To prepare for conflict in an era of Strategic Competition, we must modernize, innovate and communicate without barriers while shedding legacy constraints, technologies and processes. Our business strategy is simple – enable warfighting readiness.
Maximize access. To meet the mandate to mobilize our Reserve Force in 30 days, we will leverage the computing power that we carry in our pockets. We will tailor our applications to favor mobile access, pursue alternate forms of two-factor authentication and minimize reliance on the physical CAC. Concurrently, we will leverage cloud-based services wherever possible – our success demands distributed access. Finally, we will invest in technologies that offer flexible and diverse means of connectivity.
Posture data to inform decision-making. We are familiar with descriptive analytics – what happened. Our success will come most rapidly with prescriptive analytics – what will happen. We must work toward prolific, real-time data connections that allow for advanced data analytics to inform our most effective and efficient decision-making processes. Freeing data from legacy stores to incorporate into everyday process will be the norm.
Modernize and standardize business processes – automate where feasible. Updated IT (hardware & software) brings an exciting array of new tools. The legacy model of solving process challenges at the NRA level will evolve to a model of solutions at the enterprise level. We will review and validate our business processes while canvassing for those ripe for standardization and automation. To facilitate this, we will capitalize on ‘citizen developers’ amongst us, a community of interest comprised of Navy Reserve Sailors with experience and interest in this field.
Focus on the workforce. We are in fierce competition for technical talent; we must ensure our IT Sailors are assigned to the jobs where they can make the greatest positive impact. Further, we must train them to be the most effective versions of themselves: we will review our training programs to include courses and certification for those skills which will enable our success in automation and data science but not yet covered by formal Navy courses of instruction.
There is no time to lose. We must innovate, modernize, and communicate. We will succeed.