Bryan Smith, president and chief executive officer, Allianz Ayudhya Assurance, said that with the ongoing digital transformation driving customer service and our focus on protection solutions for our customers, “we are confident that Allianz Ayudhya will maintain its customer satisfaction leadership for another consecutive year”.

He said that despite the economic slowdown last year, Allianz Ayudhya performed well in many aspects.

The company last year generated Gross Written Premium (GWP) of Bt32 billion. Total Annualised New Premium (ANP) was Bt5.97 billion, growing 15 per cent.

The Agency channel was the main premium contributor and achieved the strongest results in a decade with ANP of Bt2.383 billion and growth of 20 per cent.

Bancassurance posted ANP of Bt1.399 billion, growing 6 per cent. Direct Marketing remained No 1 in the market for the 11th consecutive year with ANP Bt1.934 billion, a jump of 18 per cent in the year.

Health and protection remain its core products. Last year it established a Health Profit Centre for the company which generated ANP Bt2.045 billion and a growth of 18 per cent year on year, against a market growth of 10 per cent.

Allianz Ayudhya successfully embarked on digital transformation by using technology to uplift services and accelerate turnaround time to its partners and policyholders, he added.

One significant innovation was the implementation of a Straight Through Process System (STP) allowing policies to be issued to customers within five minutes.

Its partnership with the premier health network at BDMS included the use of API’s (Application programming interfaces) allowing real-time data transfer that significantly reduced the outpatient claim process from 30 minutes to less than three minutes.

“We also saw the adoption of our agency sales tool – AZD (Allianz Discover) to be used by 76 per cent of our agents. AZD now allows agents to submit applications anywhere, anytime and this paperless system supports our direction towards sustainability,” Smith said.

In terms of customer satisfaction, based on the NPS (Net Promoter Score) survey conducted by a third-party research agency, Allianz Ayudhya is ranked as No 1 in the life insurance market in Thailand with a score of 18.1 points, against a market average at 13.7 points.

“Despite a successful in 2019, this year we have already noticed many challenges. These include digital disruption, the low interest rate environment and the economic slowdown, especially the impact from the ongoing outbreak of Covid-19. To ensure that we maintain our strong growth, Allianz Ayudhya’s strategies remain very focused:

Digitalization: Digital transformation will continue, Smith said. “Adoption rates of Allianz Discover by agents are expected to reach 100 per cent. Our partnership with BDMS will be extended to cover inpatient claims and allow a dramatic reduction in processing times for customers checking out from the hospital. We also plan to grow our Healthy Living community to reach 180,000 members this year.”

Protection leadership: Health products remain our core focus, he said. “Leveraging from our partnership with BDMS, we plan to grow the co-developed My First Class portfolio by 40 per cent. This is in line with the need for protection in Thailand with less than 10 per cent of people covered by health insurance at this time. For the agency channel, we plan to have health riders increase to 42 per cent of all sales. Finally, in the next two weeks, Allianz Ayudhya will launch a new health product which we feel will be very popular in our market.”

Strong multi-distribution channel. For agency, they expect to recruit 6,000 new agents in 2020, he said, adding their new Health Profit Centre will help to drive the growth of health, with agency as the key channel for driving protection offerings.

Ad sales will drop by a rate in the mid-teens this quarter, with digital advertising down 10%, Chief Executive Officer Mark Thompson said. Subscriber growth has held steady, as has subscription revenue, which the company has leaned on more heavily in recent years as the print advertising market shrinks.

New York Times shares fell as much as 4.8% to $35.68. Other newspaper and magazine companies also declined: Gannett, the largest U.S. newspaper company, dropped as much as 9.5%, Tribune Publishing slipped 4%, and magazine publisher Meredith fell 6.5%. The S&P 500, by contrast, was up 2.4% as of 1:16 p.m. in New York.

The warning from The Times signals that businesses are taking steps to rein in spending because of anxiety over how the spread of the coronavirus will affect consumer behavior. As of last week, about 220 companies in the S&P 500 index had raised concerns about the virus affecting results, including Apple and Microsoft.

