Welcome to InsurLab Germany: Could you please briefly introduce SMP to our community?
Thank you very much. We are delighted to be part of InsurLab Germany with immediate effect!
SMP Strategy Consulting (in future Eraneos Strategy) is a strategy consulting boutique with around 100 consultants and headquarters in Düsseldorf. As part of the pan-European Eraneos Group, we are the spearhead for strategy topics in the DACH region. The insurance sector has been one of our most important core industries for over 15 years. In addition to the insurance sector, we also support companies in the energy, banking and telecommunications sectors.
Our cross-value chain consulting approach ranges from Corporate & Business Strategy to Customer & Commercial Excellence and Organizational Excellence & Transformation. Our portfolio is complemented by group-wide expertise in the areas of Data & AI, Sourcing & IT Advisory, Cyber Security and Regulatory Affairs. The Eraneos Group has a total of 1,200 employees at numerous locations in Europe.
We work in partnership and on an equal footing with our clients, contribute in-depth industry and specialist knowledge and are known for our pragmatic, implementation-oriented approach. We are characterized by high quality standards, team spirit and a constant eye for future trends - so that our clients not only develop strategies, but actually implement change.
Dr. Alfons Niebuer (Managing Director & Partner at SMP)
How did you come to join InsurLab and why did you decide to become a member?
We have been following the numerous activities of InsurLab with great interest for some time now. The insureNXT has also been a fixed date in our calendar for several years. We are all the more pleased to be an active member in the future and hope to enrich the community with our expertise and commitment.
For us, InsurLab is an outstanding platform for collaboration - with established players, innovative tech pioneers and thought leaders in the insurance industry. The diversity and openness of the network create the ideal environment for working on important future topics, learning from each other and advancing the industry together.
Our aim is to actively use the network: We want to seek an open exchange in existing formats, contribute ideas from our consulting practice and benefit from the experience of others. It is particularly important to us to forge partnerships with start-ups and support them with sparring and targeted support in scaling - in order to successfully establish innovations on the market together.
Moritz Osthues (Partner at SMP & Managing Director of CONVALID Analytics GmbH)
What topics and content are important to you? How do you feel about our 2025 focus topics „Operational excellence and business process management“ and „AI scaling and application“?
For us, the focus is on future topics that create sustainable added value and healthy growth for the insurance industry - in particular the consistent digitalization of customer interactions, the expansion of innovative sales channels and the targeted use of artificial intelligence to increase efficiency, improve service quality and promote growth.
In our view, the 2025 focus topics „Operational excellence and business process management“ and „AI scaling and application“ are absolutely trend-setting. Operational excellence forms the basis for sustainable competitive advantages: from end-to-end process optimization, automation and digitalization to efficient, regulatory-compliant processes. We support insurers in critically scrutinizing processes, identifying automation potential and carrying out benchmarking, for example in service processes or in digital customer interaction.
We have extensive practical experience in the area of AI scaling in particular - primarily thanks to the close, collaborative partnership with our data scientists from the Eraneos Group. We focus on scalable AI solutions and see their implementation as a joint task between business and IT. It is important to us that AI initiatives do not remain in the pilot stage, but quickly create real added value in everyday insurance operations.
Philipp Bender (Senior Manager at SMP)
Which of our activities are you planning to get involved in? What impetus would you like to bring to the InsurLab network - and what do you hope to get in return?
We want to actively contribute our energy and experience to the community. For us, partnership-based exchange - both with established insurers and with start-ups and tech pioneers - is key to learning from each other and creating new impetus together.
We want to make a targeted contribution to the content of the topic groups relevant to us and actively use the existing exchange formats. We also want to enrich the InsurLab community - with tried-and-tested formats, joint studies, new ideas and real implementation power. With this in mind, we are planning to offer specific workshops on current and relevant topics such as conversational AI, paperless and sales of the future.
We are also happy to act as a sparring partner for start-ups, especially when it comes to scaling up innovative solutions in practice.
Where do you see the insurance industry - and InsurLab as a network - in 2026? What contribution would you like to have made by then?
The insurance industry is facing groundbreaking changes: Technological innovations - especially through AI - as well as the resulting transformation of organizations, new customer journeys, changing customer expectations and the topic of sustainability/CSR are becoming mandatory and no longer optional. In our view, InsurLab has the opportunity to establish itself as a significant and effective transformation network for insurance companies - with real creative power and implementation strength.
As SMP and Eraneos, we want to be part of this success story: As a challenger that not only provides impetus, but also actively shapes changes in day-to-day business and delivers measurable results. Together with InsurLab and its members, our aim is not only to discuss the transformation of the industry, but also to consistently put it into practice and implement it sustainably.
Alfons Niebuer, Moritz Osthues and Philipp Bender, thank you very much for the interview! We look forward to working with you.
