Next year is the fortieth anniversary of when Lloyd’s decided to make a dramatic, concrete and steel statement about its past and future.
1978 was the year work started on Richard Rogers’ Lloyd’s Building. This striking building encased iconic elements of the old market, like the Lutine Bell and the Committee Room, within brash post-modern architecture that literally turned the building inside out and broke with contemporary and historic building styles.
Despite how the building screamed bold change, Lloyd’s and the London Market have remained bound to tradition and been cautious, if not conservative, even after the building opened in 1986. While the Lloyd’s Building pioneered architectural firsts for London, like external elevators, Lloyd’s the institution, and the wider London Market, have been slow to embrace how technology could transform and enhance their business.
There are reasons for this. Tradition is a factor. Why change a process if it works and has worked well for years, if not hundreds of years? An even bigger obstacle is how the complexity of the market - and specifically how any change needs to be agreed amongst so many, often competing, stakeholders – means a slow adoption of any change, even when it seems so obvious.
To learn more about how Lloyds and the London Market are embracing technology as a transformative force, please read my Finextra article.