Rounding up perspectives on earlier topics addressed during the ConnectGov Leaders Summit held in Edinburgh, Scotland last July, 3 panellists from AIG, International SOS and MyRepublic were invited to reflect on their respective organisation’s transformation experiences.

Key Takeaways

• On the approach to data strategy, one of the panellists outlined the difference between defensive and offensive strategies – a defensive stance being inward-looking as when a market regulator necessitates certain non-negotiable security measures to be in place. In contrast, an offensive strategy speaks to a stance on market positioning, business expansion, priorities in supporting partners given limited resources, and how business practices can align to work with internal and external partners.

• Another panellists shared that the nature of his organisation’s activities and how the need for resource elasticity has to be reflected in their data infrastructure. He cited the use of hybrid clouds given the organisations’ presence and operations in remote locations and countries with local and potentially confusing regulations on what can be stored locally or not. In terms of data transformation perspective, cloud infrastructure is key, as it allowed them to move towards a true DevOps mentality.

• One panellist stressed the importance of building internal engineering capabilities for the organisation. This came about due to a lack of choice but has become a core pillar of strength that supports the company’s ability to develop and support core technologies. It is also the foundation of their data strategy, enabling them to define schemas for databases and relate data elements in the ecosystem with different modules.