Digitalization process of MITCO – Interview of our Head of IT, Business Process and Project Management
What is the latest IT- related developments made by MITCO?
I would say, since the last 2 years, under Management initiatives, MITCO has embarked on a digital transformation that helps the company adapt to the changing market forces. This digital transformation has required MITCO to examine and reinvent most, if not all of its Business areas.
For instance, MITCO has recently invested in a dedicated industry leading Line of Business (Lob) application and went through an intensive exercise carried out with the help of all staff members to ensure that data that is migrated to our new system is clean and relevant. Furthermore, MITCO adopted the Cloud, which makes our core application more accessible, whenever and wherever required, yet in a controlled and secure manner.
We have not too far back implemented a single, integrated and collaborative platform. We are prone to simplify access to information, encouraging communication among our staff, get them connected. We have launched our Intranet that drives collaboration between various departments within organization. We aim at a paperless office.
We believe the weakest link against cyber threats remains a broken link in the human firewall, and as such we conduct security awareness trainings with our staff. Massive infrastructure alone, in itself is not sufficient against cyber-attacks. That does not mean we should rest on our laurels. We have enforced security measures against potential phishers or hackers, using appropriate technology and we continue to further invest in ensuring our IT systems remain agile but secure.
Why has MITCO taken this stand and made these developments?
We want to boost staff productivity. Like any organization which has embarked on a digital journey, we want and expect a higher output from our staff, with the same effort. We want our staff to work smart and that documents are easily accessible from a central repository. We also want to cut down counter-productive search time for information.
Next is Operational Efficiency. We want our operations to be secure, compliant to standards. As an example, compliant to GDPR. By injecting the right technology, we ensure that the processes put in place are working as intended and adhere strictly to these standards.
How are our clients to benefit from these developments?
Well, ultimately, we want our clients, when dealing with us, to experience a pleasant and delightful; experience, rather than one causing frustration. We want our staff to readily answer to any query from our clients, with up-to-date information readily at hand. This is also a reason why we took the time and pain to clean our data prior to migration to the new software.
What more is expected to come in this sphere?
Tremendous progress has been made in the last 2 years. Digital transformation is not an end in itself process but rather a dynamic one. It is a continuous journey. MITCO needs to continue to innovate and work hard to make the transformation a true success, in the 3 verticals, I mentioned earlier: - Customer Experience, Staff Productivity and Operational Efficiency. Everyone must be willing to leave behind outdated, ineffective processes and replace them with better ones. This is a culture change that we will have to face, whether we like it or not; it is an organizational change staring at us. Let me say that IT is an enabler in this change, everybody in the organization should feel concerned.
We intend to adopt the Kaizen principles in the office. We need to shift focus from the employees to processes and continuously improve these processes.
Another aspect, and an important one. With digital transformation comes additional responsibility to ensure right checks and balances, to ensure systems are secured and designed to meet the growing challenges of modern cyber threats. We have ensured that the digital transformation future-proof our organization and at the same time we are ready to identify and deter modern threat attacks, for the benefits of our clients, stakeholders and staff.
Having said so, let me add, before we conclude, that we take security very seriously at MITCO. We look forward to become a certified organization in Information Security.