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Editor’s Note: Juan Cumbrado Grande is co-winner of Insurance Innovation Reporter’s Four Stars Award for Mexico.
As CIO of MAPFRE’s Mexico City-based LATAM Norte region, Juan Cumbrado Grande’s accomplishments have been regional, but his contributions to the MAPFRE (Majadahonda, Spain; approx. €23 billion in annual premium) enterprise have been on a global scale. His leadership of the company’s IT globalization initiative included Latin America and set the stage for his work specific to the region.
“In mid-2015 we began the globalization of MAPFRE’s IT organization on a worldwide basis,” Cumbrado comments. “During the initiative, for which I have been responsible through 2017, we analyzed the business levers defined the globalization strategy of IT in terms of infrastructure, solutions, staff and governance. We developed the road map, and now the implementation is in progress.”
Juan Cumbrado Grande, CIO, LATAM Norte, MAPFRE Mexico.
During the course of the initiative, the MAPRE deployed corporate solutions for core processes around the world, facilitating standardized operations in order to achieve greater operating efficiency and lower total technology cost. On a global basis, Cumbrado’s adoption of innovative technologies has driven constant improvement of MAPFRE’s operating processes, for example in the case of automation of the company’s BPO, and implementation of robotic process implementation.
Simplicity, Quality and Innovation
“Technology must always be oriented toward the business—any other way simply doesn’t make sense,” Cumbrado comments. “The concepts I bear in mind in our work are simplicity, quality and innovation.”
Cumbrado drove the simplification of MAPFRE LATAM Norte’s technology infrastructure beginning in 2013 with the consolidation of the different countries’ data processing centers into one regional hub. “This permitted an improvement in operations, a reduction in costs and standardization of infrastructure,” Cumbrado relates. “It also enabled the creation of a regional communications network, which in turn allows the deployment of ToIP [telephony over Internet Protocol] and collaborative activities over voice, chat and video.”
Taking responsibility of the region involved the creation and implementation of a model for development, government and management of core solutions in 2015. To undertake the work, Cumbrado has concentrated the related activities of maintenance and enhancement of the core systems in one team for all of the countries in the region.
Global Digital Transformation Agenda
On a global level, Cumbrado is responsible for setting the digital transformation agenda. His work has included defining performance standards, identifying the capabilities available within the enterprise to undertake initiatives, and planning measures to ensure that the various countries have the enablers they need to meet their digital transformation objectives.
Both globally and regionally, Cumbrado has embraced technology modernization and digital transformation through his engagement with a range of players outside his company who are collaborating to bring the insurance industry into the digital age. For example, he has served as a mentor for the Endeavor and Startupbootcamp InsurTech accelerators during the past three years, and has supported Wayra through 2016. He has also collaborated with Fintech Mexico and participated in the Mexican Insurance hackathon in 2017.
Cumbrado took on the role of President of the IT Committee of the Mexican Association of Insurance Institutions (AMIS) in 2016. Since then he has created forums for insurance IT professionals to interact and share their experiences, he has promoted a data quality service for the industry, and he has participated in the Mexican insurance industry’s first congress on digital transformation. He has helped to bring greater standardization to the industry through contributing to the design of AMIS’s IT Services Unit, and collaborating in the clarification of electronic media law for the Mexican insurance industry.
In terms of emerging technology, this year Cumbrado has founded a group in AMIS dedicated to implementing an industrywide solution for the authentication of insurance policies. “We have joined together executives from various sectors and have held sessions to share our observations on initiatives and training,” he relates.