The coronavirus is likely to reduce ad buying, but not all media companies will be affected equally, according to Brian Wieser, global president of business intelligence at the advertising giant GroupM.

Wieser said supply-chain issues in China related to the virus “will disproportionately impact global media owners whose ad revenues depend on Chinese manufacturers.”

While the advertising impact from a potential recession is hard to anticipate, “it is highly likely that the impact will be negative, with growth in some countries softening, others going flat and others declining,” Wieser said Monday in a note to clients.

TV companies could do better, he said, because people will be staying home more, while outdoor advertising firms could fare worse because fewer people will see their billboards.

The upcoming Olympics are another question mark. Many advertisers create large ad campaigns around the Games, which are scheduled for July and August in Tokyo.

“It will be particularly critical for those marketers to establish potential backup plans in the event the Olympics do not occur,” Wieser said.

William Flynn, a business leader with decades of experience in transportation and logistics, will take the top job at Amtrak on April 15. He will replace Richard Anderson, who has served as Amtrak’s top executive since July 2017.

Anderson will remain at the company as a senior adviser to Flynn through the end of 2020.

“Bill is the right executive to lead us into the future,” said Anthony Coscia, chairman of Amtrak’s board of directors, praising Flynn as the best leader to build upon Amtrak’s growth.

“Bill brings a very long track record of keeping companies strong and building upon their strength, and we think that’s what we are going to see now in someone who will have a longer time horizon as CEO of the company,” Coscia said.

Flynn, 66, comes to Amtrak with a robust résumé in transportation. He retired from Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings in January, after a 13-year tenure of serving the global airfreight and military and passenger charter markets as president, chief executive and board chairman. Before joining Atlas Air, Flynn held senior roles at CSX Transportation, Sea-Land Services and GeoLogistics.

Amtrak officials say they expect Flynn to stay at Amtrak for a longer than his two predecessors, and to carry on the progress made in recent years, including record-setting growth, financial milestones and service improvements.

Amtrak carried 32.5 million passengers last year, a record in the company’s 40-year history. The company also inched closer to breaking even in the last fiscal year, reporting that its operating revenue rose to $3.3 billion, up by 3.6% from the previous year. The revenue growth, Anderson and Coscia say, will lead Amtrak to positive earnings for the first time.

“Our balance sheet is essentially free of debt now. As we look at our operations, we’ve run better on-time operations than we have in quite some time and this year we’re projected to break even on an operating basis, which would make us the most efficient government-owned inner-city rail operator in the world,” Anderson said in an interview Monday.

Amtrak officials say the growth is the result of years of investments and operational changes, including more robust partnerships with states, which has led to an increase in short-distance service in some states, such as Virginia and California.

Under Anderson’s leadership Amtrak expanded the Acela brand with nonstop service between the District of Columbia and New York last year, and has made improvements such as improving WiFi and refurbishing train interiors. A new high-speed Acela fleet will be entering service in the Northeast Corridor next year.

While Amtrak says the changes have been effective in turning the company into a revenue-making entity, they haven’t been without criticism. Anderson has pushed airline-like practices to cut costs, including changing onboard kitchen service to prepackaged meals, introducing new cancellation fees and most recently making the lowest fare tickets nonrefundable.

“We believe that much of the turnaround work at Amtrak is either completed or well underway,” Anderson said. Anderson had made a commitment to lead the government-owned company for three years.

Still Amtrak is faced with major challenges, including billions needed to maintain and rebuild aging infrastructure in the Northeast, the country’s busiest rail corridor. It also has to convince the White House to make such investments. President Donald Trump’s proposed budget would cut Amtrak’s funding by more than half, and the administration has held onto funding for critical infrastructure projects in recent years.

Flynn, in a statement, praised Amtrak’s leadership and employees for the work done in “modernizing the company for the 21st Century” and said it would be “a privilege to join them in continuing this work and advancing something as important as Amtrak’s mission.

