Legacy processes at some companies are slowing their pace of innovation, says the leader of one of Bermuda’s pioneering tech outfits.

Sandra DeSilva is the founder, chief executive officer and chief software architect of Nova, a Bermudian-based software engineering company founded in 2006 that specialises in serving the insurance, reinsurance, and financial services markets.

She sat on the panel “Technological Innovations in Finance — Low Hanging Fruit and Long-Tail Innovation” yesterday at Tech Beach Retreat, part of Bermuda Tech Week.

Ms DeSilva told the audience: “Some companies need to have new technology and an innovative way of doing things, but they can’t adopt them because they can’t get there.

“What is hampering them from adopting it is their paper, their legacy processes. Some clean-up needs to happen, but it can be done, they just need some momentum to do that.”

Afterwards, she said: “It happens time and time again. Those companies need to revolutionise and adapt to a new way of working.

“The companies that we work with are able to connect with new innovations because we built the system for them. Our own clients are in good positions, but other entities have a long way to go.

“Those companies need to have a strategy around what to do about it or face the risk that being disrupted is a possibility.”

Ms DeSilva said there are a range of technological tools that can benefit companies. While blockchain is the current hot topic, the key is adopting what’s right for a particular organisation.

“Artificial intelligence and machine-learning are other things that need to be embraced,” Ms DeSilva said. “But to do that, companies have to have better management of, and access to, data.”

Ms DeSilva was joined on the panel by Michael Terpin, founder and chief executive officer of global public relations firm Transform Group; Michael Gord, founder and CEO of MLG Blockchain; and moderator Steven Suthiana, president and chief digital officer at Grit Daily News, which provides news coverage through the lens of millennials and generation Z.

Ms DeSilva told the audience: “Technology catapults companies to do things in more effective and efficient ways. Disrupters receive funding because new technology is becoming the new status quo.

“These tech companies are the wave of the next generation, and I am glad that venture capitalists are supporting them.”

She added: “Our next generation will come up with something that we can’t even imagine.”

Mr Suthiana asked the panellists to comment on situations where large companies seek to squash tech start-ups, while simultaneously working on their own, similar — but often less effective and efficient — tech solutions.

Later, Ms DeSilva said: “Companies should work with them, embrace these tech companies. They have different mindsets, and those mindsets are part of their success.

“They are not just tech companies, they are not just about ‘ones and zeroes’. Companies want to thrive, and innovators want the companies they assist to thrive as well. There can be more of a symbiotic relationship than perhaps we have seen in the past.”