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[00:00:09] Daniel Wood: 
Hello and welcome to Insurance Business TV. I'm Danny Wood, News Editor of Insurance Business Australia. Our five-star insurance innovators report looks at the most innovative stakeholders in the insurance industry in Australia and New Zealand. One of them, according to our metrics, is IQumulate Premium Funding. Wai-Lum Tang is IQumulate’s Head of IT. He's in Melbourne. Hi, Wai-Lum. Welcome. 

[00:00:33] Wai-Lum Tang: 
Danny, how are you? 

[00:00:34] Daniel Wood: 
Yeah, good. Yeah, good to have you on the show. First up, congratulations. You also won this award in 2023. How would you characterize the approach to innovation at IQumulate? 

[00:00:46] Wai-Lum Tang: 
Sure. Look, we're very happy to win the award again. Last time it was on IQ Edge, our award-winning platform, I like to call it now. And I like to think the way we think about innovation, the way we typically go about this as our strong ideation framework in our business. We really believe no idea is small. Every idea can lead to a big dream or big change in our business. And most of the time, our ideas come from our customers, right? So it's wonderful to hear that the ideas that typically from our customers have won us this award for innovation. 

[00:01:27] Daniel Wood: 
Your win comes at a time when workloads are increasing across the industry. How have you managed to scale the business without expenses going up too much and without impacting these customers you talk about? 

[00:01:39] Wai-Lum Tang: 
Yeah, Danny, look, I think costs, expenses, that's the typical problem, same problem that we have that our customers have. I think that happens across any business in our particular industry. So what do we do to really combat that is to ensure that we're investing in the right project at the right time to ensure that those projects benefit our bigger stakeholders, which is our customers. I like to say that in our business, 50% of our staff is actually customer facing. So we hear and understand all the problems and all the challenges our customers have. And we then make sure that we're investing in the right technology solutions that help to put more time back, to ensure that our staff can spend more time with our customers and they can have more face-to-face time and have more discussions with them. 

[00:02:35] Daniel Wood: 
Tell us more about Project 350 and how you used it to deal with something that we all struggle with, data entry. 

[00:02:43] Wai-Lum Tang: 
Yeah, so this goes back to sort of hearing and listening to our customers, right? So Project 350, as the name suggests, is that making sure that any particular data entry that we do when it comes to quoting, let's get that down to three minutes. In the past, it took us potentially 15 minutes or even half an hour to write a quote up manually, right? That's someone sitting in front of a PC, typing it out, word for word, getting it into the computer. Well, using automation, using the power of AI, we're now able to spend less time in front of the PC. Less time being keyboard warriors, let's call it, and more time actually out on the road, having a coffee with that customer that in the regional area, having that time spent with a customer that you want to have another five minute phone call with, more customer face time, less time spent in front of the computer. 

[00:03:44] Daniel Wood: 
This project is also about your core values as a company. Can you explain that? 

[00:03:52] Wai-Lum Tang: 
So, 350. The Project 350 probably is a great example of our cash prize, which is make it work. Make it work is everything about IQumulate. It's how we go about our business, our day. We really want to make it work for our customers. And the values that underpins that, it's all about being together, working together with our customer, being honest at all times with our customer. Being reliable, and this is my favorite value, is the smart, right? Making sure that we're smart about how we go about doing things for our customers. So, you know, and Project 350, it's everything about that. It's taking a real-world challenge, something that's all about data entry, being stuck in front of a PC and go, hey, how can we spend less time in front of a PC writing quotes, but more time on our customer to fine-tune that quote instead? 

[00:04:50] Daniel Wood: 
Have you seen increases in the number of customers and client retention as a result of your Project 350? 

[00:04:56] Wai-Lum Tang: 
I love to say we definitely have, right? That's one of the most wonderful thing about this project is we're getting more repeat customers. And our repeat customers love working with us. The fact that we can actually be on the ground a bit more across Australia and New Zealand, whether it's in a capital city or it's in a regional city, we're definitely spending more time with them. And customers love that. They love the fact that we can actually pick up the phone call when they need us then and there the most. 

[00:05:27] Daniel Wood: 
As you mentioned, you operate in both Australia and New Zealand. Are some innovations better suited to one market more than the other? 

[00:05:36] Wai-Lum Tang: 
I think so. I think innovation spreads geography. I think our customers in both Australia and New Zealand love what we're doing when it comes to innovation and technology as our value. We're always thinking about delivering smart tech. But I think what our customers love the most in both geography is the fact that we can use technology to ensure that we're giving them fast approvals where needed. We can give them certainty and clarity on those quotes. So yeah, look, I think we're doing something right when we're getting really good repeat customers in both regions. 

[00:06:11] Daniel Wood: 
And finally, in the future, where do you see IQumulate focusing to devise new insurance solutions and how big a role will technology play there? 

[00:06:22] Wai-Lum Tang: 
Smart tech, it's in our DNA. Like I think you mentioned at the start, IQ Edge was another award-winning platform that we got a couple of years ago. I can only see us investing more in technology, really taking the ideas from our customers back into our strategy, really making sure the technology that we deliver is smart and innovative. And obviously, it would be amiss of me as head of IT if I don't say, look, definitely something in the pipeline when it comes to AI. We're doing something really exciting there when it comes to innovation and AI. 

[00:06:57] Daniel Wood: 
Thanks for joining us, Wai-Lum. 

[00:07:00] Wai-Lum Tang: 
Thank you, Danny. Thanks for having me. 

[00:07:01] Daniel Wood: 
Yeah, pleasure. And Wai-Lum Tang is head of IT at IQumulate Premium Funding, the only top Australian premium funder to achieve the IB 5-star Insurance Innovators Award for a second year for Project 350, as featured in our special report. Thanks for watching Insurance Business TV. Bye for now.