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Discovery’s Adrian Gore shares business insights
With the simple purpose of “making people healthier”, the Discovery Group, founded in 1992, revolutionised the insurance industry in South Africa and is making serious inroads globally. But this focus on the customer – not doctors or the system – was initially seen by competitors as “infantile”, said Adrian Gore, CEO of the Discovery Group and one of South Africa’s most dynamic and decorated businessmen.
STEVEN GRUZD
Gore was in conversation at a recent breakfast forum with Rabbi Gideon Pogrund, director of the Gordon Institute of Business Science’s Ethics and Governance think tank at GIBS’ campus in Illovo, Johannesburg.
Reflecting on Discovery’s journey, a key moment came in the mid-1990s with the advent of the aspirational Health and Racquet Club brand (today’s Virgin Active chain of gyms).
Discovery saw the opportunity to cross-sell its insurance products to this membership base, but, much more importantly, the opportunity to sell gym membership (or make it free) to their clients, to motivate healthy behaviour. Members earned “a health currency” through doing healthy things, which became Discovery Vitality, later integrated with Discovery Life insurance to promote prevention and wellness.
Gore identified three ways Discovery creates shared value: harnessing technology such as through the Discovery app and Apple Watch; having an authentic purpose imbued with values; and recognising that the real insurance risk is behavioural – smoking, eating badly and not exercising.
Gore said Discovery had moved insurance from a grudge purchase to something aspirational and rewarding, and influenced its competitors to put the health of South Africans first.
On South Africa’s current political and economic problems, Gore said he is positive but “not a naïve optimist.
“We should be at war on state capture,” he said, and “leadership needs to be appropriate”. He noted that Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) (on whose board he sits) has resolved to work with civil society and trade unions “to get South Africa onto the right track”.
Through its “Integrity Pledge”, BLSA is taking a tough stance on corruption, Gore said. “You don’t need to cut corners to build good businesses, and in a country with the rule of law and ethical leadership, business is generally good. If there is no rule of law, bad businesses do well.”
There should be no compromise, and that is why BLSA had suspended KPMG [and subsequently Transnet and Eskom] due to allegations of impropriety, although he stressed that due process needs to be followed.
Gore said that economic growth and jobs are vital to address poverty in South Africa, as is an ecosystem that stimulates small business. The YES – Youth Employment Scheme – seeks to bring hundreds of thousands of young people into employment, and if it works, it will have a profound knock-on effect.
When asked if his Jewish background influenced his personal values, Gore said that without a doubt it had. He emphasised how his parents had placed the value of a good education above all else.
His father had impressed upon him the importance of honesty when he put his head down at night. Gore said his Jewish heritage was vital grounding, and that religious values codify behaviour, whatever faith one comes from. He said: “I am only intolerant of intolerance” and that we must all celebrate our heritage.
Rabbi Pogrund concluded by saying that ethics in business is not peripheral, but should be central to decision-making, and go beyond mere corporate social investment, corporate charity and compliance.