Partnerships, streamlining, automation high on agenda
As CIO of Rocket Companies, Brian Woodring focuses, in part, on driving continued digitization of the mortgage process to maximum benefit for clients, partners and customers alike.
He asserts that Rocket is far ahead of the industry, but also said the company still sees a long way to go.
“We call it ‘gratefully dissatisfied,’” Woodring (pictured) said. “We are happy with the work we do and our position in the market, but also constantly looking to grow.”
Woodring joined Rocket as chief technology officer in 2017 and was promoted to the job of chief information officer in 2020. He leads a 2,000-team-member division called Rocket Technology that’s largely focused on Rocket Mortgage, Rocket Companies’ largest subsidiary, where he is responsible for digital products, technology platforms and data intelligence.
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For the Detroit, Mich.-based company at large, he’s helping to drive a technology strategy focused on bringing its subsidiaries together into a unified financial services platform “that can help clients with many moments of their life, not just mortgage.” Rocket Companies employs roughly 26,000 people across its various subsidiaries.
Big priorities, and automation
Woodring said his initial time as CIO has focused on two big priorities.
One, he explained, is focused on taking the processes, tools and technology Rocket has developed and “extending it out as a platform” for the industry. That has happened, in part, through partnerships.
“We signed a noteworthy partnership with Salesforce last year for example, to deliver an origination experience to Salesforce clients,” Woodring said. It’s “really taking all of the investment that we made in our technology and extending it out so that brokers, partners and other financial institutions can leverage all of that technology that originated on our platform.”
He's also focusing much of his attention on automation in a crucial area.
“The second biggest area… is really an emphasis on continuing to drive automation within the origination process, to make it faster, more streamlined [and] make the client experience even better,” Woodring said. “We’re really rethinking and redesigning it, using things like machine learning, advanced technology and APIs to really build an engine that automates the process.”
The work is “an incredibly difficult process,” Woodring explained, but noted the company’s “almost 2,000 technologists” are devoted to advancing both efforts.
He observed that “the problems that are left are the hard ones, as the easy ones were solved years ago.”
Regulation
Woodring, asked why technology advancement can be difficult in the mortgage industry, points to an “incredibly regulated” industry that’s resistant to efficiencies.
“Mortgages tend to be very custom. Every mortgage is a little bit unique. “It’s a very large financial transaction, the largest most people will ever go through [and] there’s a lot of fear and uncertainty that people feel when they’re going through a mortgage,” Woodring said. “Making it a really streamlined process, a confidence-inspiring process, something that people feel comfortable doing, and then being able to do that at scale” remains a focus.
Last year, Woodring said, Rocket handled more than 1 million mortgages, which is a big step toward “scale.”
“We’re really figuring out how to get technology to allow us to scale and take these efficiencies and the streamlining we do to millions of clients,” Woodring said.
Approach
For employees and colleagues, Woodring said the company focuses on using “commercial grade” technology that has enormous functionality. That is accomplished in part through partnerships such as those the company has with Salesforce and Microsoft.
“Their experience is something they’re going to be used to,” Woodring said. “We know we have more and more Gen Z people entering our workforce who are used to mobile technology [and] modern user experiences.”
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With that in mind, Rocket focuses on technologies employees would feel comfortable with, keeping an eye on how it helps the customer experience.
“We believe that by automating as much of the drudgery as possible – the staring at documents, checking boxes – we [are] letting humans do what humans are good at, and are letting machines do what machines are good at,” Woodring said. “Humans are great at taking care of other people, persuading, making judgment calls and really thinking, and machines are really good at automation and repetitive tasks.”
On the customer side, the attention toward technology continues to be focused on boosting the customer experience.
“We’re constantly evolving Rocket Mortgage,” Woodring said “We’ve over the last couple of years redesigned the user experience and really built more and more functionality into Rocket Mortgage itself.”
A bridge
Woodring said that he ultimately acts in his executive capacity as a bridge between the needs of the business and clients, bringing outside perspective on how clients or partners think. He also tries to use his 15 years of experience in the mortgage industry to connect employees and customers with technology that improves and innovates how systems and processes work.
“I have a role to play in making sure that our partners, the industry and our team members know all about all of these incredibly exciting things that we’re doing,” Woodring said.