“Amtrak’s future is incredibly bright and I’m excited to join the team,” he said. “Amtrak service is vital to millions of Americans across the nation and by improving the customer experience, driving safety, and strengthening our partnership with states and other stakeholders, we can do much more for the American people.”

Yao borrowed heavily two months ago to put down $10,000 for a five-story building she hoped would become a palace of Sichuan cooking. Then came the epidemic. Her seven cooks now lounge around empty tables meant for 100 diners. Vegetables rot in the yard. Fish bob inside tanks, neglected.

“I thought the disease was confined to Wuhan and would have little impact on a small and far-flung city like ours,” said Yao, who is contemplating laying everyone off and selling the restaurant to stem mounting losses but is worried she wouldn’t find a buyer. “This is getting more and more hopeless by the day.”

Several weeks into an epidemic that brought the country to a standstill, Chinese officials and economists are increasingly worried about the devastation wrought on a crucial part of the economy: restaurants and retailers, karaoke halls and family-owned factories – countless small and midsize businesses that collectively employ 80 percent of China’s workers and produce 68 percent of the country’s business revenue.

“Only 30% of small and medium businesses nationwide have resumed work,” Shu Chaohui, an official at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, told reporters Tuesday. “It’s a pretty severe situation.”

How severe is it? A nationwide survey led in February by Peking University found half the country’s small businesses will run out of cash within three months, and 14% might not survive past mid-March. Unlike large state conglomerates or multinational companies that could weather the storm, China’s small businesses say they simply do not have cash reserves to continue paying wages and rent.

And while manufacturing giants that mass-produce gadgets such as Apple iPhones can rely on the government to charter buses and trains to shuttle migrant workers back to their factories, nearly 40% of smaller businesses say they cannot get their workers back to Chinese cities, because of transportation bottlenecks and quarantine restrictions, according to the Peking University study.

The Chinese government has been trying to prop up these small, vulnerable businesses – but with uncertain consequences. Ministries and bank regulators have been pressuring banks to extend loans to cash-strapped businesses. They have asked lenders to push back repayment deadlines or look the other way when payments are late. They have also waived requirements for businesses such as paying for social security.

Beyond that, experts say, policy options are limited when swaths of the country are effectively under lockdown and a cloud of anxiety. People simply do not want to go out and spend.

“If people don’t eat at restaurants, that doesn’t just affect the restaurant but also the seafood supplier or farmer. If people don’t shop for clothes, that affects the silkmaker and weaver,” said Dai Ruochen, a Peking University economist who helps lead the survey group. “The economic impact isn’t contained, it sends ripples up level by level.”

Then there is the effect on employment. In recent weeks, companies across the country have posted online notices apologizing to customers for closing and to employees for mass layoffs.

In the once buzzing metropolis of Shenzhen, Cao Tianfei closed a roast-fish restaurant and paid a $36,000 penalty to break his rental contract in a mall that was shut down for two weeks in February. He laid off 15 workers.

“I felt like I abandoned my kids,” he said. “But I had no choice. Every morning I wake up, rent and salaries just get sucked out of me.”

Cao said the unpredictable nature of the epidemic had scrambled his planning. “I’ve never considered borrowing money from the bank, because I can’t see the end of the virus,” he said. “Even if it ended today, it would still be a long way for us to get out of this.”

To counter the uncertainty, China’s leaders have tried to project calm. National authorities have set a late-April target for the virus to be fully contained, and a central-bank official took to international media to tout how China has rolled out no less than 30 policy measures, many of which specifically target “small and micro” businesses, to ensure a quick rebound.

“The most likely scenario is a V-shaped curve, which means a decline in economic activities followed by a rapid recovery, with the total economic impact relatively contained,” People’s Bank of China deputy governor Chen Yulu predicted in a Financial Times op-ed.

But there are risks to China’s desperate attempt to restart its economy, and many businesses will inevitably die off, economists predict.

