Coronavirus crisis will compel companies to revisit remote working policies: Pushan Mahapatra, CEO, SBI General Insurance

With lakhs of people affected — the impact of the coronavirus has been deadly. In the process, this black swan event has completely altered our way of thinking and has forced organizations to bring about a change in the way they function.

As part of our continued series on how India Inc is fighting the deadly virus, we have the views of Pushan Mahapatra, MD and CEO, SBI General Insurance, who shares with us, how his organisation has tried to mitigate the risks through a series of proactive initiatives

Some edited excerpts:

What are some of the key initiatives initiated by your organization in ensuring that business continues as usual?
As an insurance company, we have a crucial role to play in order to stand with our Policyholders in this hour of need. We, at SBI General Insurance, are following a comprehensive Business Continuity Plan to address all probable situations. We have taken a balanced view of our employees’ health and safety and commitment to our Customers. People and Customers have always been at the centre of all our activities. Protection and well-being of our people and their families is our priority.

At the same time, we are committed to offer best of services to our customers. Since the outbreak of COVID 19, SBI General Insurance has established its Emergency Management Team (EMT) which comprises senior management & leadership teams. The EMT has been closely monitoring the situation in liaison with the Central/State/Local Authorities and necessary advisory is being issued to the employees and other stakeholders. The EMT has been taking necessary steps as per our crisis management plan, to reshape the business strategy to maintain business continuity, to build resilience and prepare for recovery. There is also a Crisis Management & Communication Plan for COVID19 in place which highlights the necessary Do’s and Don’ts for the stakeholders. The EMT has provisioned for various engagement activities and matrices to make the work from home a delightful & productive experience for the employees.

We have ensured that our Customer Care channel is up and supporting the customers. We have activated voice-call and are able to respond to voice messages left with us. Our E-Mail and SMS Short Code responses are manageable from home by our customer service executives. Our claims team will continue to support our policyholders and Call Centres with optimal resources shall ensure the continuation of essential customer care services to our policyholders.

Critical vendors for IT services have apprised the company of their BCP preparedness and are able to provide the necessary support along with the internal IT team by working remotely. Daily Stand-up with all technology partners is been done from 2nd March.

The company is aligning with BCP plans of the technology partners to avoid work volatility and surprises in projects & projections. We have conducted drills prior to shut down to test readiness for an eventual shut down, recorded lessons and accordingly modified our BCP. The Company has managed to rapidly scale up in enabling remote connectivity to not just employees but also ensuring the IT Support to business functions continues as BAU. The IT Support such as Help Desk, Incident Management, Problem Management, New Projects development, Testing & Deployments etc continue to function as BAU.

The company has taken appropriate action on the underwriting front to confirm closure of new and renewal business so that no inconvenience is caused to its customers. To this end, the company has provided appropriate decentralisation of powers to enable quick decision making and a system of backups is in place for each line of business to take care of any unforeseen contingencies. Also, as per new guidelines by IRDAI, SBI General will condone renewals with 30 days grace period.

Critical employees having laptops have been provided by VPNs and those having desktops have been provided with VDIs to enable working remotely. The operations team is exploring the option of issuing policies from the employee portal over the internet. If successful, this would be extended to the sales team. Voice mail has been activated at the Contact Centre for customers who are not able to get through the helpline. Motor claims are being processed through online streaming.

What are some of the key challenges faced to ensure a Work from Home Policy (if adhered to in your organization)?

The number of VPN/VDI users increased significantly due to the crisis. With all of them concurrently logging in, there was an unprecedented load on the IT infrastructure resulting in a slowness of the system. Further, the sudden surge in usage of the internet resulted in slowing down of the internet bandwidth. On the people front, it was a challenge to keep the employees engaged and motivated in this new style of functioning which they were not used to. We shared tips to work from home and rolled out e-learning modules to keep our staff engaged.

What are some of the technology tools used to facilitate smooth collaboration between employees?
We use Microsoft teams to facilitate smooth collaboration between employees. Through this tool, employees can conduct virtual meetings via Microsoft Teams and SharePoint for collaboration, share screens & files and chat thus enabling a smooth work from home experience.

Do you believe that the current mandatory use of remote work for business continuity is a signal to all organisations that it’s time to revisit their remote working policies and redesign them for wider application for business as usual? Please share your perspective.
Yes definitely. Companies who didn’t have a work from home as part of their policy faced a challenge to implement it at a very short notice. Even companies who had work from home as a policy struggled with coping up with a significant increase in concurrent logins. This black swan event will certainly compel companies to revisit their remote working policies and redesign them to cater to business as usual activities in addition to business continuity.

What are some of the key lessons learnt during this crisis?

There are three key lessons:

(a) Stress on liquidity due to increase in claims and lower new business volumes:
We manage day to day liquidity requirement mainly through our holdings in overnight / liquid mutual fund schemes. We continue to hold positions in these funds to manage liquidity as per our projections. We are closely monitoring our liquidity requirements and any increase in outflows due to increase in claims and lower new business volumes shall be met through increased allocation to these MF schemes.

(b) Decrease in return on investments due to adverse market movements:
The recent market turmoil has adversely impacted both the equities and debt book with more immediate impact on the former. The sharp correction in stock prices has led to losses and steep MTM erosion in investment value and may result in decrease in return on total investment book. However, equities comprise a small portion of the whole investment portfolio and overall adverse impact maybe limited accordingly. Our debt book comprises largely of government securities and AAA rated corporate bonds and adverse impact to these may be relatively less severe.

(c) Decrease in liquidity:
As our debt book comprises largely of government securities and AAA rated corporate bonds, many of these shall remain relatively liquid in adverse market conditions. Additionally, to cater to the inflows and outflows as per our internal projections we maintain holdings in overnight/liquid mutual fund schemes. We are closely monitoring the market situation and if need arises, will increase allocation to these MF schemes to tide over stress scenarios.

(d) Higher asset liability management risks:
We shall continue to operate within our ALCO mandated ALM gap limits. Compliance to the same is monitored periodically. We will continue to closely monitor and assess the market situation and if need arises, will review our position accordingly.