Innovation delivered | Lukasz Marczyk, Accenture

This week, Mana Labs co-founder Mimi Nguyen speaks with Lukasz Marczyk from Accenture’s Warsaw office.  As an innovation leader and part of Accenture’s leadership team in Poland, Lukasz discusses his experience within innovation management and his journey towards becoming Managing Director and Partner at Accenture.  This episode also does a deep dive into the rise of insurtech and the current innovative trends of the industry.

Lukasz tells Mimi about the company’s game-changing work on cloud, automation and robotics, why management consulting needs to incorporate design thinking and why talent is the main asset of any company. Plus, he fills us in on why excelling in leadership skills at Stanford University can help senior-level managers advance faster and collaborate better on innovation ideas.

 

Listen here:

https://apple.co/3oTzwQK

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Episode Highlights:

01:30: The Rise of insurtech

05:50: Design thinking in management consulting

13:20: Skillsets and the job market

18:15: Startups and their competitive advantage

22:38: Stanford University experience

35:29: Journey to becoming Managing Director at Accenture

37:45: Lukasz’s Mana – the human side of a leader

 

Transcript

Mimi Nguyen

Lukasz Marczyk is an innovation leader with almost two decades of experience at one of the biggest world’s firms. As part of Accenture’s leadership team in Poland, he launched a digital innovation centre that now boasts a 25% market share on most insurers. Since then he’s become a managing director and partner of Accenture’s Warsaw office. Lukasz welcome to the show.

 

Lukasz Marczyk

Hello, Mimi. Hello, everyone.

 

Mimi Nguyen

Lukasz also happened to be my first ever boss in my professional career when I joined Accenture almost 10 years ago. So fast forward to today, we have insurtech. What have been the biggest changes and how did they disrupt the industry?

 

Lukasz Marczyk

Something like ten years ago, I was given the opportunity to grow the insurance business, I was looking for some biggest problems and biggest cost factors that were affecting insurance industry at that time. At the beginning, I found that actually, the cost of claims or cost of repairing cars, of processing planes are extremely high comparing to the real costs. What was the reason is that actually there was no trust on the market, no some kind of ecosystem of cooperation between workshops, claim handlers, insurers and the clients that will allow actually to select the best workshops, the ones that really want to cooperate, want to well repair the car in exchange for some good but also, I would say proper money for this. There was a lot of frauds. There was a lot of cheating on the market so I decided how we can actually apply technologies in order to solve this issue. We figured it out that actually applying a kind of a platform that would connect all those parties where all the ecosystem partners would work on one platform that actually stores the data of all of the transaction in one place. But of course, storing the data doesn’t bring the immediate business result. Leveraging those data is something that really matters so we applied analytics in order to score all the partners in the ecosystem based on several criteria, like customer experience, speed of delivering the service, cost of these claims, number of errors, customer complaints, and so on and so forth. In order to actually identify, based on 5000 different partners that we had in our ecosystem, which ones are really the best, which ones are the ones that really want to deliver exceptional service in a very price competitive way. Once we score them, each of a customer when they are calling insurers in real-time we are selecting the best partner based on the scoring as well as proximity, as well as some specific client expectations, as well as their specific situation regarding the claim and the car. In order to dynamically link these best partners with this customer, and in this way, we actually dramatically decrease the cost of processing claims because we were able to identify the best workshops in the whole country we decrease the length of delivering the service because we were able to automatically identify which workshops are having the right capacity, the right number of people and the right attention to the claims. We increased dramatically the customer experience because they didn’t have to wait. Everything was very quick. It was kind of additional services that we deliver to those clients. In this way, we actually completely disrupted the claims and insurance market. I’m laughing a little bit that we actually put a policeman in every workshop in order to really concentrate on their processes. On the other hand side, we actually have brought the data on workshops, on claims, on insurers all together in order to really improve the cooperation between those parties. This was a really nice example how actually technology, an IT platform, together with AI and some business processes around can actually really change the whole segment of the whole industry.

