Dai-ichi Life Holdings, Inc.
Microsoft Corporation
Dai-ichi Life Holdings, Inc. (Headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Tetsuya Kikuta) and Microsoft Corporation (Headquarters: Washington, USA; CEO: Satya Nadella) have entered into a multi-year strategic global partnership to accelerate digital innovation and the organization’s transformation into the “Insurance services business” beyond the current traditional life insurance business.
The vision for the Dai-ichi Life Group in fiscal 2030 is to become No. 1 in Japan in the 4 areas of “Customer satisfaction”, ”Employee satisfaction” , “Services innovation” and “Enterprise value”, as well as to become an insurance group in the global top tier and a leader in the future of the insurance industry.
Through this partnership, the Dai-ichi Life Group will position “Microsoft Azure” as its preferred cloud platform, and create valuable services for customers by combining innovative Microsoft technologies (Cloud services, AI, data analysis, etc.) with the extensive insurance business knowledge and experience the Dai-ichi Life Group has cultivated over many years.
As a technology partner of the Dai-ichi Life Group for more than 20 years, Microsoft has built a relationship of trust by providing Microsoft Cloud products and services such as Windows Server for mission-critical systems and Microsoft 365 to support collaboration, as well as by supporting the introduction and operation of Dai-ichi Life Group’s “Home-Cloud” platform, the first cloud platform powered by Azure in the Japanese life insurance industry. Through this partnership, the two companies will take their relationship to a new stage and then Microsoft will provide technologies and knowledge to help Dai-ichi Life Group further boost customer experience value, creating more sophisticated sales and marketing processes and generating new value for the business.
■Key Elements of the Strategic Partnership
1)Boosting Customer Satisfaction
In order to increase Dai-ichi Life Group’s customer satisfaction, customers must continuously have high-value experiences. While leveraging Dai-Ichi Life Group’s strengths in the traditional channel, the Dai-ichi Life Group aims to maximize customer experience value by making full use of advanced digital and AI technologies, starting with “Centralizing customer information,” such as contract information, service usage, contact history, etc. Utilizing Microsoft’s advanced AI technologies such as Azure OpenAI Service, Dai-Ichi Life Group will strive to “Further enhance the intimacy of the traditional channel” and “Enhance the convenience and personalization of the digital channel” from the customer’s point of view.
2)Improving Employee Satisfaction
Since Dai-ichi Life Holdings is actively engaged in M&A of insurance and non-insurance companies and expanding its business portfolio, “developing a collaboration environment that supports the creation of business synergies” has become critically important in enabling group employees across 9 countries to collaborate with each other. By deploying Microsoft’s innovative platforms, including Microsoft 365, Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Viva Engage across the group’s companies, Dai-Ichi Life Group will promote communication and the sharing of knowledge and ideas within the group, while further improving productivity and employee satisfaction.
3)Pursuing Services innovation
Through digital innovation, Dai-Ichi Life Group aims to make its insurance services “more convenient,” “more accessible,” and “easier” for customers to access. By introducing advanced data and AI tools such as Microsoft Fabric and Azure OpenAI Service, the organization aims to analyze customer information in real time and gain new insights. In addition, Dai-Ichi Life Group will benefit from an architecture that is built to accommodate current and future business needs, such as “speeding up the development of insurance services” and “improving the flexibility of internal and external service connectivity” in a series of systems from the digital contact point with customers to the back end, making full use of Azure and GitHub Copilot, etc. By doing so, Dai-Ichi Life Group will provide “Digital communication with customers”, “Digital support to sales channels”, and “Next-generation insurance services”.
In order to realize the vision, the two companies will jointly work on the growth of Dai-Ichi Life Group’s digital capability and promote in-house production of system development and operation through The Dai-ichi Life Techno Cross Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Dai-ichi Life Holdings, and will build a system that will provide flexible and powerful support for business innovation and productivity improvement.
Comment
Tetsuya Kikuta, President and CEO, Dai-ichi Life Holdings, Inc.
“We intend to use digital technology as a source of strength and competitiveness for the Dai-ichi Life Group in order to realize our vision for fiscal 2030. Through our collaboration with Microsoft, we aim to further accelerate digital transformation, improve customer and employee satisfaction, innovate new products and services, and enhance corporate value. Through this partnership, we will create new value and lead the future of the insurance industry.”
Miki Tsusaka, Representative Director and President, Microsoft Japan
“We are thrilled to announce our strategic agreement with Dai-ichi Life Holdings. Through this agreement, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud and AI solutions will drive its digital transformation and innovation.
We are confident that our new relationship will be a catalyst for Dai-ichi Life Holdings to create unprecedented value in the insurance industry. “
