[r_hanz]

OP, my 2-cents having done this in a different industry within a company ~1/10th of yours: - as other comments mentioned, going slow and sticking to a solid vision of what “success” would look like in these efforts is important - most implementation challenges will be cultural, not technical - with the previous point, (and this may go against every other comment here) I have found it’s easier to teach someone software development basics than it is to teach the intricacies of your business/industry

with that said it has been my experience that a key first member in this is to find a passionate person within your org, whom you consider an expert or very knowledgeable in your business, and convince them to transition their full-time role to build these types of solutions. Find this person, convert them, and give them complete creative autonomy to pursue these efforts head-on. This person will implicitly possess an intrinsic understanding the problems with the highest value:effort ratio for the company, and when necessary, be able to fill the (many) necessary assumptions it takes to make functional apps that provide real value. You would be surprised at the simplicity and crudeness of what a smashingly successful app can have (and most importantly, what others will actually use) - so long as it addresses the right problem.