 

Mimi Nguyen

You’ve mentioned customer experience. There’s a rise of design thinking, nowadays, in consultancy. So these customers with major areas for insurance over the past years ?? and how to help clients in each area.

 

Lukasz Marczyk

Especially the recent COVID outbreak was actually a kind of a ignite, a kind of push on insurers in order to go into the customer experience. Why? Because in the moment customers actually have changed their customer journeys, changed their habits. Instead of contacting some kind of an agent or a person, they had to move into the internet and looking for some information. We call this kind of situation ROPO, research online purchase offline. They were looking for information in a different way, the customer journeys changed and insurers had to quickly understand what really has happened. We launched several initiatives, together with insurers, where actually the way they are connecting to the customer, the way they are building the insurance products, the way they want to be operated both in claims as well as back-office processes had to change. We investigated, we researched together with the end customer, what are their preferences, how they want to be contacted, what are the channels they want to use. This was really eye-opening for several issuers because initially, before this happens, many of them were developing these kind of experiences based on their own idea what the customer wants. This, of course, ended up with several failures in projects, because it turned out that the expectation and the imagination of the experts in insurance companies differ significantly from the ones that the customers have. Of course, another aspect on this is the impact of some digital leaders, something like we call the gaffa so like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and these kind of companies that also push to all segments on the market with their superior customer experience. The customers right now expect every company, every segment, not only insurance but also some other ones like products and financial services in general, to actually provide a similar level of service. This also impacted that. So how we support it? We developed together with a client a methodology, a way of cooperating with the clients, both doing the research, as well as quickly developing prototypes, that can be also tested with end customers before a significant investment is even made, can be quickly adjusted to the expectations of the clients. Then what’s extremely important because this kind of process maybe also some others make but what we believe is extremely important is that you also need to develop a business case, a business justification for this specific change together with a client so that once you implement this product on the market, you already know what kind of business value you can get from this. Second element is also based on these prototypes. You can very quickly jump from the ideation stage from the prototyping and testing stage into the implementation because you have a backlog, as we call it, of functionalities, they need to develop and they are prioritized based on customer, not the insurer but a customer view. So you are actually incorporating the customer expectations into the whole process from ideation through valuation up to implementation. I really think that this is extremely interesting approach that changes the way insurers work and what I think is extremely important as well is that it’s so much fun, because actually, most of the insurers, and this is our experience from real projects, the employees of issuers really say, “Wow, I never knew that actually, this kind of expectations from the client arises, that this kind of new segment of clients is available on the market, that this is something that they expect”. They have a new way of cooperating, collaborating, and exchanging information with a client and this makes a lot of fun.

 

Mimi Nguyen

How do you incorporate customers in that process? When does this happen? From the very beginning, we do some customer research, in terms of which segment of a customer is actually the best one to approach, how this segment is actually divided, what is the volume of people in this segment after that, so we carefully select which segment we want to attract. Based on this segment, we carefully select the number of people and the group of the customers that we want to make a research with, that we put a survey with them, what are the expectations. We allow them to play with some of our initial concepts. Based on this, we collect all those information so we are present with the clients on various focus groups, on various meetings. Based on this, we developed an initial prototype, this prototype is tested with this client. How does it look like? Sometimes it is very funny. Sometimes we, for instance, draw a mobile phone, and we show how the screen would look like. Is it something that is somehow aligned with the customer expectations? Should something change? We immediately get the feedback from the client and we incorporate it in new prototypes and we want more test. Then later on a more complicated prototype with already a quick and dirty screens applications feel so that the client before even the product is launched on the services launch, can actually play with this, can give some feedback on it. So later on when this product or service is moved into production, they already have something that they really like, and that is really adjusted to their needs. We’re talking about cloud computing, design thinking, this sounds like new skill set that we need. How does the job market change? What type of talents you guys are looking for right now? And how do you retrain people if there is not enough people, for example with cloud skillset?

