Nippon Life woos the upscale market

Despite the rather sluggish state of the local insurance industry, Shigeru Noma, president and chief executive officer of Nippon Life Philippines, has reasons to be happy.

Noma likes what he sees so far. The numbers are coming in, maybe not as projected, but not all that bad either. Noma came in 1999, two years after Japan’s leading insurance company, Nippon Life Insurance Co., entered into a 50-50 joint venture with the Yuchengco Group of Companies which also runs a local insurance firm, Grepalife Phils. On paper, it was a bad time to invest. The peso continued to weaken; returns were weak.

"But the numbers didn’t tell the entire story," says Noma. "What we realized was that there was a market that had yet to be tapped. We wanted to go for it, maybe not in a big way, but gradually."

After a typical Tuesday morning meeting of Nippon’s executives and sales force, Noma rattles off his formula to expand the company’s presence in the Philippines: adopt the mother company’s corporate culture, cultivate homegrown talent and let them strike out on their own to suit local conditions. Given the country’s complexity, not to mention diversity, a local approach is the best way to go after deals.

Stronger sales force

Upon stepping in, Noma fine-tuned the processes and procedures established when the company began operating in the Philippines. The first area Noma worked on was to strengthen the sales force.

"Our sales force is our link to our targeted market. We introduced a system of recruitment to ensure we have the right people to do the job," says Noma.

Before an insurance agent is hired, he has to pass the final interview conducted by Noma himself. It gets tough when those who make it to the last round are asked to submit at least 100 names of potential clients.

"Except for new agents, we ask those with considerable years in the business to give us potential individuals and companies – which they think have a good chance of doing business with us. We are a new company and we want people with a good network to introduce us to the market," explains Noma.

After recruitment, the insurance agents (more than 300 nationwide), undergo a training program to provide them with more advanced, customer-oriented and user-friendly sales tools.

Meshing Nippon’s global standards, vision and principles with local conditions is hard work, admits Noma.

"I always emphasize that the only way we can all do well is when we work together. We should work as a team but that should not stop them from acting on their own and be more creative in approaching their work," says Noma.

Because of its local focus, Nippon has consciously limited the number of Japanese employees, especially those in executive positions.

"What we did initially was for our Japanese agents to team up with their Filipino counterparts so our agents can get a feel of the local market and can better relate to our clients. In turn, our Japanese staff introduced Filipino agents to Japanese companies operating in the Philippines. Later on, all subsequent transactions were handled by Filipinos," explains Noma.

This year, Noma’s team is wooing the high-end or upscale market to complement the B, C and D markets which Grepalife has a firm handle on.

"There is a market for individual insurance, and with a turnaround in the economy later on, we expect this market to grow by at least 10 to 15 percent annually," says Noma.