New Dutch insurance company Ditzo strips insurances. By cutting all redundancies, they create what they call themselves 'fat free products'. Because Ditzo could start from scratch, it is not bothered by legacy systems or existing customers' expectations. Existing companies are tied in because of the expectations of customers, who for example have always valued their relational magazine and the communication by letters, or have an image in the market that would be damaged by a 'wild', new approach. This however is the step forwards.

As the world changes, new needs develop, and other needs disappear. Jaap.nl for example fights the established order, Funda, which in itself only existed for a couple of years, but chose to work with a fixed model. Over time, these new companies will become the established order too. The challenge is to constantly keep changing, adding things, and especially also stopping other things. Earlier or later a brand has to say: we will stop the magazine, we will stop the free phone number, we will stop enforcing certain rules we made earlier: we will stop all kinds of extra services, and replace them with services that have a better fit in this time.
I personally think that stopping things could be even harder than starting new things. Customers have become loyal partly through earlier services. And even though 90% of the customers in the mean time don’t need the service any more, 10% still do. I think the solution lies in offering modular products with modular prices. Do you still wish to receive letters? Then you just pay a little extra. This way the bill will consist of components instead of a one-price-fits-all subscription.

• in Dutch