 

Lukasz Marczyk

This question about the talent is the constant problem that we are facing on the market. Together with innovation that we are looking for, there are new technologies. For new technologies you need to have people who command, who have a good understanding of these technologies. On one hand side, it’s a chance for such a company like Accenture, and that’s also a reason why I started by Accenture because we are constantly looking for new technologies three to five years ahead of us. Before even this technology is coming into a main stage. We are already in our research labs, in our innovations labs looking for and training our people how to leverage these technologies. On the other hand side, of course, you need to also have a specific skills on your specific markets versus in Poland. We are doing several things. First of all, we are supporting universities in digital programs, where Accenture is together with the university trying to establish such a curriculum and such a program that actually is training the people coming out of universities already with a specific skills. On the second level, we are recruiting a very ambitious and clever people from the universities so that we can train them very quickly on the job together with client, as well as with some specific trainings that we are having, and then certificate. Last but not least, we are also constantly looking for experts on the market. We are hiring some of the best experts from other companies from the market, as well as leveraging our innovation centres from around the world so we can actually very quickly combine a team of innovative skills in a country where this technology is not even known because we are sourcing this talent from around the world. But as you mentioned, we sometimes call it the war of talent because many companies are looking for the same people and you need to provide really innovative projects for these people in order to attract them. I think this is something that’s changed dramatically. When I started in Accenture, it was very interesting for me, I was very motivated and I was like, “Wow, such a great company”. Right now, young people, they need to be attracted all the time. Even if they start working in our company I need to bring them with the newest projects, newest innovative elements to work with. Otherwise, they will move to some other companies. That’s also quite of a challenge right now.

 

Mimi Nguyen

So that’s talent acquisition and talent retention, right? Exactly. This is something that’s also difficult for companies that we work with because as Accenture, we are constantly working with these technologies through various clients, various markets. For the insurer, for instance, to attract and then retain those people they have to be very efficient in managing these kind of projects. This become apparent, especially with recent robotic process automation trend. That happened two years ago, where insurers started to develop these skills together with us but later on had quite a lot of issues with keeping these people who were moving to other jobs. They were having difficulties to scale this robotic process automation capabilities within the company. Because these are short projects, you need to constantly have new ideas, you have to give them ambitious work to work with, otherwise, they just move to other companies. This is also a challenge for our clients. You’ve also played major role in fostering some of the country’s most innovative startups. Briefly, tell us about some of the companies you’ve worked with. I’m always laughing that actually, I have by myself started three or four startups within Accenture because I had to come up with a new idea of new services like the ones that I described with claims. It was a similar one with fraud analytics or with Robotic Process Automation or with AI where we had to understand where are the areas of improvement just like the startups do. Later on to search for technology and apply those concepts in order to solve this business problem, do some prototyping, some PLCs and then later on scale it so that it actually brings the value to Accenture at this moment, but also to insurance companies in Poland. Apart from these initial four or five startups that I created within Accenture, we also cooperate with startups on the market, both in terms of insurance market in Poland. Recently I was together with my team involved in creating a very innovative company on the Polish insurance market that actually allows to disrupt the way you are pricing the insurance. It’s possible in just three steps, very quickly, and also disrupt the way you interact with the client because it’s fully digital with cloud-native technology that allows to very quickly bring new customer journeys, new services, new products to the market and with some data component AI that actually automate the whole process. It was really an interesting initiative and what was, for me especially, interesting that we also brought the best concept of digital marketing. The way you actually should attract the customers in this new era that we have right now leveraging social channels, like Facebook, and so on, leveraging new way of communicating with the client, by YouTube, by some movies, in various channels. So how to attract those clients? Sometimes the market that you believe is saturated because insurance existed for the last 100 years so how you can actually attract new clients, new customers? On the other hand side with the new channels that normally the insurers are not so familiar with, and also with some new content that is actually fun, that is different from the way most of the young and middle-aged people think about insurance, bringing also some kind of ecosystem components or some additional services. This was a really interesting journey, where we leverage some of our Milan experts in newest customer communication strategies, together with some belonged on colleagues how to apply those to insurance companies, as well as some local expertise in creating content, graphical content and movie content and music that actually really gets into people. I was really amazed how well this all turned out to happen. This campaign was launched at the end of the last year, and we already have a very high number of people who are actually really looking into this commercials, into this new way of communicating value in insurers market. There’s always something new. You also said that you felt that you started this three little startups within Accenture. I also know that when I was there and you were senior manager back then you went to Stanford to like a mini MBA program. How did it help you in this venture building skills?

