NewsIntact Insurance CIO: 'We Don't Have to Rely on a Vendor' - The Case for Building
CIO News published an interview with Rory Meleniclis, CIO of Global Specialty Lines at Intact Insurance, on how IT organizations can move beyond responsive ticket takers and become strategic partners capable of translating business needs into technology solutions. The interview framed a broader debate emerging in enterprise technology: the choice between buying platform solutions from established vendors and building purpose-specific systems engineered for the organization's actual requirements.
Meleniclis's position - that Intact does not have to rely on a vendor - reflects a growing recognition among enterprise technology leaders that the off-the-shelf solution designed for the average enterprise is not the same thing as the purpose-built system designed for their specific operation. The former is faster to deploy. The latter is what actually changes the operation.
The parallel finding from 7-Eleven's GM of AI, Analytics and Strategy, published in the same week: AI should be measured by the return it creates, not the capability it represents - and knowing when data is not the answer is as important as knowing when it is.
Why it matters
The build vs. buy conversation in enterprise AI is shifting. The organizations getting real returns from AI are increasingly the ones that recognized when a vendor's general-purpose solution was not going to solve their specific problem - and built what was actually necessary instead.
