David Neely (LinkedIn), Director of Technology at Transamerica, initially got into tech as a way to inject some new life into his career. Decades later, David is still in the world of technology – and has been instrumental in helping Transamerica maintain its technological edge.

On an episode of IT Visionaries, David and host Ian Faison discuss why it’s so important to avoid complacency, and what it means to be an IT leader. From always being one step ahead of the latest updates and upgrades to investigating – and then implementing – the idea of citizen developers, David has found a way to increase the bandwidth of services TransAmerica can provide while inspiring innovation and excitement among his employees.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the conversation.

Customization vs. using out-of-the-box solutions: 

When David was first getting started, everything was customized, on-premises, and built in-house from the ground up. But, with the introduction of the cloud and because of the vast amount of data constantly being collected, more out-of-the-box solutions are being adopted throughout the industry. However, even those solutions can be customized – to a certain degree – so that each business can get exactly what they need. However, there are pros and cons to that approach too.

“Even with off-the-shelf products, we would customize them to really make them really fit,” David says. “The benefit is that you get a highly-customized product, but every time you create a custom product, you’re acquiring technical debt.”

How the financial services industry has become tech forward and moved to mobile:

It’s no secret that most of us are glued to our phones. And if we can’t get our products and services through a mobile app, we’ll find a company that provides that capability. The financial services industry was not immune to that trend, so it had to adapt and become more of a mobile-friendly space.

“Mobile has moved from being something considered to being the expectation,” David says. “It’s like the air we breathe.”

Historically, tech has always moved at a slower pace in the financial services industry. With the back-end systems specifically, it can lag behind. But on the front end, where people are selling and interacting with clients, they need to have the most technologically advanced tools.

David explains that while the older generation still reaches for their paper applications, the younger generation – the ones just getting into the field – are expecting and using mobile-based tools because that’s what they’ve grown up on.

Getting buy-in on the citizen development program:

At Transamerica, citizen development plays a big role, but it was difficult to get the initial buy-in. David explains that buy-in happens from the top-down, and it was important to make the citizen development program voluntary so that people were enticed to join rather than forced. They wanted the folks who were interested in advancing their skills and passionate about developing something. Once they had interest, David and the other leaders created an app-athon, which was a contest where individuals and small teams worked to do training – and then create – an application. Those applications were presented to a panel of business and technology leaders who gave out small prizes to “winners.”

“It wasn’t about the prize, it was about the process,” David says. “The winners were all the people who participated, because they got to be a part of this process and work on technology they had never worked on before.”

By gamifying the process, it sparked interest and helped cement ideas and concepts. And the opportunity was open to everyone – from mailroom workers to C-level executives. That empowered everyone to learn new skills and have a bit more skin in the game when it came to creating something.

“It’s a win for the company because we get more bandwidth, but it’s also a win for the individual who can say, ‘I’m doing things I never thought I’d be doing when I took this job,’” David explains. “To me, that’s very compelling, because a company is a collection of people – and that ‘people’ element is key.” 

To hear this entire interview, click here.