 

Lukasz Marczyk

I was actually always putting quite high attention to the education because I believe that especially in management and in consulting, you need to always have edge, always look for new information, new management tools, methods and so on. Five or six years ago, when I was given this new opportunity to develop the insurance, the insurance capability within Accenture, I was also looking to ways how to move from the idea through some kind of validation stage up to a really implementation and delivery. At that time, I found an interesting executive leadership development program called From Idea to Action. So how to exactly leverage those kind of methods and concepts in order to really deliver some business value. It actually opened my mind to the new things, because many times you need to really be taken out of your comfort zone, out of your everyday business and brought to issue tech or startup environment that actually is around Stanford where there is big as well as small technological companies that constantly evolve, constantly coming to fruition and sometimes are closed and get to know all these different concepts. It was divided into three elements. One was the more kind of looking for the ideas, so strategy way, how to make a strategy to bring really a competitive advantage, how to check if the strategy really works. It was really interesting to understand this innovative concepts.

 

Mimi Nguyen

I remember actually you were flying to Stanford University and you met my friend there. Briefly, when she was studying there she was passing a package for me. So if you think about people who would like to consider going to courses like that your experience was an offline, so you actually had to fly and be on the campus of Stanford University. Would you redo that online? And how do you think that would affect this whole learning process?

 

Lukasz Marczyk

From my perspective, I really enjoyed being there on premises, not only because of nice weather and the sun in California. In January when it started, it was amazing coming out of the cold country, as we have right now thirty centimeters of snow and minus ten degrees Celsius into a place full of palms and twenty degrees and a nice campus, which is really amazing. That’s one thing but I think the most important thing was to somehow get into this whole culture and environment of constant innovation and to have a potential to discuss with all these innovators how they are doing this business, how they are checking this on the market, to really even have these design thinking courses, when you could really play with those prototypes and see by your own hands how this prototyping and working with a client really changes your idea about the final product or service. And last but not least also networking. Maybe I’m a little bit older generation and I really enjoy having a real face to face conversation and discussing something together. I really miss it right now in the COVID times to really have more in person discussions and feedback, and also fun together. Of course, there are right now some new tools, like MURAL that allows you to actually have a similar experience offline. I think the younger people who are already used to this kind of doing business, conversation remotely, everything on mobile, on tablet, on computer, I think for them it might be still very valuable. For myself, I really enjoy going there, I still have a lot of friends from all around the world. Having this personal discussions with various cultures, various mindsets was really opening also my way of assessing world, assessing technologies, assessing trends. And really this Stanford campus is incredible place with Google, Facebook all around. What, for instance, strike me the most is that in such a culture like we have in Poland, and probably also in other countries in Europe, we tend to get to know something, some innovative idea and keep it for ourselves, thinking that when we’re going to share it with someone, we’re going to lose some kind of an edge, some kind of value and there it’s completely different. It’s exactly the opposite. The way to interact with many people with various skills, technologies, experiences and test your idea and get their feedback is something which is for them most valuable. So I would still recommend, hopefully, this COVID times end soon, to really go there and have maybe a part of it online, but also a part still offline there in place to really understand this culture and this innovative environment. I think Silicon Valley is really amazing in this way.

 

Mimi Nguyen

So you’re constant thrive for innovation. I remember you inspired me to take on my MA innovation management course after Accenture. You also did innovation in Canada I remember. But before all of that, you went to Warsaw School of Economics. Did you know back then that you wanted to work after that in financial consulting?