Chinese authorities’ hands are tied when it comes to asking banks to forgive late payments or issue even more risky loans to bail out faltering businesses, said Andrew Collier, a managing director at Orient Capital Research who frequently speaks to Chinese bank executives.

The coronavirus hit at a time when many Chinese banks were already wobbling with bad loans and households and businesses were burdened by massive levels of debt.

China’s leaders “are trying to straddle between having an economic meltdown and crashing the banks,” Collier said. He added, “They will rather let some businesses go belly up than watch banks collapse.”

– – –

Across the country, a few small businesses are hoping to survive by creative means rather than government bailout.

Owspace, a chain of bookstores and cultural spaces that is popular with China’s urban literary and art crowd, is asking book lovers to make online donations of between $7 and $1,100 as revenue plunges 80 percent. Expatriates in Beijing recently launched a GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign to raise $330,000 to save Comptoirs de France, a long-established bakery chain with 16 locations.

Holed up in an apartment in Wuhan, Zuo Weiwei, an entrepreneur who has been selling cosmetics and nutritional supplements online, said the congestion and breakdown in China’s shipping industry forced her to end her business.

“Dozens of customers who had preordered products from me asked for refunds,” she said. “I simply couldn’t take it anymore.”

Hundreds of boxes of beauty masks, dietary supplements and silver-coated Buddhist amulets lay piling up in her house. Under these circumstances, Zuo said, she is drastically downsizing her ambitions.

“I’ve given up hopes of selling stuff and making a fortune,” she said. “My wish for this year is for me and my family to stay healthy and not get infected.”

Government officials have said they need the data so they can warn local authorities about who might have been exposed to the virus. But the airline industry has balked, saying the federal government should instead share information it already collects between different agencies and come up with a system for obtaining the rest.

The impasse has dragged on for weeks despite concerns about the growing number of people with coronavirus in the United States. It has become a top issue of the Trump administration’s virus task force and U.S. lawmakers. Airline executives are slated to meet Wednesday with Vice President Mike Pence.

The airline industry has pushed Congress to intervene, with some lobbyists asking lawmakers to insert a provision in an emergency spending package that would effectively absolve the airlines of having to track some of the data.

The failure to resolve the issue could complicate the government’s efforts to contain the outbreak’s spread. United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and American Airlines deferred questions to Airlines for America, a lobbying group that represents the airline industry. Airlines for America said collecting the data shouldn’t be the airlines’ job since the government already has much of it in existing databases. They also said it would take up to a year for the airlines to set up the tracking system.

Even though both sides have been fighting over the data for weeks, the battle has taken on new urgency in recent days.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is asking airlines to collect and – when ordered – submit data from passengers on select international flights within 24 hours. That data might include an email, a phone number and an address in the U.S., to the agency. In the event a passenger on a flight develops COVID-19, that information would enable health officials to reach others who may have been exposed, a system known as “contact tracing.” On Feb. 7, the Department of Health and Human Services issued an interim rule requiring certain passenger data to be shared with federal officials.

“Contact tracing is effective at reducing cases of communicable disease at the early stages of a potential outbreak if the contacts are notified as soon after initial exposure as possible,” the CDC said in announcing its Feb. 7 policy. “If an efficient contact system is not in place when the first ill passengers arrive, the benefits of the contact tracing are greatly diminished.”

The CDC has growing concerns about getting the information it needs to for its contact tracing program, saying that under current regulations it can take nearly two weeks to get the traveler data. Even then, some of the information is incomplete.

The passenger data issue has raised alarms at meetings of the U.S. coronavirus task force, according to an official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal meetings. Ken Cuccinelli, acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, also flagged the issue during internal administration meetings on Saturday, according to another official familiar with the discussions.

Officials say there is greater urgency given the Trump administration’s new travel restrictions affecting Iran, Italy and South Korea. With cases emerging in recent days in Washington state, Delaware, Rhode Island, Florida and New York, the federal government and airline industry face enormous pressure to put in place a tracking system amid fears of the coronavirus’ spread.

