SPEEDA Edge is an innovation intelligence platform that focuses on emerging technologies and industries. It covers 100+ emerging industry reports which include industry overviews, market maps, competitive benchmarking, incumbent activities, and more. The platform offers daily news on its coverage of over 8,000 startups operating across rapidly-growing industries. In the second half of 2022, Swiss Re’s Corporate Partnership (CP) Business Development team partnered with SPEEDA Edge to enhance its research process and idea generation.
Swiss Re CP Business Development Team
The Swiss Re CP Business Development team is a global team; its mandate is to create long-lasting partnerships across diverse sectors, to deliver and co-create innovative products and solutions, beyond risk transfer. The team’s main objective is to deliver innovative insurance solutions to help its target clients—large and mid-sized multinational corporations—mitigate their risk exposure.
In this context, the CP Business Development team is responsible for identifying business opportunities through idea generation, analysis, and client presentations around the insurance value proposition. The team is tasked with originating insurance solutions that meet a client's strategic objectives and deepen understanding of the client’s needs—to strengthen relationships and communication.
Team Objectives
Develop and promote the value proposition of insurance as a pro-active element within clients' strategic and capital management toolkit.
Analyze clients' financial valuation, investor expectations, capital flexibility, and other financial and strategic measures, and engage with them on how insurance can enhance those metrics.
Contribute to select Client Engagement Plans with a focus on value-creation opportunities.
Team Structure
How did you first hear about SPEEDA Edge, and what was your first impression about the SPEEDA Edge platform?
Evangelos:
I got in touch with SPEEDA Edge when a colleague of mine, who was working in the ITC department, reached out to me and connected me to the SPEEDA Edge sales team. I received a first impression of the services offered. Since then, we've been scheduling regular updates when new features and industries were introduced, as at the early stage, SPEEDA Edge was in a rather formative phase.
Sebastian:
My first impression was that it's a very user-friendly platform with lots of potential. It didn't exactly fulfill what we were looking for at the time, but Evangelos mentioned that he had been approached by SPEEDA Edge and there was responsiveness from their side.
What was your pain point when using other platforms?
Evangelos:
Many solutions provide unique yet decoupled features that are not naturally interconnected. The "end-to-end" perspective envisioned would add significant value as one platform could add massive value to different users and stakeholders within the organization. And in many cases with other platforms, feedback was welcomed; however, nothing tangible happened.
Sebastian:
Often, you use platforms in a way that does not necessarily fulfill all your needs; Ultimately, you use several platforms to create the product that you want. We have tried in the past to give feedback, but unfortunately, a lot of the platforms out there are not interested in the customer.
Why did you choose to partner with SPEEDA Edge?
Since we were in touch with the SPEEDA Edge team during the early stages of the product, we were updated regularly about upcoming features and topics; keeping us updated was very valuable. The team at SPEEDA Edge has also been very responsive and great to collaborate with, so their responsiveness urged us to explore how we could have some changes customized to better fit our requirements. With SPEEDA Edge, we found a provider who listens AND executes what matters most to us. This has more of a flavor of a strategic partnership and is more impactful.
“With SPEEDA Edge, we found a provider who listens AND executes what matters most to us”
How has your user experience with SPEEDA Edge been so far?
Evangelos:
The onboarding process is very smooth, and the overall navigation and content look really fresh. When it came to minor issues on the usability side, SPEEDA Edge responded swiftly with speed-to-market and client-centricity.
Sebastian:
The experience is great. I like the platform very much, but above all, I like the people at SPEEDA Edge because they are responsive and they listen to our needs.
“SPEEDA Edge responded with speed-to-market and client-centricity”
If you could pick one piece of content or function that sets SPEEDA Edge apart from its competitors, what would it be?
Evangelos:
At this stage, there are two areas I see as being unique: (1) Market sizing and addressable market including assumptions taken, and (2) market mapping (Incumbents vs. Disruptors with respect to all maturity stages) and competitive analysis via business model comparison and benchmarking.
Sebastian:
I would say the competitive benchmarking tables. To position 3-4 companies next to each other and compare them is very valuable.
How do you intend to leverage SPEEDA Edge into your workflow in the future?
Evangelos:
Right now, we're using SPEEDA Edge for a very specific request. However, given our business development mandate, our intention would be to seamlessly integrate it into our working activities and systems.
Sebastian:
Well, in a perfect world, SPEEDA Edge gets totally embedded into our tools and colleagues can get some standard reports at the click of a button or through API. That would be hugely helpful, as it would allow us to focus on the value add that cannot be automated, rather than expend energy on gathering information from various sources.
“In a perfect world, SPEEDA Edge gets totally embedded into our tools and colleagues can get some standard reports at the click of a button or through API”
