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By Park Hyong-ki
ING Group in the Netherlands, DBS in Singapore and Ping An in China share something in common when it comes to innovation.
They all "rewired" their organizations to embrace new technologies and entrepreneurship to be agile in developing customer-centric services and ecosystems, according to Joydeep Sengupta, a senior partner of McKinsey & Company.
For instance, DBS created a startup culture within the company with 22,000 people as it seeks to become not just a multinational bank but a digital or IT company.
Under its three key pillars ― customer-centric, data-driven and risk taking, DBS has sought to become "digital to core," Sengupta said.
This was also in line with its goal to make banking fun and joyful.
"DBS crafted its digital transformation around the three key pillars, in line with the proposition of making banking joyful," he said at a forum hosted by The Korea Times in Seoul, June 26.
"This is to embed DBS in its customers' journey so that it can make DBS invisible."
He noted DBS' startup culture enabled its employees to keep learning and experimenting.
Also, ING Group has changed its organization and decision-making structures to become agile, the senior partner said.
He added both ING and DBS offer an example of digitalization in finance.
In terms of ecosystem development, China's Ping An has successfully developed a competitive ecosystem with some 1,000 tech experts in artificial intelligence (AI) and data analysis.
The financial holding company also has five AI research centers.
"Ping An uses data and artificial intelligence to drive competitive advantage across its ecosystem," said Sengupta.
"It has made strong investment to own core technologies such as face recognition, voice recognition and secure cloud computing."
One of the notable changes it has pursued was adopting "do not do everything" mindset.
This enabled Ping An to focus on strategic objectives, core strengths and assets, while develop an ecosystem, allowing rapid new business innovation and scaling, he noted.
Taking into such companies into account, Sengupta reiterated that business leaders should "get deep" on technology and data.
They should reach out to their users and customers so that companies can include them in their digital journey.
Also, financial companies should prepare to take "multi-year" journey in digitally transforming their business.
They should form partnerships to acquire new customers and leapfrog technologies, while find the balance between delivering their quarterly targets and investing for the long run.
"Create a culture that values innovation, technology and technology engagement," said Sengupta.
"Business leaders will need to work proactively with regulators to evolve the playing field. Also, to compete successfully, banks will need to organize themselves as platform businesses."
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