Sun Life Financial, Inc; is a Canadian financial company incorporated in Montreal in 1865. It is now headquartered in Toronto. The company operates through its offices in North America & Europe. Sun Life provides financial services related to insurance, investment, and asset management (Sun Life, 2020). Their insurance division provides life insurance and health insurance. Their asset management division looks after institutional portfolios and pension funds. Its investment division looks after mutual funds, segregated funds as well as annuities products. Their principal product is life and health insurance. It has international offices in around 10 countries and a separate global division. Porter’s five forces model is a useful tool to identify threats and opportunities faced by Sun Life Financial in the insurance sector in Canada.
Competitive Rivalry in the Market
The financial industry in Canada is very competitive. It provides a little margin for error to competitors. Health and life insurance generate a large portion of Sun Life’s revenue. It has some major industry rivals in the insurance section. Those are Manulife financial, Assumption life, and RBC insurance. Around 70% percent of Canadians have life or health insurance. Which makes it perfect for business. The net profit of Manulife and Assumption life are US $ 3.73B (Fortune, 2019) and Canadian $2.2B (Assumption life, 2018) respectively. The net income of Sun life was Canadian $1.973B (Macrotrends, 2020). Sun life’s financial have an extra edge over its competitors due to its presence in other financial industries. It can provide Sun Life breathing room against their rivals. It needs to expand its financial foothold to other business domains such as property and transportation insurance.
Threat of Substitutes
Every century brings its problem and solution. The 21st century brought the internet of things with it. The rapid boom of digital technology has changed the financial sector. It is evolving in the insurance industry as well. The use of wearable devices to monitor customer health insurance. It can be used to gather a better real-time date and reducing operational costs (Cap Gemini, 2017). They need to use technology to improve their products. Even though Sun life has launched an online Ella tool (Sun Life, 2020). Which helps people with their health plans. It can be able to integrate with Amazon Alexa and Google home. People without Sun life’s plan can also use to find consultants. The threat level is low because they are integrating technology with their products. It can increase clientele and will keep its brand integrity intact.
Threat of New Entrants
The financial industries all over the world are strictly regulated to keep the economy safe. It has been looked up the regulatory authorities all over the world. Regulators define the framework for the financial sector. The new entrants must come with new products and better price solution to compete with the existing companies. The startup requires a huge amount of capital investment to enter the market. The cost of compliance and litigation set by the regulators is way too high for the startup, it acts as a major entry barrier (Deloitte, 2017). The major products in the insurance industry are pretty much the same. The new entrants must come with a new innovative product to compete with those well-established financial institutes. It makes difficult for new entrants.
Bargaining Power of Buyers
The individual buyer cannot exert any power against financial institute whereas business companies and government institutes can claim on better deals. It is because the volume of purchases of the buyer is high, there are alternative sources of supply. The individual doesn’t hold any bargaining power over the company at all, it can only get the benefit of the product.
The major portion of Sun Life clientele is life insurance and health insurance. The brokerage can provide continuous business to Sun Life. They require services on recurring bases, as they provide them fixed clientele. Which is beneficial for insurance companies in the longer run. It provides them higher buyer power. The overall bargain power of buyers is moderate.
Bargaining Power of Supplier
The bargaining power of the supplier against financial institutes is moderate. The supplier is of two types. One is the agent and brokerage firms that bring human capital and corporate clients to the insurance company. The other one is the lending institutes which provide funds in case of payment. The bigger supplier can get better deals because of bringing more clients to the institute. They can exert power if they can take their client to another financial institute. Lending institutes hold higher power because they lend loan due diligence. Sun life face some challenges in the market due to the availability of another financial institute. They need to accommodate their brokerage to sell their policies to people. Overall the bargaining power is moderate against the insurance industry.
References
Assumption Life. (2018). Annual Report. Available at: https://www.assumption.ca/getmedia/03e9a938-8178-4ac7-9ca7-78fe6374613d/Rapport-Annuel-Assomption-Vie-ANG-2018.aspx
Sun Life. (2020). About us, Driving innovation. Available at: https://www.sunlife.com/Global/About+us/ch.Who+we+are.mobilevgnextoid?vgnLocale=en_CA
Sun Life. (2020). About us, Who we are. Available at: https://www.sunlife.com/Global/About+us/Driving+innovation?vgnLocale=en_CA
Fortune. (2019). Global 500. Available at: https://fortune.com/global500/2019/manulife-financial/
Macrotrends. (2020). Sun Life, Net Income. Available at: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SLF/sun-life-financial/net-income
CapGemini. (2017). Wearable devices and their applicability in the life insurance industry. Available at: https://www.capgemini.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wearable_devices_and_their_applicability_in_the_life_insurance_industry.pdf
Deloitte. (2017). The Future of Regulatory Productivity, powered by RegTech. Available at:
https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/regulatory/articles/cost-of-compliance-regulatory-productivity.html