In His Words: ERB reveals the seven secrets and learnings from our digital transformation.
President Edwin R. Bautista reveals the seven secrets and learnings from our digital transformation.
During his one of his speeches for The Asset, our President Edwin R. Bautista shared the lessons that made it to the organization’s books. What was once called the “Seven Secrets to our Successful Transformation” became the seven learnings that must be imparted to the world. We can truly claim that we have surpassed critical challenges to a successful transformation – organizational resistance, lack of clear-cut customer journey, inability to leverage of customer data, too much focus on technology, and more. And as we start 2021, our roadmap is clear. We are stepping on the pedal as we go full throttle onward to enduring greatness.
These are UnionBank’s seven learnings from our digital transformation journey, in our President’s words.
Digitize or Perish.
Digitize or perish – these were the exact words that our consultant at that time gave us what we asked them for advice on how to navigate the banking world going forward. They said banking is going to face disruption, we’re already seeing this in many parts of the world. In the Philippines, we were not yet feeling the winds of disruption, but we were assured that it would come.
The biggest problem for us then was how to create a sense of urgency with our stakeholders considering that they’re not feeling this disruption or the winds of disruption. To build this sense of urgency, we created own “burning platform”. We had to create fear among ourselves to anticipate the disruption about to come.
We invited people who’ve already experienced disruption from many parts of the world. From futurists to tell us where the world is heading, to people who have worked in industries that have actually experienced their own disruption. Through learning from these experts, we convinced ourselves that the platform was indeed burning, and we had to start as early as possible.
Have a goal for your transformation - anchored on the customer.
A lot of people were saying digital transformation is about lowering your cost to operate. There is some truth to that. But really, if you take a look at those who have successfully overcome disruption, it’s because they were able to achieve superior customer experience, or they were able to satisfy their customers. And that means being able to innovate as fast as their own needs change, to be able to adjust to the changing behaviors of the customer. So, the second learning is that there is a goal, and it should be anchored on the customer.
Transformation has no fixed formula.
When we started, we were honestly quite fixated with what technologies we had to learn. We had to get one of our executives to give a lecture on big data. We had to research what big data was. We knew we had to learn other emerging tech like blockchain, RPA, so on and so forth.
But after five years, we realized that it’s not really about having fixed technologies because the technologies could change. It’s how you apply it. For example, we’re not talking big data anymore, now we’re talking about artificial intelligence and behavioral science. Initially, we were talking of moving into an agile methodology. And just when we thought we mastered it or at least gotten good at the Agile, we’re moving to DevSecOps. So, the technology is a constant journey by itself.
It’s not all tech, it’s about culture transformation.
Digital transformation is not all tech it’s actually about culture transformation. Note that I said, it’s not all about tech. Because it’s largely tech as well. I mean, make no mistake of it. Because all these transformations were driven by a lot of technology changes – improvements in the speed of internet, people moving to mobile, the mobile phones getting more powerful – that has changed the behavior of customers and that has been the catalyst for disruption. So much so that we recognize to be able to be good at it. And we had to change our essence. You will hear from a lot of UnionBankers, the terms we want to be, or we intend to be a technology company, but also a bank. Or a technology company, still a bank.
So, technology is an essential part of it. But I think, what people miss as the secret sauce is the culture transformation. A culture that will drive change is essential to make the digital transformation work . The technology itself can be bought. But if the organization does not transform itself, to be able to harness this technology, towards customer satisfaction, or customer experience, nothing’s gonna happen.
Unlearn, learn and relearn.
My fifth, learning is about learning. And I’m calling it “unlearn, learn and relearn.” The first thing that we had to do is we need to unlearn the old practices, old practices that were obsolete. Then we had to learn new things. And after learning these new things, something new comes along, we have to relearn. It’s a constant process, almost never ending. The important thing is, there is no such thing as gospel truth. What was true and correct in the past, may not be true, or even relevant today. And certainly tomorrow, it will be different.
Have a roadmap but navigate from point to point.
My sixth learning is, have a road map, but navigate from point to point. The roadmap might not be perfect, but it’s better to have a map than no map at all. It’s better to have an imperfect map, than not to have any map at all. People will only follow you, if you think you know where you’re going. And a map certainly does that. But a lot of things are unknown, you know, there will be lots of ambiguity, so you almost need to navigate from point to point. It’s like Waze, you need to turn right to the next street. And you will get to the next street. And transformation is very much like that. For as long as you know, you’re headed north, you may turn a little bit to the left a little bit to the right, but you’re still heading north.
In the beginning, we’re talking of plan ABC, then it had to be modified transformation ABC. Now, we’re talking about Phase 123. They’re a little bit different. One might say that the plans have changed. But the underlying essence of it continues to be the same. And that is it’s anchored on customer centricity. It’s anchored on delivering superior customer experience.
No one gets left behind.
The last and I think my most important learning is the power of the statement “no one gets left behind.” When we started doing this, we were saying, “if we don’t do this, we are not going to survive, the organization will perish.” Some people will say, “Yeah, but we don’t know what this entails. And the organization might survive. But how about us? Will we perish?” It’s very important that we assure the team that we are going to tour into this as one – that no one gets left behind.
We hired a lot of people from the outside, because we obviously need that talents that we didn’t have. But most of the heavy lifting was really done by the original team. And it was quite a challenge because they had to learn new things. They had to learn new technologies, new processes. But in the end, I think everyone is happy that we were able to overcome it.
And the organization today might look a little bit different, the bank might look different, but the inside our soul remains the same. And the core team that was here five years ago, worried that we might be swept by the winds of disruption. By far most of us are still here. So, in a sense, we were able to achieve this goal of no one gets left behind. It’s very, very important, because most people when they start will ask you the question, “what’s in it for us?”
Today, we’ve answered that by saying we have survived disruption so far. And since we’re ahead, maybe it’s a competitive advantage, but at least because of our promise that no one gets left behind, you and I and the other UnionBankers are here to be able to tell our digital transformation story.
