My visit to ERGO Digital IT in Berlin

Mark Klein, Chief Digital Officer at ERGO, reports in his blog on his meeting with ERGO Digital IT colleagues in Berlin. The employees are using new working methods to drive forward the digital transformation of ERGO, by focussing on clients and closely linking the IT department to other departments.

Last week I met employees from our recently founded ERGO Digital IT department in Berlin. The offices are located in Berlin in what is known as a co-working space that we have leased. It is home to many start-ups, as well as many established companies that want to become digitally stronger. At ERGO, we are therefore in good company. There are many smaller offices for two or three people on the right and left of the corridors we run along. We also pass a number of meeting areas into which colleagues have retired to discuss specific issues. Experts’ and start up presentations are held weekly in a larger space. A perfect place to network!

Jointly developing persuasive solutions

There is room for around 30 employees in the space that we have leased for ERGO. They are working, among other things, on a portal for commercial customers, an automatic risk assessment system for industry and commerce and a customer relationship management platform. Team work is called for: product managers, software developers and designers who aim for the best possible user experience all work together on persuasive solutions. The teams are international: colleagues come from Poland, Great Britain, the USA, India and Germany.

The way of working is also quite striking: the software is tested in a fully automated manner and is integrated directly into so-called live systems – ERGO clients can therefore use them immediately. The software is continuously further developed based on the experience we gather. Software provided in the cloud helps us to quickly and simply assign tasks within the team. The software also makes it possible to cooperate closely with departments located at other sites.

Customer focus

However, what strikes you more than anything else is the strong focus on internal and external clients: even before the first lines of code have been written for the business portal, we have asked ERGO clients to find out what their expectations are of a portal such as this. Feedback from clients is also important when the first version of the portal is up and running: our developers obtain direct client feedback via the chat option incorporated in the portal. That way, we can test ideas with our clients that we have developed with colleagues from the other departments. Clients therefore form an important part of the product development process.

Thanks to this new way of working, ERGO Digital IT is driving forward ERGO’s digital transformation – by bringing IT and the other departments much closer together, and by putting the client where he belongs at ERGO: right in the spotlight. From next year, we hope to win other internal employees in Berlin and Warsaw for ERGO Digital IT to drive forward this change.

I look forward to your comments, questions or suggestions.
Regards, Mark Klein