A case study of the extended interactive innovation management model in insurance company

Abstract

Due to increasing competition, what companies need to do is as important as how they do business. For this reason, companies are focusing on getting better ideas ahead of their competitors and passing them on quickly. Models developed for innovation management, such as technology push, market pull, coupling, interactive and network are being applied and developed in different sectors with different add-ons. The aim of this study is to propose and apply the innovation management framework in an international insurance company and evaluate its results. This framework includes interactive model as the innovation management approach; brainstorming as the creative thinking method, and Delphi as group decision-making method. The volunteers selected from employees of the company among those who are more closely related to the customers. Although 37 of 510 employees are applied to the program, only 22 of them are approved. The volunteers were provided with detailed information on technological trends and trained in innovation management and creative thinking methods. Later, 328 innovation ideas were produced by using brainstorming method. These ideas were presented and consolidated into 62 different ideas, and then the participating volunteers were requested to score the ideas in terms of 5 criteria. The scored ideas were ultimately evaluated by a couple of joint meetings and the 6 ideas are decided by using Delphi method to be offered to the executive's of the company with the detailed feasibility reports and project proposals and those who find sponsors from the executives will be initiated in a program. In this study, the interactive innovation management model was extended to the insurance sector in a novel approach by combining a set of well known methods in an order for different steps. According to the literature, this study is the first in the insurance sector in Turkey, and a subject of study in the world is also increasing. The results obtained in this study are considered to be a guide for researchers working on this field. For further research, it is suggested to consider of granting individual mentorship to employees who are volunteers throughout the innovation management process.