PORTFOLIO ANALYSIS - A BASIC INSTRUMENT IN STRATEGIC PLANNING. CASE STUDY ON THE ROMANIAN INSURANCE MARKET

Practice proved that strategic planning is a necessary process for insurance companies. This process can help companies to adapt more easily to environmental changes. The strategic planning of the activity of an insurance company cannot be realized without a careful analysis of the evolution of the market and without studying the company\'s market position. A classic model used in the portfolio analysis is the Boston Consulting Group model. In this paper we have used the model for studying the activity of the leader of the Romanian insurance market. In 2009 Alliantz Tiriac had 17 types of insurance in the portfolio. Each class of insurance was considered a strategic business unit. We have studied the insurance portfolio by using secondary data from specialized publications, such as the Romanian Insurance Supervisory Commission. Using the data, we have calculated for Alliantz Tiriac, for each class of insurance, the relative market share. The company was leader on the market for five classes of insurance. The economic crisis had a severe impact on the evolution of the Romanian insurance market: from the 17 classes of insurance studied: nine had registered a decrease of the market, eight had registered an increase, but only for three of them the growth exceeded 10%. Using the relative market share and the market growth we have identified the “cash cowsâ€: there are five classes of insurance in this category, among which the “Insurance for land vehicles (CASCO)†which represented more than half of the sales (55.82%); unfortunately, in the case of this insurance type there was a very significant decrease of the market in 2010 compared to 2009: -25.12%, the “question marks†â€" there are three classes of insurance in this category, and the “dogsâ€. Due to the crisis, a large number of the company\'s products are in this category and there are no “star†products. This work was supported by CNCSIS â€" UEFISCSU, project number 915 / 2009 PNII â€" IDEI 1773/2008