Insurance in Switzerland is a complex topic. Alongside health and accident insurance there is also personal liability insurance and in the state of Vaud (where IMD is based) you are even required to take out insurance protecting your contents from natural disasters. Having experienced first-hand the bewildering array of options, I was intrigued to work with Calingo, a start-up that aims to simplify the process of finding insurance by offering a hassle-free and digital solution.
As a digital insurer, Calingo integrates policies from different providers into its platform allowing customers to create a tailored product – at the convenience of just one-click. With a strong product and value proposition, Calingo was looking to disrupt the insurance market with accelerated growth in the coming year.
Our startup team consists of five different nationalities who previously worked in HR, strategy, finance, marketing and business development across the manufacturing, real estate, international sports, consumer goods and consulting industries. Under the guidance of IMD Professor Benoît Leleux, we are working for three months with the founders to identify a pipeline of potential business partners with whom Calingo could collaborate.
After doing an in-depth feasibility analysis, we agreed to focus on three B2B channels. Since the team had never worked on building B2B partnerships, this was an opportunity for us to polish our business development skills! Over the last month, we’ve prospected potential contacts, made cold calls, set-up meetings and pitched Calingo proposition to prospective partners. It has been a fantastic experience so far, to say the least!
While start-ups typically face the challenge of not having a strong value proposition, Calingo had an extremely strong product and strong selling point. The project provided us with deep insights into the insurance market in Switzerland and the opportunities for optimizing this space.
Though the IMD MBA program keeps us quite busy, we have made good progress, thanks to our commitment and the fantastic support from Calingo. As we inch closer to the completion date in April, we hope our combined efforts will propel Calingo to become an indomitable player in the insurance market in the coming years!
Tanisha on behalf of the rest of my team: Najaf, Marco, Anastasiia, and David
