Building a people-powered, tech-enabled business

Barton defines Alkeme as a “people business” that delivers an improved customer service platform by using technology.

“There’s been a lot of pressure points on the business from technology, and that’s fallen off lately because of certain pressures in the market. But really, we use tech to optimize our business,” he said. “[W]e’re shaping the business using tech around the edges, but really understanding that, at the middle, it’s people-driven and people-powered.”

Regarding acquisitions, Barton “[looks] for pieces of a puzzle that fit together”. He is developing his company by “adding people that provide a significant opportunity for other stakeholders to cross-sell, to work together with, and to ultimately provide a better customer service perspective”.

Barton expects the next five years to be a period of opportunity and challenge for insurance brokers in terms of strengthening relationships and operating at a greater scale.

“If you don’t have scale in the business, you’re going to have a hard time attracting talent, you’re going to have a hard time building a business,” he said, explaining that “running a lifestyle business” is not the same as creating wealth.

“You’ve got to take whatever money you’re generating on the lifestyle side and you’ve got to invest it outside of insurance to create wealth. And so our [value] proposition, if you will, is [to] de-risk your business. Take your lifestyle business and move it into a wealth creation vehicle. And that is all done through scale.”

Barton points out that scaling brings opportunities to increase employees’ wellbeing and happiness and improve the quality of products delivered to consumers.

Watch the full interview here