Kevin McLoughlin, Partner & Co-Founder at MTech Capital sits down with Evelyn Bourke, CEO of Bupa to dive into how tech has transformed the business model and wider strategy.
Transcript
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[Music]
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evelyn welcome to this itc fireside chat
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uh today we’re going to be discussing
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the role of technology
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in bupa strategy
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can you give us some examples of how
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technology has changed the way bupa
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addresses the market or
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changed internal business processes to
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date
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thank you kevin and really nice to be
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with you today
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so yes um
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bupa has um has been on a journey of
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embracing technology to improve customer
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experience progressively over the last
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number of years
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and uh and that’s what you kind of
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expect with all insurers but
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particularly i think so with them health
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insurers customers nowadays expect to
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engage with insurers online and over
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their mobile they expect to be able to
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get quotes to get online and have their
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check their claims history they click
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check the status of their claims and
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increasingly they only want to talk to
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human beings when it’s a really complex
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human issue rather than an admin issue
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so
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across bupa we’re on a journey to make
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sure that that customer interface is as
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frictionless as possible
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and nowadays and 99 of our claims are
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settled through electronic invoice
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exchange
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um with the providers
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as well as obviously providing where we
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have fulfillment directly with customers
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they can get on and do it electronically
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and we do that all across poop in the
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different countries australia uk spain
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saudi arabia
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but um as well as that in spain because
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of our unique footprint of hospitals and
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clinics we’re developing a concept that
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we call liquid hospitals
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and it’s our hospitals without walls and
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it’s basically using remote monitoring
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and
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clinicians available via call centers
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such that customers can actually get us
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um
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more care in their homes and they don’t
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have to come to hospitals and even
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before cover 19 you know the reality is
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hospitals are frankly some of the
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unhealthiest places to be on the planet
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because they’re full of sick people
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um and even more so after cold 19 more
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people want to actually have as much
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care as they can without having to go to
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hospitals so um our concept of liquid
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hospitals is hugely attractive to um our
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current and potential customers
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and then another application of
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technology for us is engaging with our
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distributors and we um
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distribute some markets where holy
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retail and we deal directly with the
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customer over the phone or over the
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internet or over the mobile phone as in
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australia and in other markets it’s a
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mixture of dealing via brokers employee
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benefit consultants and obviously also
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bank assurance partners in some markets
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but for example in the uk we have a
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platform which enables all our broker
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partners to get the quotes to track the
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business to check their commissions to
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monitor the whole
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um nature of their relationship with us
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um through the technology and again
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that’s actually
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been fantastically important through uh
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code 19 oh and i should also add that
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doing so over these platforms um with
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robust information security means that
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they are um they’re actually safer than
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even the old style human to human over
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the telephone uh
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kind of contact what have you had to do
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to make employees receptive to
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technology i think what has helped us
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along the way is
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always standing in the shoes of
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customers and being utterly focused on
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creating a great customer experience
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and some years ago as well uh we went
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and we installed nps all across the
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organization and that was a massive
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customer change but if you use mps
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to really um
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understand in every interaction the
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customer has with your organization
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every touch point
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and how is that experience for the
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customer and what are the pain points
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and then you use technology to help
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solve for the pain points you actually
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get your people seeing that it’s making
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a huge um a huge difference but that’s
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not to say people don’t feel nervous
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about it and
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you know the other areas where you do
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want to see more technology applied are
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in the back office operations you know
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deep in the finance functions in the
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um
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in the you know admin areas
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and
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again it’s about demonstrating that
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actually
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what
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technology is doing is it’s actually
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enabling people to have more rewarding
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jobs but it is something that is a
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cultural shift that does require
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continuous leader advocacy
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um and does require you know kind of
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making sure that down the organization
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um
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that all the leaders are signed up to
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you know using the benefits of
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technology to improve things for
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customers
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when you think about
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uh the adoption of technology or just
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first screening technology within the
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organization do you look to be
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kind of out ahead of the market or do
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you look for
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a
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tech that has already been adopted and
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can identify concrete use cases based on
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what other insurers have done
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uh we we tend to be more in the latter
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and for um
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for the reasons that we are
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ultimately a very regulated business i
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mean health and you know health
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insurance and health care
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um we’ve got huge regulation of uh
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um from a solvency point of view from a
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customer interface point of view
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um health regulation and insurance
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regulation also differs from country to
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country and then you’ve also got all the
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clinical regulation and layer on top of
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that data privacy so for example in the
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uk in the in europe in the last few
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years we’ve gone you’ve probably heard
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of gdpr
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um we’ve been that’s a new data privacy
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regime which is very onerous and very
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exacting
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and
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therefore when we want to um deploy a
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new technology at scale we have to have
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a high degree of confidence
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that that technology
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will meet our security standards
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um and will be reliable with sustained
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operation resilience
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uh so the um
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we are you know very rarely going to be
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at the bleeding edge of applications we
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are more likely to be someone who’s
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coming behind when something’s been
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proven um to actually uh work at scale
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yeah
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i think that probably answers the next
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question which is you know at what point
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are you prepared
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organizationally to work with a startup
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so we’ve um i mean we’ve engaged um with
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startups over quite a number of years
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and we’ve run a number of programs where
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you know we’ve
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invited startups to pitch for
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um different kind of customer problem
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areas that they might be able to help
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with and run processes to
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screen down to a small number of
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startups and actually have them come
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into the business and work with us
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and it’s been
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um
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it’s been a learning exercise for us and
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indeed for the startups
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in fact what it’s been a real spur for
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us to is actually developing talent um
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and growing talent in the organization
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and also
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um helping our people see what truly
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agile
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working can look like and
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and you know some some of the startups
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you work with they they’re very obsessed
