On Digital Transformation
Tags: digital, transformation, agile, leadership
Published: 2022-07-24 15:32:27

In the last 5 years, I have been taking leadership roles on multiple digital transformation projects.

In the year 2017, I was working as a senior consultant at Accenture to help transform Cathay Pacific Airways' mobile app from a legacy platform to adopt with the new native mobile technology. I lead the sprint process and actively communicate priorities to the remote team members. I had hands-on experience coding for node.js and java spring boot servers. At the same time, I address client business challenges at the intersection of organisational structure and technology.

In the year 2018, I was a consultant at EY leading the project for HSBC Payme business mobile app. The steady rise in e-commerce and AliPay's relentless expansion into a new products is a threat to traditional banks towards extinction. If the banks failed to adapt to the new QR payment trend, then they would eventually go bust. My role is to help the bank to overcome the struggle and avoid the same fate of failure to change. I present technical architecture and agile delivery methodology. I had hands-on experience coding on Android using Kotlin. I advise and execute technical strategies to migrate AWS to Azure cloud technology for compliance reasons.

In the year 2019, I was leading the HSBC merchant online payment project as a technical lead. Things have changed with the pandemic, as it sped up the shift towards e-commerce sales. The existing legacy platform was not able to handle the pace of growth, with many failed transactions. My role is to build a new website with a better stack of technology to replace the old platform. I lead teams in delivering the solutions for Malaysian FPX from kick-off to ship. I had hands-on experience in development using Angular in TypeScript on Adobe Experience Manager (AEM). I build relationships, communicate and collaborate across engineering, design, and stakeholders.

In the year 2021, I was working on a newly licensed Singapore digital-only bank. As a digital-only player, the new bank has competitive advantages to use cloud-native technology, which the traditional banks with the legacy system could not replicate. Despite the traditional banks have advantages over new competitors with more paying customers, financial resources, customer and market data, and larger talent pools. The new banks have the agility and the ability to innovate by adopting new technology to process better, faster, and more cost-effective in their operation.

In the year 2022, I am now working on a Vietnamese Digital Bank project. Serving as a key technical member of the Client Service team, I help to ensure customer success by building financial products on the platform. I work on bank deposit and lending products and implement Python smart contract code. I analyse and validate business requirements, translating them into technical specifications. I own each technical engagement, help ensure timely and successful delivery of value, and collaborate with customers, partners and other teams on the delivery of solutions.

Overall, the biggest part of the digital transformation projects in my last 5 years is changing the way people think and leading them with new ways of working.

I have ten years of experience in software development, application architecture, and deploying cloud solutions for enterprise customers. I have strong hands-on skills with a master's degree in Computer Science and business acumen with a master of business administration (MBA) in Finance. I am certified in Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Microsoft Azure, Kubernetes (CKA, CKAD, CKS, KCNA) and Scrum (PSM, PSPO) with experience in building banking products from scratch.

My career goal is to lead digital transformation. It is complex and requires new ways of approaching strategy. If starting big, spending a lot, and assuming you have all the information is a recipe for disaster. This is because you will produce a full-on attack from corporate culture - everything from risk aversion and resentment of the project to simple resistance to change. My goal is to lead and overcome these common barriers.

By taking courses and spending time working on projects, I can experiment and learn a lot. With real success stories, I can win early supporters and early adopters. By then moving quickly and demonstrating a clear impact on financial performance indicators, I can build a case for and learn my way into a digital strategy. I can also use my digitization projects to begin an organizational transformation. As people become more comfortable with the gradual changes and activities that digital technologies enable, they will also embrace new ways of working.

My strength is the ability to learn and apply knowledge. In a business environment of high uncertainty, it is important to adapt quickly with a low-cost process to test assumptions about what works, obtain new information and minimise risks. I could provide valuable feedback and help the team be more successful. My test-and-learn mentality can help as a source of discoveries, giving feedback and incorporating it into the next version will allow the team to continuously improve. I could inspire more people to lead the digital transformation journey.

My weakness which may affect my accomplishment of the goal is staying in a role at the company with a focus on technology. This is because no new technology can transform an industry unless a business model can link it to an emerging market. As an engineering manager, it requires attention to detail and hands-on implementation. However, digital transformation is not only about technology change, it is ultimately about better serving customer needs, whether through more-effective operations, mass customization, or new offers.

In order to innovate, we need a mix of skills and perspectives in the team to give the best learning environment. Having business and technical people work side by side with domain experts in projects will ensure the projects can address organization priorities, not just isolated department issues. A diverse team can also think through the digital transformation that is required, and when my experience as a software developer involves end business users in the design of the application, the chances of adoption increase dramatically.