The soft launch of the solution was planned for late

The soft launch of the solution was planned for late September 2015, starting with about 2,000
select customers in the cities where DBS had a physical presence.
Digital Mindset
In parallel with the launch of Digibank, a broader effort to help the entire DBS organization
embrace the digital world was gaining traction. A senior staff member in the learning and
development organization explained: “DBS is essentially betting its growth strategy on digital,
and it is not enough that only people in Digibank understand what digital means. If most of
our employees in the middle level still believe that it’s business as usual, that would be the
worst-case scenario for the bank.” The goal, therefore, was to help employees throughout the
bank think about customer journeys, a concept that had already taken hold in the organization,
in the context of a digital world.
While the objective was clear, how to accomplish it was less certain. The learning and
development team, nonetheless, was convinced of two things. First, the effort would need to start
3
DBS Digibank, “Know Your Customers” banking requirements. Retrieved from .
This document is authorized for use only in Jochen Schlapp's Innovation Management MiM at Frankfurt School of Finance & Management from Jan 2019 to Jul 2019.

Driving Digital Transformation at the DBS Bank SI-195-E
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IESE Business School-University of Navarra
with top executive talent, irrespective of which part of the bank the executives worked in. These
leaders had the level of ability, aspiration and engagement that would help build momentum
within DBS. Second, a traditional “conference-style” learning event would be insufficient.
Instead, the format of the engagement would have to be highly immersive and experiential.
Hackathons
To develop these ideas further, the team got together with Neal Cross, chief innovation officer
at DBS. A serial entrepreneur, who also spent significant time spearheading “intrapreneurship”
efforts at Microsoft and MasterCard, Cross suggested bringing together the executive talent
and start-up entrepreneurs to work together in a hackathon event. The teams would be given
three days to generate ideas for a given business challenge, develop an initial prototype, get
feedback from customers, code a basic mobile app, get more customer feedback, and – by the
end of day 3 – pitch their solution to top executives at DBS. (See Exhibit 8 .)
The idea looked promising and a pilot hackathon with 30 vice presidents from Singapore was
launched in October 2014. The event lasted five full days. The first two were devoted to a
master class where participants explored key digital trends, discussed concepts of disruption
and innovation, received training on HCD, and reflected on the opportunities and threats of
digitization for DBS. The objective was to prepare everyone for the hackathon as such.