MARSH AFRICA: Bringing Order to Chaos

Since 1871, clients have relied on Marsh for its unique brand of trusted advice, as they seek to have their interests represented in the marketplace, to make sense of the increasingly complex world of today, and, perhaps most crucially, to help them turn the risks they face into new opportunities for growth.

In today’s increasingly uncertain global business environment, Marsh is on hand to help clients to thrive by enabling them to anticipate, quantify and more fully understand the range of risks they face. On offer are the full spectrum of services, spanning risk management, risk consulting, insurance broking, alternative risk financing and insurance programme management.

“Our more than 35,000 colleagues work on behalf of our clients,” Marsh elaborates, “who are enterprises of all sizes in every industry, and include businesses, government entities, multinational organisations, and individuals around the world.” Marsh has some 40 local offices across the Middle East and Africa, from which it leads the industry through its highly valued insight and advice which have benefitted many of the region’s leading companies, family businesses, international organisations and government/private institutions.

“Together, we are creating a benchmark of excellence in the risk and insurance industry by harnessing our global and domestic expertise drawing from over 40 years of experience and insight from our continuously expanding operations in the Middle East and Africa,” Marsh sums up.

COMBINED EXPERTISE

Marsh is a wholly owned subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies (MMC), the leading global professional services firm in the areas of risk, strategy and people that brings together the unique capabilities of Marsh, Guy Carpenter, Mercer and the Oliver Wyman Group, and the association equates to the combined expertise of some 75,000 people worldwide, and annual revenue exceeding $15 billion.

“The MMC Advantage is our unique approach to harnessing the collective strength of our businesses to deliver the full value of Marsh & McLennan to clients,” Marsh explains. “We empower our colleagues to collaborate across businesses and borders to help organisations navigate their greatest risk, strategy and people challenges and seize new opportunities.

“We work with clients of all sizes to define, design, and deliver innovative solutions to better quantify and manage risk,” continues Marsh of its core activity. “To every client interaction we bring a powerful combination of deep intellectual capital, industry specific expertise, global experience, and collaboration.”

This word collaboration comes up time and again when examining the root of Marsh’s success, and bleeds right through the whole organisation. “Our greatest assets in our business,” summed up Marsh Africa CEO Jurie Erwee in conversation with leadershiponline.co.za, “are our client relationships, which have been built around our clients’ needs.” Marsh SA’s CEO, Spiros Fatouros, meanwhile, underlined the importance of expertise in building up the necessary trust to allow Marsh to dominate the industry.

“Marsh’s global footprint has taken over 25 years to build and allows us to service clients locally around the globe,” he stated. “People don’t often care if you’re the biggest, it’s always about the service you provide. The real benefit of working with Marsh is the tailored local delivery that is leveraged off a global network of experts.”

Jurie Erwee explained how the combination of innovation, collaboration and forward, global thinking will people Marsh forth in its next phase. “The spirit of innovation is firmly entrenched in our DNA. Marsh has pioneered a great number of concepts including the birth of insurance broking in the 19th century. Africa offers a lot of promise long term and we are here to continue to invest. We will see a return on those investments as long as we continue to work through the challenges we face as a country and business collectively.”

POLITICAL RISK

Insurance is an organic business, and one of Marsh’s most important attributes is the ability to identify and adapt to the types of risk likely to become increasingly prevalent. When we took a look at Marsh last year, it was the findings from a report by TheCityUK and Marsh which pointed to cybercrime as the number one risk for financial and related professional services firms.

Marcus Scott, Chief Operating Officer of TheCityUK, explained that, “cyber security is now a major risk demanding board-level oversight as companies find themselves under siege from cyber-attacks. In fact, for many of our members it may well be the biggest single risk. It’s essential for all boards to have robust governance systems in place to manage these risks.”

The passing of another year has brought with it a new focus, however, and rising geopolitical tensions and protectionist sentiments, coupled with ongoing trade disputes, are leading to increased uncertainty and risk for multinationals with direct foreign investments, Marsh finds.

Based on data from Fitch Solutions, a leading source of independent political, macroeconomic, financial, and industry risk analysis, Marsh’s Political Risk Map 2019 rates more than 200 countries and territories on the basis of short- and long-term political, economic and operational stability and gives insight into where risks are most likely to emerge.

Some of the key findings include the possibility of escalating trade tariffs and geopolitical disputes between the US and China, increasing the risk of further Chinese retaliation and US counterretaliation. Export heavy economies, like Germany, are likely to be impacted, while the UK’s negotiations to exit the European Union continue to loom large over the political risk landscape. 

Encouragingly, the African region once again saw some of the biggest improvements in political risk, but also some of the most notable deteriorations. South Africa, Mozambique, and South Sudan all fared better, while uncertainty around elections and deteriorating economic and humanitarian conditions are causing concern in Zambia, Mali, Algeria, Tunisia, Cameroon, and the Central African Republic.

“Businesses with direct foreign investments are facing an unprecedented breadth of challenges today from emerging economies to so-called developed economies,” said Evan Freely, Global Practice Leader, Credit Specialties, Marsh. “In uncertain times, vigilance and broad, systemic risk analysis coupled with political and trade credit insurance, will be vital to minimising these threats.”