A Startup Embarks Digital transformation Journey

For onlookers, Digital Transformation is as easy as implementing a process, cloud migration, automating most of the cumbersome manual work, lightweight data platform to enable ML and AI, or building a custom web or mobile application. Stepping into the arena of digital transformation demands pretty decent groundwork to address the unprecedented. Having a "go-getter mindset" has been the primary driving force for Flycatch to choose the road of the digital transformation journey.

Fundamentally, digital transformation is a package of shifting all aspects revolving around the business, ranging from the processes, structures, and operations to the existing or legacy technologies. From the business point of view, this shift involves high risks, as the internal changes should not lead to a trade-off in the values delivered to the customer.

Here I am sharing the first journey of Flycatch being a digital transformation partner for an insurance broker company that turned Flycatch from a mere software service provider to a "Value Engineering" partner.

Indeed, the initial preparation involves attending a lot of sessions and conducting proper awareness programs to enable and equip the managers and team leads to steer the ship to not hit the iceberg.

Remarkable advice from the veterans helped our team zero in on the failures marked by organizations in the past, and we prepared solutions for the mistakes others registered in the past.

Among the advice and readings from credible resources, we educate the entire team to be aware of the below:

• Technology adoption is always secondary; the crux part is transforming the "hearts and minds."
• The shift entails a concrete strategy of educating intentional resistance and subtle wisdom towards transformation. In turn, the long array of whys and hows are quite usual and expected.
• The past experience of many organizations in this front struggles to articulate their aspired agile culture and make it happen in real life. So cultivating an agile culture is pivotal in the process.

Stage 1: Understand the status quo

Below are some of the highlights of what Flycatch assessed for "Status Quo" understanding:

• Learn the business processes.
• Know the IT systems that support the businesses and manual processes.
• Process of business stakeholders' inter-communication.
• Operation and infra management.
• External dependencies and integration.
• Cybersecurity and data protection.
• Data management and reporting.
• Data support systems and reporting.
• Processes, project management, and documentation.

A lot of questions framed with "How" were asked. A lot of propositions were suggested with a lot of "Why not this?" Both these correlated questions and propositions, when mixed right, helped us understand the mindset of the client.

Targeted outcome: To understand and assess the right "Bending Angle" of change which can be injected into the processes and technologies.

Stage 2: Discuss the future business plans

This was a pivotal stage for Flycatch to collect as much information about the future business plans, executions, and how the envisioned IT system aligned with these plans.

Having the old ones from Stage 1 and future plans in Stage 2 provided us with a clear vision of how the digital road should be constructed. However, the challenges were to convince the client on aspects such as cost-benefit analysis, the need for them to change so that the massive envisioned change for the future could be managed well, and how prepared they should be for the change, etc. Digital transformation is not merely an IT landscape change; rather, it is a Cultural shift.

Stage 3: Stakeholder communication and creating enthusiasm for a most awaited change

Flycatch is well aware that Digital Transformation is not a technical landscape change, nor merely an IT tool change. The success of it relies on the hands of the people making decisions, running day-to-day operations, supporting staff, and above all, hearing business entities and clients' comments as "far better than before." We started from the top management, spending more time with them, and advised them to inculcate this "change should happen" mindset to each department so that by the end of the road, the changes are received as a "Most awaited Event." No better reception can happen for such a massive organizational facelift.

Stage 4: Requirement Gathering & Planning (Silent ignitor for change)

Flycatch's initial assignment was to build a new system for the core insurance brokerage business. Being aware of the "somehow get it done" nature of the client, Flycatch took an easy and eco-friendly approach of "No Explicit..No Jargon" policy on the ground, as we had already assessed the "bending angle" of the client and their readiness for change. Flycatch introduced Confluence to the client as "just a tool" to manage their documentation. We started as a POC and documented all the requirements in Confluence, publishing changes daily, and finally submitting them for the client's review.

Our proposal was to use another "interface" of Atlassian to link, plan, and execute the project. Jira was introduced dramatically, and requirements were converted to granular components, naming them backlogs tied back to the requirements in Confluence. It was a new experience for the client, who became enthusiastic about Agile. Now, we had a beautiful, realistic sprint plan ready.

Stage 5: Integrations and inter-system communication

The client has a complex array of systems running in silos, where Stage 1 & 2 consultations gave us a good understanding of the underlying facts. Flycatch tailored a robust middle communication layer with a futuristic outlook for the platform. The team architected a highly secured, seamless, integratable, and manageable microservice-based platform.

Being an insurance broker, the platform had a multitude of external touchpoints, and Flycatch defined a unique interface design, consistent interface definition, robust SSO, and unique login protocols to enable seamless integration and component reuse.

Stage 6: Automated Infra management and lightweight DevOps

Infrastructure management and operations were lagging areas in the process. Flycatch proposed a "Cloud First" strategy and an "Infra As a Code" mechanism. The first terraform and Ansible script won the stakeholders' hearts. Slowly, DevOps became the norm rather than an innovation.

Step 7: Concerns about Continuous Deployment and Quality Assurance

The continuous deployment process was proposed using Jenkins. Flycatch demonstrated how GitHub integration, lint rules, and code authorization features work, which eased client concerns. The deployment was automated and quality-assured with approval mechanisms in place.

Final Leg of the Transformation Marathon:

After 8 months of close engagement, the client saw the "Agility" in application development, faster deployment, quick infra provisioning, automated testing, lint rules for standardization, and end-to-end documentation. Flycatch is now steering the client towards AI/ML adoption to bring a competitive edge, aiming to establish them as the "First Digital Insurance Broker" in the region.