THE BUSINESS REVIEW FOR PROCUREMENT LEADERS
Like the big banks, insurance companies have generally been slow to grasp the potential of professional procurement. In 2002, Axa, the world’s biggest insurance company, gave the function a higher priority by hiring Alain Page-Lécuyer as its first global CPO. He leads a 30-strong group procurement organisation, based in Paris, and works closely with 15 regional CPOs who do not have any reporting line into him, reflecting Axa’s decentralised structure.
As well as the usual initiatives to reduce expenses, Page-Lécuyer’s team are heavily involved in the area of customer claims. Axa, like many of its rivals, has only recently begun to see this as a buying issue rather than a paying issue. Changing the minds of internal staff, customers and agents has been hard work, he says, and resistance remains. Procurement’s proposition has been not only to save money, but also to improve service levels. It now manages around €2 billion in claims costs and this year plans to make inroads into health insurance.
Centralising procurement into one global organisation would, Page-Lécuyer believes, take the function to the next level, but he acknowledges that this isn’t in keeping with the Axa philosophy.
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