View From The Garden – Ian Youngman Reflects on a World In Crisis
- Written by: iPMI Global
In this iPMI Global Insights article, retired international healthcare, health insurance and medical tourism analyst Ian Youngman reflects on the world crisis.
The world is in chaos, with wars, tariffs, massive cuts to American healthcare and much more. Being retired does not mean my brain no longer works, and in fact I have more time to research and think. I am so grateful to be retired as otherwise I would be rewriting my country and company reports on a twice-daily basis just to keep up.
For health insurance and healthcare companies, keeping up with events and how it may affect them is at the most volatile I have known in 50 years.
So, you can hide under the duvet, hope nothing much affects you and wait for calmer waters.
The bad news is that calmer waters are not coming any time soon.
You could try to fight back and help stop damaging changes to the business of your company and your customers. But you will get kick back from governments and politicians.
Soft power
For decades the USA has depended on global dominance by the use of soft power overseas. Trump is moving to hard power and threats, so the days of soft power are over.
Recent American action may make USA based insurers and brokers much less popular in particular countries. Governments annoyed at US actions and comments may well make life more difficult for USA companies.
Globally this will mean increased soft power by China, India, Russia and an increasingly powerful Africa.
The threat
US actions will action global and national businesses. It can and will mean cuts to Medicaid, government spending at home and abroad, and knock on damage to companies.
Some agencies and brokers, and even companies, dependant on niche areas may be suddenly hit with a loss of business that threatens their very existence.
Some may find that what was profitable is no longer so.
How to keep up
In tough and confusing times, the easy option for companies is to cut costs and spending. First on the chopping block is research and development. Few organisations now have research and development departments or people.
You can outsource research, but in a complex world, the number of people or companies with genuine experience and insight, is very small. Most people and companies that had expertise in other than small specialisms, has been decimated by death, retirement and business closure.
The massive change in the online and other media in the last decade means that genuine independent information is rare as people move to listen of watch media that they agree with.
Information bias with dodgy detail being mirrored and repeated endlessly means that all must be careful on what you do or do not trust.
Reports using dodgy data are sadly – produced on a boiler plate basis- prolific,
And, really, in the modern world, historic information is not just useless but dangerous.
Ai
AI has many potential uses, but for research or writing my cats have more invention and understanding.
As it aggregates information there is an inbuilt bias to the majority – so ideas and views away from the norm are ignored.
Many of the best ideas for products and services come from looking sideways at the edges, and from a different point of view.
I was watching a TV series where AI was used to devise and write captions for videos. Honestly, they were generic rubbish and overlong. If I had written such stuff an editor or sub editor would have used a big red pencil and called me a mass of very rude words.
Stop and think
In a busy 24-7 world it is tempting to keep going and not stop to think.
Once a day, turn off your machines and phones, go get a coffee or beer, on your own, and think through how events and competitor action could affect you and how you can respond.
Years ago, a company I worked in hired business analysts who followed us all around. My friend Paul got so fed up with lack of privacy that when asked why he was away from the office the cleaned-up reply was” I am having a coffee, a cigarette, going to the toilet, and thinking though a tough problem in private- so please go away” They simply could not grasp the need to stop and think.
Brainstorm
If you have a difficult problem one way is to group brainstorm. Forget the usual rules about meetings and allow the most outlandish thoughts to be discussed.
Threat or potential?
In the toughest of times, the easy corporate solution is to slim down what you do and rein it all in.
The harder solution is to expand and take advantage of the suffering of your competitors.
Customers
Any business with a global work force knows that threat and danger to employees is at an all time high. Health insurance without the extras on help and security, and even sudden extraction overseas, is no longer enough.
Employees need more help and protection and massive amounts of information before and while they are overseas.
Insurers and brokers can help to provide these services, usually on an outsourced basis.
Research
To keep up and do your job is tough so why not revert to the idea of hiring some bright youngster to do all this as a researcher?
The future
Much is bleak but any person or business can still make it by keeping up to date with the world, and not just their niche. People will still get sick, and if governments are spending more on defence, they will spend less on healthcare. So private healthcare and insurance have a much bigger role.
I have no intention of going back to regular features or producing any more reports.
While I sip my beer in the sun in the garden, please keep Chris out of mischief by reading and contributing to iPMI Global.
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