Creating a brand platform

JC’s Newsletter #205

Dear friends,

Every week, I’m sharing an essay that relates to what we are building and learning at Alan. Those essays are fed by the article I’m lucky enough to read and capitalise on.

I’m going to try to be provocative in those essays to trigger a discussion with the community. Please answer, comment, and ping me!

If you are not subscribed yet, it's right here! 

If you like it, please share it on social networks!

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Introduction

This week, I wanted to share with you the work we have done on iterating our brand platform in terms of vision and mission. 

I find it interesting to gather community feedback and also to share a bit about the framework we arrived at because I believe it is quite unique and something we invented for ourselves. 

We found that the classic terms of vision and mission were not clear when companies used it, so we used only one, a vision. 

We tried to describe Alan in something understandable and then decided to have three impacts:

• One impact for our members

• One for our customers (companies), and try to summarize our impact in a single sentence for each, 

• as well as trying to express the emotional outcome of connecting with Alan. 

This is a bit of what we have built, and I thought it was interesting to share with the community both the structure and the result to get your feedback.

An update to what we stand for 

For the new strategy pack we have tried to make the presentation of Alan even crisper, and have done some edits to our vision/model. Below we describe it so every Alaner can make it their own:

Vision statement: Healthier Humanity

Alan envisions a world where anyone holds the power to actively influence their physical and mental health. By transforming how individuals impact their health, Alan strives every day for a healthier humanity, starting with healthier people and healthier businesses. 

Impact for members: they get extra happy years of life, thanks to Alan.

Alan simplifies access to care, and empowers everyone to be healthier, physically and mentally, thanks to preventive care, health and insurance all in one experience.

Research clearly shows that almost everyone can add several years of healthy life expectancy with simple lifestyle changes. Everyone has the vague sense that they should visit the dentist a bit more often, exercise more, or eat fresh produce, but most people:

• Don’t understand how these changes actually translate to extra years of healthy life,

• Don’t know what concrete steps they should take for greatest impact,

• Don’t have any support for making and persisting with these changes.

Alan is here to guide them in their personal health journey, to help anyone live a healthier, happier life. By doing that, every individual, regardless of their background, can influence their life expectancy in their best years.

Impact for companies: making the best People return on investment.

Healthier people make healthier companies.

Alan's services and products are designed as a strategic investment in HR, multiplying return on investment by improving physical and mental health and well-being at work for employees, increasing HR efficiency by reducing their workload, and strengthening the company's position as a desirable employer.

• Productivity and Absenteeism: by actively helping employees to be healthier, Alan increases the productivity of teams and lowers absenteeism. With preventative care, Alan helps reduce the disruption caused by medical issues, which leads to increased productivity and engagement.

• Administrative Efficiency: Alan's technology alleviates the mental load of managing health benefits, allowing HR teams to focus on higher-value work. This results in reported increased efficiency and performance among HR teams, with 83% of clients reporting such improvements after switching to Alan.

• Attracting and Retaining Talent: Alan helps companies attract and retain talent by offering benefits that align with employees expectations, and address the needs of the entire population. This enhances the employer brand and makes it more attractive to future and current employees, which is crucial in a competitive job market.

Emotional Outcome: Never Alone with Alan

We often take our health for granted. And at some point of our lives, when we’re hitting roadblocks for us or our loved ones, it suddenly feels extremely lonely. 

We’re soon spiraling, isolated, trying to navigate complex administrative systems, while juggling uncertainty and fears. 

Alan wants to provide more than support: we are a genuine partner, from prevention to extra-fast reimbursement of health care claims, and overcome together, as easily as possible, health related issues. We go the extra-mile for our members, becoming a resource for them, and obsessively creating solutions to help them face their day-to-day obstacles with a caring, tailored, personalized approach. Parents, women, sportspersons, seniors, first jobbers, LGBTQ+, foreigners: whoever you are, you’re never alone with Alan.

