- CONTRIBUTED
President of Guardian Life Limited, Earl Moore (left), congratulates Winston Delahaye, senior internal auditor as he presents him with the trophy for 'speakers' forum', a segment of the Company's 'Blast Off '05' held at the Jamaica Conference Centre, Kingston, recently. Delahaye won the trophy from a field of five speakers with his topic: "The Service, Profit Chain: Making It Stronger".
PRESIDENT OF Guardian Life Limited, Earl Moore in unveiling the five-year strategic plan for his organisation, stated that revenue growth, increase in productivity, and retention, growth and improvement in customer base, will be priority issues that the life insurance company will be focusing on between 2005 and 2009.
Moore was addressing staff at the company's annual 'Blast-Off', held at the Jamaica Conference Centre, Kingston, recently. 'Blast Off' is a motivational conference that seeks to outline the company's objective for the new year.
In his presentation, Moore noted that "the plan focuses on improving all areas of the company's operation, including pension and group life, individual life, human resource development, information technology and regulation and compliance."
IMMEDIATE OBJECTIVES
While outlining the overall framework for the five-year period, the president focused on the immediate objectives for the year 2005, and listed these as "enhancing operational excellence; increasing sales-force productivity and growth in group life and pensions business and more aggressively pursuing joint venture projects in the area of health insurance".
Moore noted that in an effort to achieve the objectives for this year, his organisation will embrace and reinforce a results-oriented culture among staff; continue delivering quality customer service; improve its management information systems capabilities and reduce management and operating expenses.
"Standards will continue to be developed to measure performance at all levels while we improve the monitoring of performance objectives," said the president. "Cost efficiency will be very crucial for 2005 as we seek to reduce our sales-related expenses, optimise the use of our resources in general, and closely monitor and track the cost of activities and work processes."
In order to achieve these, the Guardian Life executive noted that a number of external environmental factors must be considered. These include economic issues such as high international oil prices; forecasted inflationary, exchange and interest rates; projected economic growth for the fiscal year 2005/06; and the performance of the stock market.
EXTERNAL FACTORS
Other factors external to the organisation that Guardian Life must bear in mind, Moore stated, are the ongoing revision and implementation of rules governing the industry by the Financial Services Commission; the new Pension Acts which seeks to regulate superannuation funds and retirement schemes; and the imposition of the General Consumption Tax on overseas services.
"An increase in the incidence of HIV/AIDS, especially among the age group 15 and 24, and an increase in the lifespan especially among the age group 15 and 64, and the elderly group of 65 years and up, will provide greater opportunities to grow various lines of business, in particular, pension," stated Moore.
The Guardian Life chief also identified the free movement of labour within the Caribbean region - a result of the advent of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy - as an external factor worthy of consideration.
