Designing IT game plans for State Farm

When Mark Becicka joined State Farm as a systems analyst in the late 1990s, he was just a few years out of college, but his passion for building high performing teams had already been established. Becicka, a graduate of Illinois State University and a player on the Redbirds’ Division I football squad, carried his drive for team success into State Farm’s Information Technology (IT) department. The leadership skills he learned on the field continued to emerge as he reached an executive-level role for the nation’s largest automobile insurer. Today, Becicka is operating as an assistant vice president and senior IT architect, a responsibility he shares with just three others in the IT department at State Farm. In that capacity, Becicka reports to the chief IT architect and is responsible for setting architectural and technical direction for multiple areas as well as managing a team of leaders who make the vision a reality. “I strive to provide the coaching and guidance to help teams be successful,” says Becicka. “For example, we may be introducing a cloud-based virtualized infrastructure. I would work with multiple leaders to help share the vision and expectations, but more importantly, support them by coaching, mentoring, and guiding to help their teams be successful.”

State Farm is in the midst of establishing a hub in the Phoenix area adjacent to the Arizona State University campus to complement its headquarters in Bloomington, Ill. and large-scale operations in Atlanta and Dallas, respectively. According to Becicka, who serves on the Department of Information Systems’ Executive Advisory Board, being near a university with nationally recognized IT degree programs is critical to future growth and development. “We believe our relationship with ASU contributes to the student experience and provides employment opportunities that are broad, deep and challenging for these well-prepared graduates,” says Becicka. “Participating on the IT department’s advisory council enables me to interact with students, learn about their needs and share our expectations. We are part of developing a next-generation workforce, which is a great opportunity for all of us.”

More offices than McDonald’s

Becicka, who also spent 15 years on the sidelines as a high school varsity football coach, enlists input from internal and external audiences when executing the game plan. Like any good coach, he uses the ideas he solicits from multiple channels and levels of the State Farm organization to ensure the solutions the teams develop are ones that deliver an outstanding experience, be it for State Farm’s massive agent network, one of its call centers, or an individual consumer. “State Farm has more agent offices than McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Walmart stores.  Over 80 million policies are in force,” comments Becicka. “With that kind of scale and responsibility, the IT applications we design and deliver have substantial impact, so everyone’s input counts.” As a leader in insurance and financial services, State Farm is also innovating how those products and services are delivered by optimizing IT to make the business faster and better. And IT architecture supports the structure upon which the company operates, similar to the foundation and framing designed by a residential architect to create a livable home.

Explains Becicka, “With IT architecture, we interface with many internal groups, such as user experience data and customer insights for opportunities in the mobile space, as an example. Then we collaborate on a solution that demonstrates to our customers our capacity to deliver on promises, exceed expectations and create a differentiated experience." As recently as a few decades ago, IT architecture was not as integral to State Farm’s business success – or any other company’s, for that matter – as it is today. When Becicka started his career, IT solutions were more likely to be compartmentalized. “Early in my career, I might have an assignment asking me to create a tool to get something from one business group to another faster,” remembers Becicka. “Today, I’m hard pressed to find an example of any business activity not being impacted by IT. Whether it’s to disrupt, innovate or automate, IT affects the operations, the customer experience and the brand.”

Integrating IT throughout the firm

Becicka believes the blending and integration of IT into all aspects of business operations will continue in every industry. As that occurs, scale and complexity will increase commensurately. A major challenge for the IT architecture community will be to break down those complexities and simplify them for the customer. “Technology creates more options to achieve business outcomes than ever before, but you have to drill down into multiple options to assemble solutions,” says Becicka. “Technology is supposed to breed efficiency, but if you present solutions that are not integrated, seamless, and simple to use, you have missed the mark.”

Understanding how IT trends fit into State Farm’s business model is a priority. Optimizing these trends, however, first requires recognizing that customer satisfaction with technology is built not just on availability or implementation of said technology, but on looking at the overall capability that technology can provide. “Trends in IT are constantly informing our architecture,” Becicka says. “Mobile technology and helping our business understand and maximize its capabilities for customer benefit is one. How we leverage ‘big data’ to garner analytical and objective insights about our customers’ needs is another. A third is paying close attention to social media and how we can garner customer insights to integrate feedback into our decision-making. And we can’t forget the cost savings potential and advanced innovation that cloud technology offers.”

Embrace change

In order to maximize all this trend-setting potential, the IT architects of today must prepare for and encourage their teams to embrace change. IT coaches like Becicka need to motivate their teams to think beyond current solutions to those that will advance innovation, and then find creative ways to simplify and express those solutions to customers. Concurrently, Becicka and his colleagues need to continue to expand State Farm’s capacity to manage risk in every situation. “Our goal is to provide customer solutions that generate the least amount of friction,” Becicka says. “Can we help you call a tow truck in just one or two touches on your smartphone? And does that efficiency still protect your personal information and manage risks effectively? That’s how we create success.”

Because IT is changing so quickly, education is valued more than ever before. In the days when IT was more project-driven, being an expert in certain areas – an adept programmer or an individual trained to manage a specific database or develop in a language – was considered optimal. Becicka admits he was adept at programming applications when he first joined State Farm, but he had to evolve to focus more on capabilities. Further, he believes individuals who are inspired by education to be continuous learners and seekers of knowledge are often the most sought-after candidates for IT positions in today’s dynamic environment. “In IT, the velocity of change is so high and continuous, it will challenge our capacity to leverage the benefits of IT itself,” says Becicka. “Workers who are flexible in their learning style, eager to take initiative and willing to be coached are the team members we seek.”