From July 1 to July 29, 2020, Ping An Insurance Group was named "Asia's most respected Enterprise" (Most Honored Company) for the eighth time in the "Institutional investors" (Institutional Investor) "Best Business Management team in Asia" (All-Asia Executive Team). In additionMa Mingzhe, chairman of the group, was named "Best Chief Executive Officer" (Best CEO), while Yao Bo, Co-CEO and Chief Financial Officer of the Group, was named "Best CFO" (Best CFO).
Founded in 1967, Institutional Investor magazine is now one of the most influential financial selection institutions in the world. it evaluates companies in the Asia-Pacific region every year, and the ranking results are recognized as the global investment weather vane in the industry. it is widely recognized by overseas buyers and sellers. Every year, the magazine invites buyer analysts and seller researchers covering the region to select four companies that excel in investor relations.
Evaluation process and results
The Best Corporate Management team in Asia (All-Asia Executive Team Most Honored Company) aims to recognize companies that have performed well in corporate management and investor relations. The panel participating in the voting and scoring came from the buyer and seller analysts in the investment circle.
In the 2020 ranking, buy-and-sell analysts from 1921 financial institutions voted for 1472 companies in Asia. Of these, 108 companies rank in the top three in one or more of the following categories: best CEO, Best CFO, Best Investor Relations specialist, Best Investor Relations team, Best Investor Relations solution and Best ESG.
Results: 46 companies, including Ping An Insurance, were rated as "the most respected companies in Asia" for their great achievements in various categories.
Ping An Insurance also ranks first in the "Best Investor Relations Program" (Best IR Program) and "Best Environment, Society and Governance (Best ESG)" categories in the insurance sector. China Life Insurance Company Limited won first place in this year's Best Investor Relations team (Best IR Team) category, Best Investor Relations Program (Best IR Program), and third in Best ESG.
China Life Insurance Company Limited, who belongs to the same insurance package as Ping an, has also won the honor of the most respected company in Asia. In addition, China Life Insurance Company Limited won second place in Best CEO and Best CFO, both of which were won by AIA Group in 2019.
Results of the selection of the Best Business Management team in Asia in 2019
Source: official website of institutional investors
What does this selection mean to Ping An Insurance?
The evaluation of institutional investors, as one of the highest gold content in the financial industry and investment circle, has a certain guiding significance for the development prospects and investment value of each industry.
As far as the insurance industry is concerned, under the influence of unfavorable factors such as the global low-interest environment and the aging population, the traditional model of the whole industry relying on "three differences" (interest spread, fee spread, death gap) is undergoing a huge test. reform and transformation have become the way out for many insurance companies to embrace or be forced to accept independently.
Ping An Insurance started the life insurance business reform in the second half of 2018, led by Mr. Ma Mingzhe himself, and comprehensively optimized and reconstructed the insurance business through scientific and technological empowerment and ecological empowerment. The product level carries on the change based on the customer demand, provides the personalized product according to the customer's real demand, realizes "a thousand people and a thousand faces".
Implement the talent plan at the agent level to comprehensively improve the quality of agents and improve the productivity efficiency of agents. Over the past two years, Ping an's life insurance business reform has achieved results, and the effect of science and technology empowerment is obvious; especially during the COVID-19 epidemic, Ping an transferred some links of meetings, training, customer acquisition, and sales online, and the impact of the epidemic was significantly reduced.
Coincidentally, China Life Insurance Company Limited, who was also selected as the "most respected Asian enterprise", launched a reform project, the "Ding Xin Project", in the first half of 2019, which comprehensively promoted the strategic plan of "reviving national longevity". Remarkable results have also been achieved over the past year.
The reform of the insurance industry is nothing more than looking for optimization breakthroughs under the existing models of products, sales, channels and agent incentives, in order to improve efficiency on the one hand and reduce unnecessary costs on the other. In view of the fact that there are no signs of reversing the current trends such as low-interest environment, aging population and declining fertility rate, we can boldly say that in the next 10 years, the insurance industry will have to find breakthroughs in reform under the two major themes of cost reduction and efficiency. The reform of Ping an and Guoshou, the two insurance companies that won the "most respected enterprises" in the evaluation of "institutional investors", can represent the latest trend and law of the development of the insurance industry.
On the other hand, it is worth mentioning that the "Best CEO" award was awarded to Mr. Ma Mingzhe.
Almost a month ago, Ping An Insurance announced that Ma Mingzhe had resigned as Ping An Insurance CEO and continued to serve as chairman and head of the life insurance business reform team. This time, "Institutional Investor" magazine awarded the best CEO award to Mr. Ma Mingzhe. In my opinion, it is more a recognition of a series of "management culture" created by Ma Mingzhe for Ping an.
At the Ping an shareholders' meeting held in April this year, when asked about Ping an's recent personnel changes, Mr. Ma Mingzhe replied: a good company is managed by institutions, not people. Of course, it has to be admitted that management plays a very important role in the early stages of a company, but as the company grows, it needs to rely more and more on institutions rather than individuals. As the founder of Ping an, Ma Mingzhe wisely chose to keep a low profile for a long time, trying to weaken the weight of personal IP in the company's management.
In the insurance industry, it is all too common for a star manager to expand the company's business by relying on personal IP, which has almost become the path dependence of insurance companies over the past few decades; but this is not sustainable. Ping an is trying to get out of this mode of dependence.
Therefore, when Ma Mingzhe announced his resignation as CEO, we saw that Ping an's share price did not fluctuate significantly. This shows the success of Ping an's strategy of "relying on the system and not relying on the individual".
Of course, with the long-term accumulation of science and technology and the formation of strategies such as "science and technology + finance" and "ecology + finance", Ping an has added a lot of strong grasp in the competition of similar enterprises. The concepts such as insurance business reform, management system culture construction, science and technology empowerment and ecosystem strategy being carried out by Ping an are setting a benchmark for the insurance industry in China and even the world.