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BARMER: The evolution of an Old Dinosaur to Innovative Tech Startup

01-10-2018 08:53 AM CET | Business, Economy, Finances, Banking & Insurance

Press release from: SharkSales

BARMER: The evolution of an Old Dinosaur to Innovative Tech

There is so much talk these days about how can major large old slow moving corporations keep pace with fast moving innovative startups.

Large well established companies continually feel the pressure and impact of the hard charging startups disrupting the market place. This startup disruption is having profound impact on well established old companies that are use to doing what ever they want and control all of the market share.

Gone are the days that companies can sit on there over weight slow moving asses running a few advertisements and just counting the cash rolling in.

Take a good example of the banking system. The old established banks such as Bank of America and Deutsche Bank have had to change most of their platform in an effort to establish their brands to be able to continue to grow.

The competition in the banking sector is fierce with startups such a N26 banking revolutionising the banking industry and taking massive market share for the big old banks.

After spending 25 years consulting for the most innovative disruptive, and fastest moving startups in Silicon Valley. Seems my life has come full circle and now I am presented with many opportunities to help major well established corporation become more innovative and startup minded.

I think a little back story will be helpful….

This new shift in projects and opportunity happened by complete accident when one day I decided to take a flight from San Francisco to Berlin to volunteer for a Startup Job Fair of all things. Upon my arrival my destiny was set.

I arrived at in Berlin at 2am and 10am the next morning I was at BARMER Insurance new fantastic building in Mitte being briefed on the event. I was very impressed with the building the layout and felt like I was in a new startup building SOMA (South of Market San Francisco). I had no idea the history of Barmer Insurance I thought they were this innovative fast moving company I was very impressed.

For those of you that don’t know, I thinks its import to briefly explain the history of BARMER Insurance to help highlight how big of a deal it is for a company like BARMER to make a transition to a startup mindset.

Founded 1878
9.4 Million Policy Holders
2nd Largest Health Insurance Company in Germany
One of the Largest Health Insurance companies in Europe

If you have never done business or worked with European companies please understand things do not move at the same speed as Silicon Valley… Actually business moves faster in Gulf Shores Alabama than in Europe.

In Europe if you think it will take a month to get a project its more like 3 months. Everything moves at a much more conservative pace than USA and Asia. So anytime a company approaches me I add times 3 to the time line.

Back to my volunteering at this Barmer job fair event….

The first day I was there I met Martin Nienkarken, seemed like a very smart guy and energetic. We had little time to speak over the weekend event honestly maybe only 2 sentences. He told me he wanted to ask me about a project he was working on. The number of times I hear that in a day, I said great and never expected to hear from him.

I returned home to Zurich and about 2 weeks later I received a call from Martin and he asked for my help. He told me he wanted to build a sample HR Workshop. I told him “I don’t do HR”, Martin’s response “your perfect for this”. So I reluctantly agreed to put a sample HR Workshop together.

Fast forwarding we decided to run a test HR Workshop to see if the Berlin community would be interested in what myself and BARMER was offering. The only way I agreed to move forward was for the BARMER team to agree NOT TO SALE!! Yes you heard me right, me Erick Sabelskjold this very strong aggressive sales and business development guy telling someone NOT TO SALE when they were hosting a free workshop to companies.

I had to explain my position a little more for the higher ups to understand what I was saying. I used Drake as an example. Drake put out free mix tapes to get as many people to know about him as fast as possible…. Yes I am trying to show the old Dinosaur BARMER how to connect with Drake.

I explained to BARMER as much as they wanted to sell to these companies that were in their building they could never do that as it would destroy any and all chance of making these workshops a huge deal. They trusted me and did not sale to anyone.

That one test workshop was a huge success on so many levels!

The companies were very happy and excited about the information they received. I was extremely satisfied to offer a service to the community that will help shape these companies and the community for the future. BARMER was able to sign more new contracts from that test workshop then any other event they had done in the past for Berlin.

All this success is great right!? This is exactly how startups work right? They put a small team together come up with a plan and charge! Perfect right? Well in one of the older slowest moving companies in Germany NOT so fast.

The executives at BARMER corporate offices were not so interested at all with all of this movement. Of course why would they be, what we were doing in Berlin was so foreign from anything they knew. For the better part of 130 plus years they have sold the same way. Walk into an office and beg to talk two someone in charge. After just one test workshop companies were begging to come to BARMER!

In just 6 weeks this group of visionaries brought this old stalling company out of the Jurassic period and into the innovation fast moving world of startup up thinking and action.

To give you an example of how hard BARMER had to fight to move forward with this project and get the Corporate offices approval. The team had to prepare a document explaining the concept of the project to the board of directors.

This document had to included things like definitions of “startups”and “incubators”. We might have well been trying to explain how to build a colony on Mars. This did not stop us and we pushed forward and finally received corporate approval to offer the same HR workshops in Frankfurt, Munich, Köln, Hamburg and Düsseldorf.

