Robert Cooke, CTO & Founder of 3Forge, emphasizes the importance of unified solutions that cut across siloed automations, as companies seek to balance increasing IT costs with reduced budgets. He notes that opportunities for development work now exist globally, particularly in Asian markets, and companies are embracing a "follow the sun" model to increase productivity. To achieve this, Robert advocates for a data-agnostic mentality, leveraging commonalities across problems to find platforms and solutions that can be reused across an organization. Instead of replacing legacy systems with new ones, he recommends building on top of existing systems or using tools like reconciliation to ensure seamless transitions, while aiming for hybrid solutions that align with the market's direction and incorporate cloud pathways.