“When the goal is containment, timing is of the essence,” said Josh Michaud, associate director for global health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “The earlier you are able to find these people, get them into testing and if needed quarantine, the more likely you are to prevent future spreading.”

In the three weeks since this HHS’s Feb. 7 rule was put into effect, airlines have turned over some information but it has been “incomplete,” according to the HHS official. U.S. officials want to know who was traveling on planes that were later determined to be transporting a passenger who had the coronavirus. For example, if a passenger on a flight from Italy two weeks ago tested positive for the virus last week, CDC officials want to track down fellow passengers on that flight to monitor their health and, if necessary, determine who else might have been exposed.

Right now, when a plane from China lands in the United States, U.S. citizens who are not sick and not showing symptoms are given instructions at the airport to monitor themselves for respiratory symptoms, such as fever, cough or difficulty breathing. After they reach their final destination, they are supposed to stay home and monitor their health for 14 days from the time they left China. If they develop symptoms they are supposed to contact their health-care providers and their local public health authorities.

The CDC wants passenger data from the airlines so they can pass it on to states and counties, allowing those front-line authorities to “call in and check in on” those individuals to make sure they are not sick, the official said. CDC officials regard this basic information as critical to their efforts to control the spread of the virus.

The airlines have been warning the government at least since the beginning of February that they lack the capacity to quickly set up the tracking system, said Nicholas E. Calio, CEO of Airlines for America. Creating the system could take a year or longer, Calio said, and airlines often do not have the necessary passenger information available to them if flights were booked with a third party.

Most of the airlines’ current systems would also have to be reprogrammed to collect additional data, while the airlines contend they have no way of verifying the information they receive is accurate.

“We have some of the information, but we don’t have all of it,” said Sharon Pinkerton, senior vice president for legislative and regulatory policy at Airlines for America.

In a letter to HHS, Calio wrote that roughly 74 percent of all passengers list a phone number and 56 percent list an email address in the “passenger name record,” a type of government database that tracks travelers. Calio also said that the airline industry was willing to work with the federal government to address any gaps.

Airline companies have asked congressional lawmakers to require HHS to create a portal that sends passenger information to the CDC, according to a memo sent by industry lobbyists to lawmakers and described to The Washington Post.

Such a legislative measure would effectively absolve the airlines from having to track and send the information to the CDC, but is unlikely to be approved when Congress takes up the broader emergency package this week, according to two congressional aides speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe fast-moving negotiations. Calio said the airlines are willing to pay for the costs to develop an online database in which travelers directly provide their information to the CDC.

Lawmakers are hoping to resolve the impasse quickly. In addition to the meeting between airline executives and Pence, airline lobbyists are also expected to meet this week with U.S. lawmakers, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who chairs the Subcommittee on Aviation and Space, as well as members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

Target is bringing between 50 and 200 items from Brooklyn-born Boar’s Head to as many as 200 of its stores this year, ranging from maple-glazed turkey breast to sweet-chili garlic hummus and provolone cheese slices. The products, which include grab-and-go sandwiches and salads, have been available in a half-dozen stores in New York for the past few months.

The launch — years in the making — represents the latest attempt by Target to forge deeper ties with well-known consumer brands, following its moves last year to expand its selection of jeans from Levi Strauss & Co. and open mini-stores tied to Walt Disney Co. merchandise. It’s also the next step in Target’s push to bulk up its grocery business, which accounts for 20% of its revenue but has never been a signature category for the cheap-chic discounter like apparel or home decor.

“They’re an incredible brand with a long history,” said Stephanie Lundquist, Target’s executive vice president and president of food and beverage. “We’ve been in conversations with them for some time.”

Established in 1905 by Frank Brunckhorst and now based in Sarasota, Florida, Boar’s Head has long been a staple of New York City’s delis and grocery stores and is now found in supermarkets coast to coast. Target, though, represents its first big-box retail partner. And while Boar’s Head is known for its pre-sliced meats, prepared sandwiches, wraps and salads will account for half of the offerings at Target.

