Insuretech GCC Zinnia Bets Big on India for Tech Talent, Innovation Zinnia is a product and technology organisation that is focussed on simplifying insurance. India is home to more than half of its total workforce of about 3,000.
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Zinnia India, the global capability center (GCC) of American insuretech player Zinnia, is betting big on India to capitalize on the country's technology talent and drive innovation from here for the world.
Zinnia is a product and technology organisation that is focussed on simplifying insurance. "One of the challenges historically in insurance is monolithic platforms that are not easy to use, not easy to mine data or update and change. So, we have built a new system of record using blockchain that will allow us to transfer risk easily between parties. Then we have built capabilities on top that doesn't require you to change monolithic platforms but just connect your existing platforms and provide state-of-the-art UI/UX capabilities," Josh Everett, CEO, Zinnia India told Entrepreneur India.
Zinnia in India has about 1,600 employees, more than half of its total workforce of about 3,000. It plans to hire hundreds in the next few months as it ramps up operations in the country.
It has centers in nine locations in India – Gurugram, Noida, Chennai, Coimbatore, Nagpur, Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and most recently Bengaluru.
Zinnia is one of the few GCCs in India that have expanded to tier-II cities as part of its strategy to tap into the available talent pool and reduce costs. "Let's leverage the talent where it exists," Everett said.
"Currently we have 20 team members who are based out of our Bengaluru office. Most of the team members are from Engineering stream and few others are Quality Analysts and Quality Engineers. Our CTO Pawan Chaudhary and Talent Acquisition Head India are also two key team members who are based out of Bengaluru location," said Everett. "We are looking to hire the best talent here. We are looking for engineers who can help with our system of records, top UI/UX engineers, automation experts etc."
In terms of client base, 95 per cent of Zinnia's clients are based in North America and Canada and India is currently a small portion but growing. "In April this year, we acquired few products from Ebix through which we acquired five customers from India," Everett said.
A lot of Zinnia's global functions are driven out of India, a trend seen across many other GCCs in India. "We lead functions out of India. The most recent one we are leading out of India is called Global Operations, the back office processes for insurance carriers. We are leading innovation for the insurance industry out of India," he said.
