The ESCP MEB* offers the opportunity to learn about business reality and professional behavior in an international and multicultural context. Students receive a comprehensive education in the major fields of management (business), such as marketing, finance, accounting, leadership, strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship. They work in groups from different educational backgrounds and nationalities, fostering their personal development and intercultural skills at the same time.

The Company Consultancy Projects (CCP)  is a key element of this programme. It offers students the opportunity to get familiar with an industry or a function. 
This is a very interesting exercise, both academic and business oriented, as it meets the requirements of the company.

Societe Generale Insurance has entrusted the MEB students with a 3-month consulting assignment on the theme : "What role for the insurer in the value chain of autonomous vehicles and the mobility ecosystem?”.
This topic related to IoT issues is clearly crucial for Societe Generale Insurance, which joined the IoT ESCP Chair a few months ago.

From April to June, 8 students of 4 nationalities (Italian, Indian, Chinese and Russian) formed a unique multicultural group.

This assignment took the concrete form of a white paper in late June 2017 which was delivered to Societe Generale Insurance. The latter is diagnosing the impact of vehicle autonomisation on the insurance value chain and analyzing the risks and opportunities arising therefrom.

The following 3 areas of innovation have been enhanced:

  • collection, use and protection of data
  • range of services, either linked or not to insurance services
  • ecosystem promoting collaboration between players in the sector.
Students work group, Société Générale, ESCP
Students work group with Société Générale, ESCP
Students work group about Société Générale, ESCP

After the final oral thesis defence, Cédric Chaux and Emilie Quellec explained how they worked on the company project with the MEB Students and what this experience looked like.

This white paper is a fantastic opportunity to compare our understanding of the impact of vehicle autonomisation and the future of mobility for an insurer, to the understanding of students who come from various backgrounds with no previous knowledge of the subject.We were pleasantly surprised by the way this group of students approached the subject.

This is a complex subject due to its two dimensions: the highly technological dimension of autonomous vehicles and also the insurance value chain.Finally, we particularly appreciated the hard work and the professionalism of the students in the writing of this white paper: organization of follow-up, reports, interviews, analysis of our proposals…This white paper will enable us to sensitize employees within Societe Generale Insurance about the impact of vehicle autonomisation and the development of new mobility models which are deeply transforming car insurance.

In addition, the strategic recommendations by the students will be shared within a dedicated working group, in order to refine the proposals and define an appropriate action plan.Beyond this white paper, we will continue to develop our autonomous vehicle sector connections with industrial players and start-ups in order to launch experiments.

Finally, this initiative strengthens our special relationship with ESCP, its partners and its students, and enables us to meet the challenges of technology together. It is also an opportunity to attract new talent to Societe Generale Insurance by offering them varied assignments in a particularly dynamic and innovative environment.

Presentation Student works with Société Générale, ESCP

Sachin DAHIYA, Lucrezia DEL PAPA, Giulia GARIANI, Ishan JAND, Yifeng JIANG, Valentina LOGUERCIO, Kseniya SHITOVA, Yun XING went over the expectation by providing with a white paper!

From their static and strategic analysis, they designed potential scenarios exploring the changes within the ecosystem, the vehicle chain, the insurance value chain and the players set up.
Recommendations were presented with a value proposition including very interesting outcomes about business model, resources, partners, channels, segmentation…
Picturing 2030, embracing innovation… would  vehicles still need insurance? What if tomorrow, insure datas would be the key positioning?

Students have been asked to feedback about their CCP experience, answering 5 questions:

Why did you choose this topic?

The company project with Societe Generale Insurance provided a key challenging strategy business problem. The assignment had a very wide scope, which made it all the more exciting to work with. Also, the combination of technology and insurance sector provided a unique opportunity to get up to date with latest innovations, processes and business models in the changing business environment.

What did you enjoy the most and why? 

We enjoyed the most the work day sessions at Societe Generale offices with key stakeholders and the business owners of Societe Generale Insurance. Such interactions with the Innovation team, Management team and the Actuaries provided us a unique opportunity to foresee how the company foresee the future and anticipated new positioning perspectives.

What was the most difficult?

The most difficult part to finalize was the scope of the project. Since it is a Strategy problem, it required quality research into both technology & insurance sector, and the overall ecosystem.

If you had 3 words to describe your experience? Which one would you pick up?

Disruption, Innovation, Inspiration

What did you learn from the Company Projects process?

We feel privileged for being part of this challenging piece of work and take this experience as a key take away for my professional journey ahead. The different perspectives and insights into the functioning of management problems has given me invaluable experience to add to my MBA journey.

Societe Generale Insurance’s representatives appreciated the way students tackled such an ambitious and complex topic.

They are a lot of information to collect everywhere, to understand and analyse. And students dit it very well. The challenge was also to stick to realistic scenarios. 
The takeaways for Societe Generale Insurance are valuable. For sure, it was the very first Societe Generale Insurance CCP but probably not the last one!

learn more about the MEB Programme learn more about the IoT Chair

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