Chief Information Officer Tom Anfuso has been in the press a couple of times recently giving the public some insight into our forward-thinking IT philosophy.
This week he was among a handful of technology leaders asked by CIO.com to share their perspective on vendor success.
Tom’s message was simple: Culture is vitally important to National Life and the vendors that we decide to hire.
“If a strong culture isn’t at the front and center of their thinking, ask yourself why, and to what effect for customers like you?” he wrote.
He also gave a big shoutout to the values and mission that are central to what we do at National Life.
“We certainly don’t just throw this culture out the window when it comes to our suppliers,” he wrote. “We provide and expect a level of transparency, ethics, responsiveness and straight-talk that is probably unusual for our tech suppliers.”
Earlier, ComputerWorld came calling for a story about how companies are exploring the use of “smart speakers” such as Alexa in the office.
And guess what? We have experimented with Alexa.
“We will likely continue working with Alexa in the context of our innovation R&D program this year,” Tom said. There are no plans to roll out Alexas all over our Vermont or Texas companies, but Tom says National Life is “generally bullish on the growing Alexa ecosystem.”