 

Lukasz Marczyk

No, actually, even in high school, I didn’t know where I should actually go, to which college, to which university because I was a kind of a generalist I would say as we call it nowadays. I like to actually know everything so both mathematics, Polish, English, geography, everything was actually interesting for me. I was and I’m still kind of an ambitious guy so I wanted to go, if I go for economics, which somehow was what my mother also did I said, “Let’s go for the best school in Poland”. At that time Warsaw School of Economics was and I think it still is the best in Poland. I think the most important for me was to have the potential at Warsaw School of Economics to actually see new ways, new opportunities that actually gave me for further developed both my attitude as well as my skills and my knowledge, because it allows me first of all, to go to exchange program to Kiel, which is in Germany, for one year. There was a place where I was really playing with innovation management. I remember professor Kleinschmidt, who was at that time, a visiting professor from the McMaster University in Canada. He was at that time one of the gurus of innovation management and I really enjoyed having a conversation, having a lectures with somebody who is great worldwide in this innovation area, and who had so many different experiences and cooperating with many top companies in the world. I decided at that time, “Let’s go into this innovation management”. This is something that actually combine some of my skills, this kind of looking always for something new, combining technology with business, a way of interacting with many players in order to collect the ideas, testing something. I think the biggest moment for me was when I then moved to Aarhus School of Economics, that are now Aarhus University in Denmark where I did my second master. I never knew when I was joining this school that I will have a potential to go for an exchange period to Canada to exactly this McMaster University that Mr. Kleinschmidt was giving lectures. In order to do this, I had to get one of the best results in Denmark but I thanks God achieved this. It was a great motivation for me. Then I moved to McMaster University and I think this was one of the best experiences of my life because I actually found this difference between how the Canadian universities are teaching management, comparing to some of the Polish or even European schools, they are much more concentrated on real impact, on practice, on learning on the job, in a very pragmatic way, on equipping the managers with some specific tools and methods instead of just some knowledge. Then later on, you come to the first job and you don’t know how to apply it. So I really enjoyed having a lot of projects together with some companies, a lot of visits to the real companies and working on some real case studies that these companies had in terms of innovation, how to apply those different concepts to a specific business situation. I really liked it and when I came back from this, I knew already that I want to further develop innovation management, this is something that I love. This is something that I’m really motivated, that really allows me to use my skills together with some, as I said, technologies on the market to bring some real value.

 

Mimi Nguyen

So you went straight after education to Accenture? Yes, because when I was going back from McMaster University, I remember this moment at the Toronto airport. When I was coming back, I was thinking about myself, “What I will do? I have this kind of innovation concept, but which company to choose”? And I remember a huge banner on the Toronto airport at that time Accenture “Innovation Delivered”. It was at that time our motto and our way to attract clients. And I said, “Wow. Okay, so I’m innovation guy, this is innovation delivered so this is the company for me”. When I came back to Poland, I actually applied for the job, and I got the job and still seventeen years later, I’m still delivering innovation and changing companies as well as people so I really enjoy it. Two decades, tell us about your journey to becoming a managing director in less than twenty years. That’s interesting.

 

Lukasz Marczyk

Actually in 15 years. It was quite of a journey. One of the problems that we had in Accenture was that we had difficulties in setting up the insurance practice, to scale it, to have some idea of how to use this kind of specific structure of the insurance market that we have in Poland, how to create a sustainable business on this market. Of course, one of the ideas was, “Let’s give it to Lucas, maybe he will have an idea because he always does some strange, different things and he’s this universal soldier so let’s give him this chance to also develop this segment”. And of course, my attitude, “I can always do it, I can deliver, I find a way” actually allowed me to come up with some nice strategy at that time to actually work both from the biggest players that normally are Accenture clients, as well as from smaller players, but for smaller players to deliver something like software as a service or services as a service that actually aggregate those smaller insurers, and we can provide them service in one to many mode. In this way, we can actually bring the newest technologies, newest skills that are sometimes quite expensive, into smaller and midsize insurance. This strategy was actually a successful one, we have right now couple of hundreds of people that are actually working on insurance projects. That is a sustainable business and we are constantly looking for new ideas how to help and how to transform this insurance sector with a similar concept of technology and business value.

