From left: Managing Director/CEO, Royal Exchange Prudential Life, Wale Banmore; Group Managing Director, Auwalu Muktari and Managing Director, Royal Exchange General Insurance Company, Benjamin Agili at the event.
. Undertakes corporate restructuring
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Chuks Udo Okonta
Royal Exchange Plc, Nigeria’s foremost insurance and financial services group, which is set to celebrate 100 years of robust impacts in the insurance market, has announced plans to undertake a corporate restructuring exercise of its key operations, aimed at responding to the ever-changing demands and needs of clientele across the country.
This restructuring exercise which has already begun was announced today by its Group Managing Director, Auwalu Muktari, in a parley with insurance journalists, where the company also unveiled plans to celebrate its Centenary and remain relevant in the Nigerian Insurance market for the next 100 years.
According to Auwalu: “Royal Exchange Plc has been operating in Nigeria since 1918 and this year marks our 100 years of offering best-of-bred insurance services to our various clients across the country and beyond and also meeting the expectations of our stakeholders. As we embark on the next 100 years, it is important that we reassess the fortunes of the company, and devise plans and strategies for the next century in order to remain relevant now and in the years to come, while satisfactorily meeting the expectation of all stakeholders.”
Speaking further, the GMD said, “Our restructuring process rests on three main pillars, namely Digital Transformation; Efficient Distribution Channels and Business Process Remodeling”.
On digital transformation, Muktari said, “We at Royal Exchange seek to build and develop digital tools as an enabler to reach our clients and conduct more efficient back-office operations. This will entail our deployment of digital solutions that will ease our business operations and also the use of various social media tools to reach our current and potential clientele today and tomorrow. By developing and deploying various business applications, we believe that we will become more nimble and able to respond quickly to change, whenever it comes.”
The Royal Exchange boss further added that one of the goals of the restructuring project is the Group’s desire to develop and implement an efficient and cost-effective distribution channel that will support the company’s earlier objective of being nimble and give the group leverage indelivering products and services faster and better and more reliable to its teeming clients in Nigeria.
“As a group holding company with five subsidiaries across the insurance and financial services landscape, it has become of vital importance that we seek to improve our efficiency across the group by leveraging on cost discipline, astute capital allocation and investments and deployment of operational know-how to make Royal Exchange Plc a leaner, faster, smarter organization, equally adept at meeting the ever-changing needs of the consumer, wherever they are, offering them products and services they want, when they want it and how they want it.
“For the future that we behold, our goal is to continuously redefine, reinvent and differentiate ourselves in the marketplace. The focus of the Management of the Group is to achieve sustainable growth for the company through deepening our revenue base, improving service delivery and its support systems and at the same time, keeping costs in check,” he stated.
Speaking further, he noted that one of the new growth areas for the company is our foray into the agriculture insurance, adding that this will definitely be one of the core areas of emphasis going forward.
In recognition of the efforts being undertaken to reposition the company, the Group Managing Director was recently awarded the 2017 Most Outstanding Chief Executive Officer, Insurance, by Independent Newspapers just as he was also adjudged the 2016 Insurance Man of the Year by BusinessToday while the Company was bagged BusinessToday 2016 Insurance Company of the Year.
As a socially responsible organisation , Royal Exchange Plc has in the past donated to worthy causes, such as providing educational equipment to schools in Lagos and Kano, providing health insurance to staff and pupils of the Pacelli School of the Blind and has supported the development of future leaders by sponsoring the Annual School Leadership Seminar for Secondary School Prefects in Lagos State.
These CSR initiatives have also resulted in recognition by InspenOnline Media and BusinessToday Media as CSR Insurance Company of the Year 2015.