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about the particular customer problem
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that they’ve actually um chosen to focus
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on
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and there’s power for us in actually our
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people
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experiencing firsthand that obsession
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and working alongside the startups so
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we’ve so our
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successful kind of partner with startup
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has been more in that learning um and
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insights and talent development than
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necessarily finding
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an amazing application that somehow or
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other you know can be um you know
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leveraged at uh at scale across the
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organization um
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that’s what we so far that’s what we
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have found has uh has has worked really
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well for us
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has technology played a role in how
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bubba has
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responded to the kovi pandemic i mean
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the impact of covert 19 and accelerating
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change and technology adoption
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um has been huge i mean you know so
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inside the organization we got our
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office-based people switched to remote
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working
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inside three weeks from the point that
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covert 19 really started um
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to bite um and a few years ago someone
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had said we’d do that either said you’re
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crazy not possible
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so we did that it’s worked really well
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it’s been incredibly robust and
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responsive and it’s driven within our
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organization
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huge usage of
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the video consultation tools and also
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people have become just that bit more
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comfortable in operating in this kind of
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digital and technology and enabled
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fashion and it’s also probably driven
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a greater degree of curiosity about what
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more tools are out there and how could
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we actually um do this even more um so
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that’s kind of within side the organ
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within the organization and then for
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customers
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um we had a range of remote and
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digitally enabled services we had to
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roll out further services like we
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offered um
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physiotherapy via
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[Music]
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video consultations
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and we’ve rolled out um
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general practitioner advice helplines um
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available digitally in many different
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countries in spain we took our video
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conferencing our video consultation
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application called blue which had only
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been available
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to um you know about
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three or four hundred thousand customers
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and have rolled it out to 1.2 million
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customers
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but i’d say probably the big um
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breakthrough that we saw as a result of
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covert 19 was the shift it caused for
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clinicians
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so we would have probably seen in
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that clinicians were at this you know
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they’re always young bright
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digitally native clinicians who are
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embracing technology but the vast
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majority of clinicians prefer to operate
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kind of in the old style a lot of face
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to face
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even when all they’re doing is advice
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right they’re just it’s cute it’s a kind
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of question and answer dialogue
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um there’s no need for a you know hands
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or
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um but they still had this huge
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preference for face-to-face
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um force of circumstance as a result of
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national lockdowns meant clinicians
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desperately needed organizations you
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know like ourselves to help them
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um continue um supporting
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um our shared customers as they went
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through the particular you know health
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experiences they’re going through
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and they just got on it so quickly so um
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that’s been absolutely massive and i i’m
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i you know very hopeful
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that this has um
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uh triggered some lasting change and
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that actually could actually really help
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um deal with some of these enormous
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challenges that we have in healthcare
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today such as it’s hugely capital
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intensive because it’s usually dependent
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on bricks and mortar well if we use
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digital you know there’s a lot more we
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can actually get those
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um encounters between clinicians and
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patients which don’t need to be done in
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a brick-and-mortar setting done
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digitally that’s got to be good from the
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capital
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point of view
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but the other thing we you know we all
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know there really aren’t enough
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clinicians in the world for the demand
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that effectively is there
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well digital
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um and technology would enable
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clinicians to actually look after more
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customers because it kind of can
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eliminate some of that dead time of
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travel
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um
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and and also we know that digital
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applications can help take some of the
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drudgery of the admin
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um away and enable clinicians to do more
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of the kind of in-person
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via
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video and technology
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than they would otherwise have been able
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to do so you know we’re hugely excited
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about the potential to help make health
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care more efficient and look after more
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people in the world
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that’s a perfect segue you blend into my
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final question which is um about the new
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generation of health insurers
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so alan in france oscar
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or clover in the u.s
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do you think that incumbents in those
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markets
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need to be worried and what what kind of
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uh takeaways would you would you cite
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with respect to
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what what those um digital insurers are
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are doing today that is relevant for
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bupa
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i absolutely believe that um incumbents
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in in health insurance across the world
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have to sit up and pay attention to um
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to the new generation players like oscar
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and alan and
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clover
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because what they’re absolutely focused
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on is um really amazing customer
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experience that point i was making
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earlier on about making the customer
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experience completely frictionless
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making it possible for the customer to
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do everything they want to do on their
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mobile
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and uh there’s no doubt that they um
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because
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these guys have all started with a green
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field and a blank sheet of paper and and
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they can design it from scratch and they
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can be
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completely rooted in what um will be an
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amazing customer experience learning of
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course from
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you know the uh the the likes of the
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googles and the amazons um of this world
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so absolutely they uh they can um they
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can appeal to a whole new generation of
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younger customers who are very
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comfortable digital they will also
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appeal to
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um
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older people who have actually become
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very used to you know digital um for
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banking for shopping for booking travel
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for managing their lives basically
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and uh it means the stand the bar is
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high for uh incumbent players now what
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incumbents tend to have is because they
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have um scale and they therefore they
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have the leverage with you know the
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hospitals and the clinicians
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um and that’s enabled them to offer
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competitive prices um but that’s a game
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that you know the likes of um the oscars
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in the land they can partner with um
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other players to achieve a degree of
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scale and if they bring their amazing
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customer experience yes they are a
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threat
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to the incumbents but i’d like to see it
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more like that um you know we’re all
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learning from each other and uh great
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competitors
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are a huge spur
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to innovation and to um to delivering a
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better product for the end uh the end
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customer so you know ultimately i see
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the customer as as winning from all of
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that
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excellent
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thank you evelyn bork uh ceo of bupa
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great thank you kevin pleasure
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[Music]
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