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Skip Navigation Linksunderstanding-our-strategy Understanding our strategy

Understanding our strategy

Sanlam’s strategy has remained largely unchanged since 2003. Our strategic intent of sustainable value creation for all key stakeholders remains firmly in place and is executed through four strategic pillars.

Our purpose

Our purpose is to build a world of Wealthsmiths™, supporting people in living their best possible lives through financial resilience and prosperity at individual, organisational and societal levels.

Our vision

Our vision is to:

  • Lead in client-centric wealth creation, management and protection in South Africa;
  • Be a leading Pan-African financial services group with a meaningful presence in India and Malaysia; and
  • Play a niche role in wealth and investment management in specific developed markets.

Our strategic intent

Our strategic intent is to create sustainable value for all stakeholders.

Our strategic pillars

Sanlam’s vision and strategic intent is pursued through a strategy focused on four pillars:

  • Profitable top-line growth through a culture of client-centricity
  • Enhancing Sanlam’s resilience and earnings growth through diversification
  • Extracting value through innovation and improved efficiencies
  • Responsible capital allocation and management

Continuous transformation is central to Sanlam’s ability to adapt to a changing world and underpins all of the strategic pillars

In South Africa, our strategy is about retaining our leadership position in financial services and putting distance between us and our competitors.

Outside South Africa, our strategy is about deepening our existing relationships and product ranges to become a leading player in our targeted territories and accelerate organic growth.

Our key opportunity

As an emerging market player, we are positioned to meet the growing demands that follow when demographic profiles change due to economic growth, urbanisation, young people entering the formal economy, and aspirational lifestyles developing. This change expands market segments and increases wealth – with the concomitant demand for financial advice, planning, investment management and protection. As we meet these demands through our products and services, we expand our client base, thereby contributing to higher levels of collective financial resilience and prosperity in society. We have a unique footprint, spanning countries with high economic growth potential and low financial services penetration – a leveraged opportunity for growth at Sanlam.

Our three stakeholder groups

Our three stakeholder groups encapsulate our material stakeholders, being: shareholders, clients, employees, advisers, independent distribution partners, regulators and the broader society in which Sanlam operates.

Financial resilience and prosperity – our primary qualitative performance measures

The intended outcome of Sanlam’s stakeholder value creation is to create financially resilient and prosperous individuals, organisations and societies. Resilience is the capacity of a system – be it an individual, organisation or an economy – to deal with change and continue to develop, and its ability to use shocks and disturbances, such as a financial crisis or climate change, to spur renewal and innovative thinking. Resilience thinking at Sanlam is about generating increased knowledge about how we can strengthen the financial resilience and prosperity of individuals, organisations and society to the mutual benefit of all our material stakeholders.

RoGEV – our primary quantitative performance measure

Our primary performance target for measuring shareholder value creation is Return on Group Equity Value (RoGEV), which measures the outcome of a combination of value drivers. These value drivers are directly related to our material stakeholders, and the optimisation of RoGEV is therefore reflective of optimal value creation for all stakeholders. This makes RoGEV a robust composite value measure for a diversified group such as Sanlam.

RoGEV measured against a minimum performance hurdle is our primary quantitative performance benchmark in evaluating the success of our strategy to maximise shareholder value. Group Equity Value (GEV) provides an indication of the value of Sanlam’s operations. It includes: the value of Sanlam’s in-force book of life insurance business, the value of non-life operations based on longer term assumptions and the fair value of discretionary and other capital not allocated to our operations. GEV does not allow for future new life insurance business, only new business written within a particular year contribute to RoGEV.

Sanlam Life Insurance is a licensed financial service provider.
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