That’s smart, as sales of refrigerated lunchmeats in the U.S. are flat, according to data trackers Nielsen Co. and Packaged Facts. Consumers perceive those meats as overly processed and less healthy, Packaged Facts analyst Jennifer Mapes-Christ said. Boar’s Head products, she said, are viewed as better for you, particularly its Simplicity line — launched in 2016 — which contains no antibiotics, nitrates or preservatives.

The partnership doesn’t include any exclusive products, and it’s not yet known if the brand will expand into all of Target’s 1,800 U.S. locations, which include more than 100 smaller stores in urban areas and college campuses with a bigger range of grab-and-go items. Target’s comparable sales of food and beverages have increased for nine straight quarters, and its new Good & Gather private grocery brand will expand from 600 to 2,000 items this year.

Lundquist, who ran Target’s human-resources division before taking the reins of the grocery group last year, will likely share more details of her plans at the company’s investor day on Tuesday.

Fortum CEO Pekka Lundmark, who will replace Rajeev Suri in September, is a long-term Baldauf ally who is riding high after winning a long, politically-sensitive battle for control of German energy company Uniper.

Lundmark will need more of that staying power to dig Nokia out of the worst crisis since the collapse of its wireless handset business a decade ago. The Finnish company is falling behind Chinese rival Huawei Technologies Co. in the battle to dominate 5G rollouts and its shares have lost a third of their value in a year.

Baldauf is following the playbook of Nokia’s Swedish arch-rival Ericsson, which also appointed a corporate veteran from its home country to take a fresh look at a faltering business. The move has paid off after CEO Borje Ekholm simplified Ericsson by selling some units, exiting unprofitable contracts and investing in the company’s core products.

Lundmark and Ekholm are the same age, 57, and are both trained engineers. Ekholm has been rewarded with a 44% share price gain since he started the job in January 2017.

“We expect Nokia to introduce large structural reforms and austerity measures under its new management in order to lay the foundations for a healthy long-term business,” Mikael Rautanen, an analyst at Finnish brokerage Inderes, wrote in a note.

Nokia shares rose as much as 4.9% on Monday before falling back to trade up 0.2% as of 1:49 p.m. in Helsinki.

Huawei has sucked business opportunities away from Nokia and Ericsson and concerns that the Beijing government could use the Chinese vendor’s equipment for spying have yet to bring a dividend for its two rivals.

Under Suri, Nokia went all-in on a strategy to broaden its portfolio so it could provide a full suite of products and services for operators who are building new networks. The approach is being sorely tested during the first wave of 5G rollouts, where the focus is on replacing base stations and radio access networks.

After a shock profit warning last year, Nokia is now exploring options ranging from asset sales to mergers, people familiar with the matter said last week. Chairman Risto Siilasmaa said Monday that no strategic actions are underway and that Lundmark will get a chance to make any adjustments he sees fit after he starts work in September.

Lundmark got his first training in business leadership at Nokia during the 1990s, when it transformed itself from an unwieldy conglomerate into a global leader in mobile phones and network equipment.

Baldauf, who succeeds Siilasmaa as chairman next month, was Lundmark’s boss through much of that period, and later recruited him to Fortum from Konecranes Oyj.

“I wasn’t really planning on leaving, but then Sari Baldauf called,” Lundmark told Finnish public broadcaster Yle in December, explaining his decision to leave the crane maker. “After ten years it may be good for a company, as well as the CEO, to have someone else take over and bring in fresh ideas.”

Lundmark’s Uniper victory cost the German company’s CEO and chief financial officer their jobs. While he insisted that he’d wanted a friendly partnership with Uniper, the executive teams fell out in a spectacular fashion in one of Europe’s most acrimonious energy takeovers in years.

The wisdom of the move on Uniper is still to be seen: The deal plays to Fortum’s strength in generating power from hydro and nuclear plants in Northern Europe, while throwing it into the bear pit that is the German energy market and the country’s politically-charged exit from coal.