation plan. IFLI believed that this would act as a greater recognition as it offered a sense of ownership and helped the employee fulfil her aspirations.
Communicating About New Initiatives at IFLI
With the increasing intake of Millennials and Generation Z cohorts as their employees, IFLI introduced Yammer in 2016 to reduce unnecessary email and built healthier communication within the organization. Yammer, similar to Facebook, was a software developed by Microsoft, which worked on the intranet. Employees used Yammer on their mobile phones for internal office communications. IFLI decided to share the new initiatives introduced by the organization with the employees by posting them on Yammer. Employees started to share their feedback about the new initiatives through Yammer. Access to Yammer allowed employees throughout the organization to create their groups and post achievements of their functions, making employees communicate easily and quickly.
In May 2017, IFLI started Strategic Fitness Process (SFP) in order to hear from the employees in the OB through feedback, opinions and comments about the new concepts, processes and initiatives introduced by the organization. Generally, IFLI conducted a focused group discussion (FGD) with the employees at OB, which included employees who would either help the organization to implement the new initiative or the employees who would be impacted by the new initiative. For instance, IFLI decided to drive a bottom-up approach for a technology initiative of policy issuance 14 as IFLI was trying to innovate whereby it could implement a process of direct issuing of life policy on the day of the sale itself. Under the SFP, IFLI thought to conduct FGD with its stakeholders across its offices in India, which included the first line employees like sales executives and branch development managers. These two sets of employees needed to understand the challenges of directly issuing a policy as they got impacted by the start of the direct issuance process.
The Way Forward
IFLI had achieved a new retail premium collection of US$ 318.79 million by the end of FY 2016–2017, as against US$ 276.85 million in FY 2015–2016, 15 recording year-on-year growth of 15% in individual Annual premium equivalent (APE). 16 It had Asset Under Management 17 (AUM) of US$ 1527.13 million as on 31 March 2017 (refer to Table 5 for data related to Premium and AUM for the last 4 years) (IndiaFirst Life Insurance Co Ltd., 2017). 18 IFLI was confident that its strength was in its innovation-led approach, which had helped it in building product and process innovations. Keeping in mind the rise of the younger workforce at IFLI India, the company thought that focusing on CE culture could allow IFLI to have entrepreneurs in every function within the organization. IFLI was hopeful that the idea of the CE system to have entrepreneurs in every function was a step in the right direction for achieving its Vision 2020.
Premium and Assets Under Management for FY 2013–2014 to 2016–2017 (All figures in US$ thousands)
aUS$ 1 = ₹64.81 on 31 March 2017.
bUS$ 1 = ₹66.25 on 31 March 2016.
cUS$ 1 = ₹62.27 on 31 March 2015.
dUS$ 1 = ₹59.92 on 31 March 2014.
IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company Limited. (2017). Retrieved from
IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company Limited. (2016). 2015–2016 annual report. Retrieved from
IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company Limited. (2015). 2014–2015 annual report. Retrieved from