Making it to the Top: Lessons of Organizational Transformation from Future Generali India Life

Set in Mumbai, India, during 2020, the case explores how Munish Sharda, the Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Future Generali India Life Insurance Company Limited (FGILI), turned around the firm's key business metrics. FGILI was a joint venture of Future Group, an Indian retail behemoth; Generali Group, a leading Italian insurance company; and Industrial Investment Trust Limited (IITL), an investment trust company. In 2014, seven years after its incorporation, FGILI was persistently underperforming on several key business metrics. The company brought Sharda on board to effect an organizational transformation. He implemented a well-orchestrated transformation plan by focusing on building an ethical foundation, fostering customer centricity, and grooming a strong leadership team to steer business strategies. He also harnessed technology to build organizational capacity for the transformation. Ruchira Bhardwaja, the Chief Human Resource Officer (CHRO), aided Sharda in operationalizing the transformation strategy. Five after the transformation began, FGILI had improved its rank among the country's life insurers, enhanced customer satisfaction, and mitigated workforce attrition. The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in January 2020 brought the world to a standstill and hamstrung FGILI's transition. With most of its employees working from home, FIGILI had rolled out measures to sustain the changes and gains it had accomplished. With a surge in demand for coverage anticipated, Bhardwaja had to uphold the performance orientation and customer centricity of FGILI's workforce, which had suddenly become widely dispersed and remote. Meanwhile, Sharda, not satisfied with having risen to the 15th spot among the country's life insurers, wanted FGILI to become one of the top 10. He was concerned about the way forward for increasing FGILI's growth, which was short of the targeted 30% compound annual growth rate (CAGR).

Learning Objective

Students will learn how to: develop and implement an organizational transformation roadmap; align the human resource function with business strategy and its outcomes; build organizational capabilities for a transformation and integrate change initiatives across functions; foster and sustain a performance-oriented organization culture in the face of a crisis.