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Some good articles I have read this week

👉 An Interview with Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross About the Human Component of AI (Stratechery)

• Apple has been able to build incredible teams and products while not paying top dollar 

• How to learn to be patient and play “in the fourth quarter”

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👉The Startup Archive: Eric Schmidt on how to become a $100bn+ company (X)

• How can we find ways to accelerate our growth beyond just sales-led growth? What are the new ways we can sell without requiring a large salesforce (which we will always need)?

• How to re-think our growth relatively so we are not capped per sales? What would make Alan self-service at scale? Should we create new kinds of distributors (that we pay with a flat fee)? How can we leverage AI?

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👉 Physician and author Dr. Peter Attia on living better and longer

• Intrigued by how Peter Attia is going to try to monetize at scale

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👉 Shreyas Doshi on “Operational Masala” (X)

• I really like the importance of having very talented people, training people to have taste, to be creative, to take risks, and to simplify the operation processes to the maximum (as we have been doing more and more). 

• This means the focus is really on talent density and growing people with high potential. 

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👉 Smile DirectClub To Liquidate After Rescue Deal Fails (The Information)

• What to learn about their model? Especially for dental exploration? I shared about them in the past!

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👉 Dental vertical software: Drilling into trends and opportunities (OMERS Ventures)

• Very interesting deep dive about dental software, even if very North America-centred

• 100 PE-backed platforms!

• The burden of owning and managing a private practice has grown significantly over the last decade

• Good overview in the images of what are the different blocks of the software

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👉 Hôtels-Restaurants : pourquoi Klesia et Malakoff sont accusés de corruption (l'Informé)

• Une chose est sûre, la gestion paritaire du secteur s’accompagne d’un enchevêtrement étonnant des rôles entre syndicats de salariés, syndicats patronaux et instituts de prévoyance, ces organismes à but non lucratif à la gouvernance parfois floue. 

  • « Klesia et Malakoff Humanis contribuent à financer des formations ou des événements pour les organisations syndicales… mais combien, où, et vers quelle structure juridique ?, soulève Raphaël Caccia, ancien responsable CFDT de la branche. Lorsque des personnes siègent à la fois dans l’institut de prévoyance et dans un syndicat, il y a de quoi se poser des questions. »

• Avant d’être démis aux dernières élections de mars 2023, un dirigeant de l’UMIH, Thierry Grégoire, a ainsi représenté à la fois le syndicat patronal, et son prestataire Malakoff Humanis, mais aussi Klesia, dans les commissions paritaires assurant la gestion de la filière.

• Quelques mois plus tôt, 55 millions d’euros avaient été octroyés aux patrons du secteur, soit un trimestre entier de cotisation en 2020. Un beau cadeau attribué « au pire moment, c’est-à-dire lorsque personne ne savait où cette crise sanitaire allait nous conduire, contre l’avis de la majorité du collège salarial » selon la CGT de l’époque.

• Alors que le courtier Colonna s’y est opposé, la Commission a décidé d’attribuer un nouveau contrat, avec des tarifs plus élevés, à un autre prestataire, Diot-Siaci. Mais sans avoir recours à un appel d’offres européen – comme en 2010.

• Le nouveau courtier a pour directeur général un certain Alain Missoffe, ancien dirigeant de Klesia. Quelques mois après son arrivée à la tête de Diot-Siaci, il signait avec son précédent employeur le nouveau deal… Un transfert en forme de conflit d'intérêts, qui relèverait du pénal selon ses détracteurs.

• Son prédécesseur à la commission paritaire, autrefois véhément contre la gestion des instituts de prévoyance, n’a pas répondu aux questions de l’Informé. Il a depuis été nommé au conseil d’administration de Klesia. Il n’est pas le seul : Jamal Hamdaoui pour la CFE-CGC, Thierry Boukarabila pour la CGTA-FO et Didier Chastrusse pour la CFC-CGC se sont également vus offrir des postes aux conseils d’administrations de Klesia ou de Malakoff Humanis.

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Let’s talk about this together on LinkedIn or on Twitter. Have a good week!

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