Making change viable the Leadapreneur way

Sarah Margaret Peter Victorian
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Business leaders are aware that change is the precursor to growth but for Sarah Margaret Peter, it is so important because change also determines business sustainability, especially in the face of volatility and uncertainty.

Which was why, despite initial stages of reactiveness and rejections, Sarah held on strongly to her idea at the AXA Leadapreneur Accelerator Programme, and found various ways to get her stakeholders’ buy-in, as her idea not only saves a tremendous amount of time and cost but also increases efficiency and productivity.

During her Leadapreneur training, Sarah came up with the winning idea of introducing an in-built function within AXA’s existing platform which agents can use to transact payments for policies sold. Her idea not only contributed to her cohort championship but she was also shortlisted to be one of the top 5 semifinalists in the 16-week challenge.

Sarah is a Senior Project Manager at AXA’s Project Management Office who is responsible for the delivery of data security compliance projects that require a change in business processes across the organisation.

Currently, her company uses a credit card authorisation form which clients need to fill in order to grant AXA the permission to transact the necessary payment. The forms then go through several levels of processing before they are approved. The entire process takes up to three working days on average.

With the introduction of Sarah’s idea, insurance agents are now empowered to trigger a payment request via an automated SMS as soon as a policy or cover note is issued. In addition to this, the customers gain full control of their policy payment and are able to protect their personal data and credit card information.

This does not only instill a sense of security in the hearts of AXA clients, but it also frees their agents, marketers and supporting staff from a tedious multi-layered process, which generally takes up too much time. As a result of this innovation, AXA can now reduce data threats and risks, strengthen trust among clients, increase the efficiency of payment and double staff productivity.

With 1,400 transactions happening daily at AXA, this solution is projected to save the company a whopping RM1.2 million, in addition to cutting down the payment processing time from three days to just 5 minutes, when it goes live this October.

For Sarah, this proposed initiative serves as an important stage for AXA, as it’s a step towards digitalisation that will help to accelerate the company’s growth, especially now, when the whole world is adapting to the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR4.0).
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She understands that certain business processes will have to go through digitalisation in the near future but a true leadapreneur always knows how to make the journey manageable, enjoyable and adaptable.
 
Apart from handling the project with a lot of care and determination, Sarah also learned how to factor in the levels of discomfort that people may generally have in the phase of change and Leadapreneur taught her how to find an amicable solution in such scenarios. 

Congratulations Sarah for becoming a Champion of the Accelerator!