Industry news

Zurich will conduct a standard risk assessment of prospective members of the captive as well as a sustainability assessment of their carbon footprint and energy consumption.

The purpose is not to hold them to any single standard, but to provide baseline data and a report from which they can develop or adjust their sustainability strategy, Zurich said in a statement.

Prospective members of Envision Re must be within Zurich’s underwriting appetite and committed to sustainability and reducing their carbon footprint. Zurich stopped insuring companies that generate more than 30% of their revenues from thermal coal, oil sands and oil shale in 2021.

Read more on Business Insurance here.

ESG compliance is viewed as a proxy for good financial performance but the lack of accepted definitions makes data gathering difficult. Companies urged to align M&A considerations to core ESG strategy.

A KPMG survey released at the end of last year has found that there is little consensus in the business world about how ESG can be applied to due diligence supporting M&A transactions. Conducted by KPMG Finland, the survey involved 150 ‘dealmakers’ in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, including fund managers, board members and advisers.

The report stated: "M&A teams are increasingly conducting ESG due diligence on targets at an early stage. Dealmakers are actively integrating ESG considerations into their deal activities. And premiums are being paid for targets that meet ESG priorities." 

Read more on KPMG here.

Cloud migration is an excellent example of ROI-driven decision-making.

More often than not, measuring ROI can help make the move to the Cloud and become an important factor in choosing the right Cloud platform to migrate to. According to a recent report by Future Processing, 12% of respondents indicated that Cloud is the most impactful area when it comes to increasing the ROI of IT projects.

Migrating to the Cloud is less of an all-or-nothing proposition than business leaders first imagined. For instance, it can be divided into sub-processes, with some parts of the business providing better returns when held on-premise or in-house, while others benefit significantly from the switch by improving performance and lowering costs.

Read more on TechNative here.

UK corporates face a seemingly unending stream of new requirements around ESG reporting, from Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) to the EU and UK taxonomies and, in the US, SEC and sector specific requirements such as National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) climate related disclosures.

A diverse range of businesses will be affected by this rapidly evolving reporting environment, but financial services firms, in particular, need to be ready for a whole new swathe of sustainability reporting requirements.

Historically, much of the sustainability reporting that firms have done has sat outside the Finance function in dispersed pockets of expertise within the business. But as reporting frameworks have become clearer, requirements stricter, and expectations on quality higher, there is increasing pressure from both inside and outside the boardroom to treat sustainability reporting with the same robust, systematic, and controls-focused approach that is used with financial reporting.

Read more on KPMG here.

Are you guilty of doing things the way they’ve always been done? Looking to make some positive changes, but don’t know where to start?

Look no further! We asked our panel of consultants for the things contact centre managers really need to stop doing – as soon as possible – to help rejuvenate their customer service operations. Here’s what they said…

Read more on Call Centre Helper here.

Customer service and support leaders cited customer data and analytics as a top priority for achieving organisational goals in 2023, according top new research.

In a Gartner online survey of 283 customer service and support leaders from August-October 2022, 84% of customer service and service support leaders cited customer data and analytics as “very or extremely important” for achieving their organisational goals in 2023. Eighty percent of respondents ranked digital channel effectiveness as “very or extremely important,” along with employee performance, development and quality assurance.

The Gartner survey revealed improving operations and growing the business are the two most important business goals for 2023.

Read more on Contact Centre Briefing here.

Worldwide government IT spending is forecast to total $588.9 billion in 2023, an increase of 6.8% from 2022, fuelled by demand for consumer-like Total Experience (TX) strategies.

“Government organizations are continuing to modernize legacy IT and invest in initiatives that improve access to digital services as constituents increasingly demand experiences that are equivalent to online customer interactions in the private sector,” said Daniel Snyder, Director Analyst at Gartner. “The total experience (TX) framework, which helps agencies manage employee and citizen interactions, is enabling transformation and will remain among the main drivers of IT spend in 2023.”

Read more on Contact Centre Briefing here.

With the arrival of 2023, change is on the horizon. The economic forecast calls for continued uncertainty across much of the world, creating persistent challenges while surfacing opportunities for businesses that harness the chance to drive effective transformation.

As inflation increases costs, consumers will continue to reduce household spending, and supply chains will continue to experience upheaval. Therefore, retailers must rely on digital tools to help manage and optimize their operations impacted by inflation. Following are some predictions help retailers and consumer packaged goods (CPG) producers achieve a competitive advantage.

Read more on SupplyChainBrain here.

McKinsey publishes digital transformation guidance for organisations seeking to mitigate disruption from ongoing supply chain shocks

‘New normal’ for supply chains looks nothing like the pre-pandemic ‘normal’. Stability and predictability have been replaced with economic, societal and geopolitcal shocks. 

To combat the uncertainty and disruption that has become commonplace, businesses are increasingly looking to digitalise processes and operations, with supply chain and procurement being two areas that can deliver competive advantage if organisations have the digital visibility needed to navigate the never-ending headwinds.

Read more on SupplyChainDigital here.

SAP survey shows how post-pandemic perceptions of supply chains have changed, and concludes that supply networks are more robust than linear supply chains

Throughout the past two years, there’s been widespread concern across industries that the global supply chain has become too linear and vulnerable to disruption.

With supply chain issues still dominating headlines, SAP conducted a survey to determine how consumer attitudes have adapted to understand how perceptions of supply chains have evolved after living through a pandemic. As 2022 marked a shift in consumer attitudes, the landscape is now being shaped by record high inflation rates that continue to influence expectations. The survey findings provide actionable insights into the challenges that consumers are facing, which can be especially useful for procurement and supply chain leaders.

Read more on SupplyChainDigital here.