 

Mimi Nguyen

It’s impressive. Looking back throughout your career, let’s ask about your mana. What has been the one trade that has helped you to excel?

 

Lukasz Marczyk

I was actually thinking about that, what is actually the thing that motivates me and that really fuels me on a daily basis. I think, over the years, there were different things but I think the most important for me is this kind of a human touch, this kind of way of developing people, in order for them to become expert in an area to become expert, not only in Accenture, but also on the whole market. I think what would I like is to really know all the people that I work with, from the internshiping, through analyst, consultant managers, senior managers, understand the key capabilities or key skills that this person brings to Accenture or general to the market, what is the area of development that this person has, and then bring it together with some trends on the market, some technologies on the market, and help together to build their career, their developmental path, in a way for them to become successful. So far, through these startups that I mentioned before, so both in claims, in analytics, in robotics, in cloud right now, in customer experience, in many of these areas, I was fortunate to have great people at the beginning, who together with me, started the journey, and who were opened for some of my ideas, my developmental feedback. I was able together with them to grow to the level that they are right now treated or perceived as experts in this area. For instance, one of my colleagues when we started this claim ecosystem platform business, we developed it from scratch, we were cooperating together some of my concepts, some of his business knowledge. Right now, he’s a claims director in one of the most interesting insurance companies on the Polish market. The second person we started at the beginning of the analytics journey five, seven years later, he’s chief data officer in one of the most data driven insurance company in Poland. Robotic process automation we started this three, four years ago and a colleague who we developed it and brought it to the market together is right now a robotic process automation expert and director in one of the biggest banks in Poland. Of course, I love also the people that are still with me in my team, and I really enjoy working with them. And they fuel me every day, they challenge me, I challenge them. We have very, I would say, close communication together. We like to innovate. Sometimes that’s difficult for them, because I constantly ask them to have new ideas, to test something but on the other hand side, we are growing together in this and I think even if they later on leave Accenture, or stay in Accenture, they are experts in this specific area. And this really, after the seventeen years, in Accenture, I think this is something that really motivates me. When I discuss this I have this kind of goose skin. That is actually, “Wow” that I not only helped insurance companies, I not only helped Accenture to grow, but this particular people who I’m still in a great contact with who see my way of doing business, my way of you know cooperating as a way for them to grow and the way for them to be an expert on the market and this is something that really last longer than just carrying Accenture. It’s something that is, for me very motivational, gives me fun. When I look back at these years, I think this is something that always strikes me and always keeps to my mind. That’s my mana.

 

Mimi Nguyen

I think it gives me goosebumps as well because these people that you mentioned, they all worked with me, I remember, in the same room. Mimi, I think you are one of the examples. You started with us, you remember as we were discussing, how to combine your great skills in designing, in art together with something that is on the market. At that time, there were these trends of both customer experience, design thinking, together with some technologies. We were sitting together and thinking how to develop these skills and look at you now, ten years later, you’re a lecturer of one of the innovation and courses on one of the best innovation schools in Europe. You are having some startups where you combine your skills in design, in management, in people, and you are one of the woman leader that is still developing. It’s really amazing for me to also look at this development that sometimes was maybe initiated by me, so I had the privilege to work with you at the beginning, maybe give you some concept that later on, allows you to also grow to such a great career. Thank you. Thank you so much, Lukasz. And thank you for being with us today.

 

Lukasz Marczyk

Yeah, it was a pleasure. I never thought when I was at the beginning hiring you as an intern that after a career in Accenture and in some other companies, you will become such a great woman leader and I will have a chance ten years later to talk to you about such an interesting stuff. Wish you all the best.


Also published on Medium.