Small semantics change, Big responsibility change

Transforming our company begins with transforming ourselves

For decades, the Information Technology (IT) organization has been charged with implementing and running the technology which enables businesses to operate. The role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) has been to lead this organization by ensuring on time delivery, reliable performance and availability at competitive costs. Some might say it has been a back-office function charged with installing and keeping on the lights. While the role of IT in the success of the insurance and financial services industries has been undeniable, in the digital age where technology is the product, the role of the team and its leadership is changing.

A small semantics modification denotes a large responsibility change

As we move into the digital age, the role of technology in financial services is to not only install and keep the lights running, it's to invent a new light.  It’s no longer enough to buy and implement an enterprise application that streamlines the accounting processes. Technology’s role in our industry is to be the chief engineer that builds new technologies, applies emerging technologies, and designs products and services that that better protect our customer.

Nationwide is a protection company that sells promises. In the past, that promise was delivered on a piece of paper. Today, our product is still a promise, but it’s delivered digitally. In the same way an engineering leader in an industrial company works side by side with product owners to develop the next great machine, our technology leaders work with product owners to design the next great protection service. Edge computing, wearables, IoT, robotics, quantum computing, and countless other technologies will define the future of the products and services we use to protect today and tomorrow for our customers.

Recently, we made the decision at Nationwide to no longer be called “Nationwide IT” but simply “Nationwide Technology.” It connects our work as an information technology organization and a digital organization. It means we no longer look for ways to simply support but create blueprints that enable our business strategy. We create technology platforms that provide seamless, multi-channel experiences for our customers, end to end digitized and automated processes, speed to market enabled by plug and play technologies, and insight from high quality enterprise data. Architected well, our digital platforms are a competitive advantage. Designed poorly, they become an inhibitor to our business strategy.

We’re adopting this mindset and bringing it to life as we shift from calling our leaders CIOs to calling them Chief Technology Officers (CTO). CTOs exist in software companies as the owner of the product. A CTO and their team must create technology strategies for digital platforms on which business objectives can be met. They start every conversation with an outside-in perspective with the focus firmly on the experience of their customers. CTO’s guide their business partners through the activation of a digital transformation strategy that solves for problems our customers face. Where they once were project leaders, they are now product leaders.

To design the blueprint and guide the evolution of our digital platforms, we have established Chief Architects. These senior leaders design the blueprint for the technology that will deliver our products and services. To do this, they guide our adoption and integration of emerging technologies that better solve analog problems. As we move toward a digital-first mindset, our CTOs define the technology strategy for our products while our Chief Architects design the ever-evolving foundation upon which our digital products will be built.

 Putting the customer at the center of all you do

I’ve led Nationwide’s technology organization for nearly two years. In that time, every conversation I’ve had, whether it’s with members of our board, business partners, my leadership team, or associates on our front lines, meeting the needs of our customers has been our primary goal. Creating a customer experience to meet them where they are and how they want to interact with our company is at the heart of our mission as a protection company who provides extraordinary care.

How we do that begins with technology. Creating products that are mobile, self-service and personalized; becoming less reliant on monolithic platforms and infrastructure that can take months to change; empowering our associates to make quick decisions and execute on them – these all must be true and finely-tuned to be a truly customer-centric company.

We’re living in a digital world, and technology is at the heart of every insurance policy, retirement plan, and protection product we sell. Transforming into a digital company begins with transforming ourselves and that starts with a deceptively simple change, our name. While it may seem like a battle of semantics, this shift firmly places our focus on what is important for our future.