There has been a complete restructure of the sales depart at BARMER as well. There is now a designated sales rep in each location in charge of startups. This new position is producing an entirely new focus and drive for the sales teams and producing instant increase in new contracts signed and leads being generated.

One of the best parts of all of this is how the team at BARMER Mitte made all this magic happen and they just did it with their drive and a feeling things could be done better! I thinks its important to recognise the team that put all this in motion and changed the culture of a major corporation single handily: Mr Schmidt, Mr König, Martin, Mercedes, Melanie, and Benjamin.

Lets examine more precisely how this BARMER team was able to make such a fast and powerful shift in the culture of this company.

Innovation, Innovation, Innovation

Definition: The process of translating an idea or invention into a good or service that creates value or for which customers will pay.

The idea was what service could be offered that had tremendous value to the people that are the decision makers of companies that are hiring a large number of expats.

By creating innovative and never seen before HR Workshops BARMER was able to create instant and powerful value to HR executives that have a need to keep and hire the best talent possible. By offering these HR Workshops it gives BARMER an instant and tremendous competition market advantage. At the same time they are giving back to the community in a selfless act and making a better future for Berlin and Germany.

Sparking Entraperausirship

When the Berlin heads Mr Schmidt and Mr König empowered their sales team to come up with creative ways to better attract clients and increase value of their services they sparked the inner entrepreneur of the team. Empowering there team to take responsibility and giving them the power to make decisions motivated them in a way no amount of money could ever do.

This is a HUGE disconnect in the corporate environment. Corporations don’t understand how important it is to an employee to feel empowered in their job, and how much they want to contribute NOT just do their job!

If a corporation cant trust its employees enough to empower them and let them make their own decisions on a project and take ownership there is no way for the start-up culture to makes it way into that company.

No Such Thing as Failure
“It’s about giving people the environment to think in a different way and getting people to take risks,” BARMER Team…….

The executives had to learn there is no such thing as failure. When the team first started trying new projects to attract clients, they were always asked the same question…. “How Many New Contracts Did We Get”? The bosses had to learn that immediate results did not mean success and the fear of failure halts all creativity and movement.
Now the culture is much different at the executive level. The questions asked now are, what are the success from this project, how can we do better next time. When you take the fear of failure and instant results out of the equation then people focus on providing real value and quality in their service to clients and prospective clients.

Slow and Steady
Its unrealistic to think a large corporation can move at the same speed of a startup. Thus “slow and steady” is the name of the game. As long as your team is moving in a forward directions and able to shift and stay agile that is a perfect recipe for success and innovation.

Looking Outside the Box
Looking outside the box is one of the fundamentals that drives startups and BARMER allowing its people to do this even when it didn’t understand what they were doing proved instrumental in the transformation.
So often “outside the box thinking” is discouraged in the corporate structure and if you want your employees to realise their full potential thus leading to more growth for you company you have to encourage outside the box thinking.
Projects
BARMER.I: Current project just launched located in BARMER Mite offices. BARMER.I launched to focus on digital innovation to help streamline the healthcare process for its insured. For example BARMER.I is working on new and innovative ways to go paperless thought the entire process for insured clients and keep the data in a manageable easy way to access.
The space can be considered a co-working space and BARMER.I will be looking into meditech startups to team with to form partnerships for ongoing projects for digital innovation. This could also build into an incubator platform in the future as well.
This is just the beginning for BARMER there is many other projects planed for this year. A sample of upcoming events hosted by Barmer will be an innovative tech job days, and a LinkedIn workshop to help people build more effective profiles.

Process
BARMER unknowingly created the best model for companies to following when creating a startup culture within their large organisation.
The old dinosaur turned innovative tech startup used an 3 level hierarchy system to put action in to place without becoming to radical to fast.
The highest level is the corporate executives that look from afar allowing a certain amount of action to take place before they get involved with either approval or denial.
Next level is the regional executive position that is providing support in a limited way and looking for results to push things forward.
Then there is the game changers the people on the streets who want and need to change and feel empowered. They put all their energy and enthusiasm into these projects and will them to succeed.
One of my proudest moments is when the BARMER team tried to describe how these changes are making them feel……. The y said things like..
We feel like we have more control.
We are proud to represent BARMER like we never were in the past
We feel like we do less work but have way more success.
We feel like we are making a difference in the community.
For me this sounds like the words of very happy employees that are giving so much more than just trying to collect a pay check!!

BARMER created the perfect model with out trying to label it, the just went out and did it. One of the many reasons I am so proud to help them and be a part of something so great is there willingness to take action NOT just talk and hope something happens.
What happen to the dinosaurs? No one really knows but I am guessing some of their extinction had to do with failing to take action.
Don't let your company become an extinct dinosaur…..

BARMER Insurance is the 2nd largest public insurer in Germany. They are working to innovate and improve the community and their brand.

erick sabelskjold
sharksales
dachsberg 13
14193 Berlin Germany

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