Digital transformation @ERGO


Press event in the Factory Berlin

Magazine, 28.09.2018

Once again in Berlin. A city that I like more and more. This morning I walked through the district Prenzlauer Berg and absorbed the atmosphere on my way to the Factory Mitte. Once there, you immediately feel that something special is happening today. Everyone is wide awake, joyfully tense. We want to present ERGO's digitisation strategy to the press and show what milestones and progress we have already made in implementing our strategy. Using tangible examples and without PowerPoint. An interim balance after more than two years of Digital Ventures and me as Chief Digital Officer.

Mark Klein and his team in the Factory Berlin

Gregor Wiest, Jean-Paul Pieper, Mark Klein and Sita Schwenzer at the Factory Berlin.

At around 10 a.m. we get started. We are doing things differently at ERGO. By founding Digital Ventures AG with everything we need for digitization under one roof, we are going our own way. We integrate the digital transformation directly into our product development, concrete business processes and our services. And our success proves us right. Agile work in Nuremberg is comprehensively implemented and now shortly before comprehensive implementation at ERGO's other locations. We are also working quickly and pragmatically on the introduction of digital technologies. Be it the Alexa Skill for booking insurance, the use of sensors as part of our Safe Home Initiative or the use of a tracking sensor to detect stolen bicycles. Wonderful examples of how technology and insurance interact.

There are particularly many questions about artificial intelligence and robotics. With regard to artificial intelligence, Marco Röhrle from ERGO Direkt presents an algorithm that assigns incoming e-mails from customers to the correct processing channel. The algorithm recognises words and word combinations and thus the client's intention. Currently, the algorithm reveals the reason with 95 percent accuracy. This means that e-mails sent directly to ERGO can be assigned quickly and reliably and forwarded directly to the correct processor. In particular, the reduced waiting time for the customer shows the advantage of this solution. With 300,000 e-mails per year, this is a real improvement for customers and employees. Now the transfer to the 300,000 pieces of written material per week is on the agenda. I am already looking forward to the results.

Also the conception of our recent new addition, ManuelBü, encounters active interest. ManuelBü with his own employee number stands for "manual inventory transfer". Here for example customer data are transferred after a removal. A process with a lot of manual work. The robot - here no R2D2, but software - can help and relieve our employees of many manual and repetitive tasks. We already use a total of 6 robots at ERGO and more are constantly being added. More than 15 of our national subsidiaries are already involved with robotics and use or test the use of this technology. Our Robotics Competence Center helps with the introduction and promotes the use of this technology. The aim is to relieve our employees of simple, repetitive tasks and to concentrate more on things that a person can do much better than a machine. To work creatively or to solve problems for our customers with empathy.

This press event showed me how far we have come in terms of digitalisation. Now we can scale the existing solution. As Mark Klein and Chief Digital Officer of ERGO, I am personally looking forward to this.

I look very much forward to your comments, questions or suggestions.
Best regards, Mark Klein

Author: Mark Klein

Mark Klein is Chief Digital Officer ERGO Group and Chairman of the Board of Management of ERGO Digital Ventures AG. Here you find Mark Klein on LinkedIn.

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