Jeff Robinson, head of risk and compliance solutions at Decision Focus, discusses the software vendor's key achievements over the past year, its integrated assurance approach, and how it can help insurers build operational resilience.
What have been Decision Focus's key achievements over the past year?
Our level of market penetration has been a major success. We have taken a sizeable chunk of the Lloyd's market and are winning some of the largest global insurance brokers, along with other carriers and MGAs.
Team growth has been another success and having increased our headcount by around 25% so far this year, we are continuing to strengthen our team and experience globally.
Among other achievements, we held an insurance client event in London last October with a large presence of the insurance assurance community. This was a fabulous occasion giving opportunity for networking and knowledge sharing.
Artificial intelligence has been an area of focus for us too. We have established artificial intelligence on our platform so users can enquire and ask questions about data. It will help with risk identification and our clients will benefit from this capability.
In addition, last year also saw Danish private equity firm VIA equity taking a majority stake in Decision Focus. This allows us strategically to drive us to the next level.
Winning an InsuranceERM award for the second year in a row is an accolade we are very proud of. The fantastic team we have at Decision Focus is the reason for these achievements. There is a real can-do attitude in the company and we have great forward-thinking people. There is a great culture here and we are always trying do things better. That DNA is engrained across our organisation.
How can Decision Focus help insurers build operational risk management?
With our approach to integrated assurance and evidence-based assessments, Decision Focus provides a one-stop-shop overview of operational risks. We help clients with all aspects of operational risk management, for example, our operational resilience module connects to a risk management module and leverages the core aspects of a company's risk management framework.
Decision Focus's platform integrates other aspects of operational risk management, such as third-party risk management, information security, product governance. If there are any issues that have arisen anywhere in the business, the operational risk manager immediately gets an overview of those and that connectivity drives value.
What challenges do you expect will be insurers' top priorities in 2023?
The continual need to manage regulatory change in a cost-effective manner means pressure on expense ratios. We are seeing a large expansion in our clients who are moving from monolithic solutions to a more agile, flexible cost-effective solution. Our cost-effective licence model is really helping clients save in many ways, being particularly important in these current times. From a platform perspective, there is an increased demand for our capabilities to support topics such as Consumer Duty, regulatory reporting and ESG.
What does integrated assurance mean for Decision Focus?
Integrated assurance is leveraging all the requirements of assurance functions, risk management, compliance and audit in one place. Clients benefit from the modules being on one platform. When the first line at an insurer updates actions, it does not matter whether they have come from a compliance monitoring plan, internal audit review or risk assessment, they are all updated seamlessly in the same place. It is truly a single source of the truth.
Can you tell us how Decision Focus will grow in 2023?
There will be continued penetration within each of the insurance segments. We plan to further increase our presence within the Lloyd's of London market, gaining additional global insurers, local insurers and insurance intermediaries.
We are ambitious and are going places. We are changing the landscape of governance, risk and compliance (GRC) technology, and so becoming the GRC system of choice for insurers. We are growing at a rapid rate, and are mindful our reputation and existing customers remain very important.
Our platform will continue to evolve and expand the module horizon. The team will also grow, and we will maintain the high standard of excellence that we are known for.
