The sales force as an information transfer mechanism for new service development in the Thai insurance industry

New service development (NSD) is becoming increasingly important as the insurance industry in many countries opens up and becomes more competitive. This paper examines how customer views are integrated into the NSD process in the Thai insurance industry. The qualitative research was conducted using in-depth interviews with top officers, sales managers, senior vice-presidents of marketing and actuary managers in a number of leading life insurance and non-life insurance companies. The interviews investigated how NSD works in the Thai industry, focusing on how customer views enter the process. The results showed that the NSD process in Thailand is not oriented towards developing truly innovative products, but there is much NSD for adaptation of products from other markets. Sales agents act as a main information transfer mechanism, bringing in customer views through the sales managers, who play a role in NSD. Lack of cross-functional teamwork can cause failure in developing new products and services.