June 27, 2006, Shenzhen - Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (“Ping An” or “the Group”; HKSE: 2318) announced that the ‘Ping An Case Study ‘ is now included in the teaching material for the EMBA course offered by the International Institute of Management Development (IMD) , a top tier global business school based in Switzerland. Ping An is the first ever financial institution from the PRC to be covered in case study material in IMD’s business programs. During the first and open lecture given on June 25, 2006, about 500 students joined in the discussion of the Ping An case.
With the title of ‘Ping An of China: The Making Of An Insurance Giant And A Leading Chinese Integrated Financial Services Group ’, the case study first reviews the history of the Group during the last 18 years, discusses and presents an in-depth analysis of various aspects such as business development, corporate culture, implementation of business transformation strategies, Ping An’s four pillars of growth, and future growth strategies. It further discusses the Group’s strategy of becoming a comprehensive financial services provider. Mr. Louis Cheung, COO of Ping An, and Mr. Jiang Hongkuang, Associate Dean of Ping An School of Financial Services, were invited as guest speakers and joined IMD students in discussions about future growth strategies.
Ping An earlier aroused IMD’s interest because of its market and customer focused development strategy incorporating substantial international expertise and relying on constant product and service innovation. Last year, IMD approached Ping An and took the initiative of writing a case study about Ping An. Ping An’s management reacted enthusiastically and actively contributed to the further development of the idea. As a result, three members of IMD’s faculty, including Prof. Donadald, Marchand and Winter Nie traveled to the PRC to visit with Ping An and undertook detailed research for a week, including a visit to Ping An Life’s branch in Shenzhen. During that week, Mr. Ma Mingzhe, Chairman of Ping An, Mr. Louis Cheung, COO, Mr. Sun Jianyi, Executive Vice President, together with other Chief Officers conducted in-depth discussions on various issues including business objectives and strategies, recent developments in the insurance and banking businesses, human resources, and IT platforms. During this trip, IMD acquired a thorough understanding of Ping An’s corporate culture, strategic planning and business objectives.
‘We strongly believe that Ping An is an outstanding insurance company in the PRC with a first mover advantage in international markets and a clear market driven development strategy. Ping An’s sales force is well educated, professional, hard working and loyal to Ping An. The emergence of Ping An is a really good case study for our students.’ said an IMD representative.
Ping An started as the first de-mutualized (joint stock) insurance company with only 13 staff and, in only 18 years, developed into a comprehensive financial services provider with over 36 million individual customers, over 200,000 sales agents and 40,000 staffs nationwide, becoming the second largest insurance company in the PRC. Ping An has pioneered many aspects of the PRC insurance industry. It was the first to launch individual life insurance; the first to appoint international auditor and international actuary; the first to introduce foreign capital; the first to introduce an ‘audit – claim’ system, as well as the first financial company to hire an international management consulting firm (McKinsey). During the past 2 years, Ping An has sustained high growth in a highly competitive market thanks to a number of strategic moves. In 2005, net profit reached RMB 4,265 million, an increase of 35.6% and total assets reached RMB 319,706 million. On January 9, 2006, The market value of the Group exceeded HKD100 billion, and the Company achieved the status of a large, international insurance enterprise.
IMD is a top tier MBA institute located in Switzerland. Established more than 50 years ago, it is now one of the top three business schools in Europe (the other two are INSEAD and LSE). It was ranked No. 1 among non-North American institutes by the Wall Street Journal in 2002 and No. 3 by ‘Newsweek’ and ‘Financial Times’. IMD’s strict entrance requirements are comparable with those of its US peers. Besides MBA courses, IMD also designs and conducts training courses for executives of well known global companies such as HSBC, Citigroup and McKinsey.
