DX Leader

JG Summit Holdings is one of the most highly diversified conglomerates in the Philippines, with businesses in air transportation, banking, food manufacturing, hotels, petrochemicals, power generation, real estate and property development, and telecommunications. Following the declaration of its CEO that JG Summit Holdings will become the first digital conglomerate in the country, Carlos Santos has directed the group on its digital transformation (DX) journey. As the group CIO and corporate IT (CIT) shared services leader, he leads the overall strategy, implementation, and operations of the CIT group. He adopted an interconnected approach and leveraged his global experience to work with local and global suppliers and put JG Summit Holdings in the map of key systems integrators (SIs). Within the organization, he worked closely with finance teams to demonstrate properly the benefits of each DX project, gaining the buy-in and trust of the CEO to be part of the DX journey. Moreover, he ensured that each CIT employee understands the value creation that DX brings to the company. To date, JG Summit Holdings’ DX initiatives have allowed the company to save billions of pesos in cost savings, increase sales volume, decrease business effort by thousands of hours monthly, and reduce business waiting time by months. 

Since 1971, the Star Media Group has been a trusted, long-standing source of news and content for Malaysians. Headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, the organization publishes content that attracts about 20 million unique visitors
per month. To thrive in the digital economy, Freddy Loo, senior general manager for digital products and analytics, has developed and executed a plan to move Star Media Group‘s positioning from being an “attention business” to an “engagement business.” With changing user habits and shortened attention spans, consumers want to read less, watch more videos, and interact with more content and content creators. Loo is revamping the Star Media Group into becoming an ecosystem business that operates a platform providing relevant products, services, and content to specific audiences. Under his guidance, the Star Media Group is exploring the use of machine learning to show content based on customers’ previous interactions and other acquired customer knowledge. To further its digital journey, Loo plans to help editors and producers identify the type of content that sparks consumers’ interest and the device such content works best on. With data analytics at the heart of this transformation, Loo has helped the Star Media Group track and understand customers’ life events to provide more personalized experiences.  

LS Electric is a pioneer in industrial electrics, electronics, materials, and energy. With “futuring smart energy“ as its motto, the company stays ahead of its competition through delivering world-class quality products and technological prowess in the new smart energy era. As the company’s president, chief digital officer (CDO), and executive director of Business and Digital Transformation (DX), Yong Sang Park established the Digital LS Electric vision to respond to growing market uncertainties. Park intends to evolve LS Electric’s organizational DNA together with the whole organization, enforcing performance- and value-centered DX. The company’s DX strategy focuses on six key areas, such as digital business management, product and services, manufacturing, leader nurturing, infrastructure adoption, and performance management. Furthermore, Park encouraged change management by engaging external experts, such as data analysts and engineers and software engineers, and selected and nurtured the company’s first DX leader team, which was composed of key talents. Park also improved the company’s business by launching projects predicting future business performance through machine learning (ML), creating business plans and strategies through what-if simulations, and enhancing performance through big data–based initiatives, such as research and development (R&D) projects’ failure and delay prediction. By incorporating ICT technologies, such as Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing, LS Electric pursues continuous growth through business performance prediction and product portfolio optimization.  

Jabar Digital Service aims to narrow the digital divide, improve the efficiency and accuracy of policy-making based on data and technology, and revolutionize governance and citizen livelihoods in West Java. The head of West Java ICT Agency, Setiaji, directed Jabar Digital Service to create modular products to allow many services to be delivered in a single platform. During his first 100 days, he was able to implement Open Data, One Data, and One Map. One of his first breakthroughs is Sapawarga, an application designed for subvillage community leaders (Ketua Rukun Warga) to communicate with the provincial administration. Through Sapawarga, West Java has become the only province that has initiated digital network communication integrated at the grassroots level that includes community leaders and subdistrict administrators. Over 5,300 villages with 53,000 community leaders currently use Sapawarga to access public services and communicate with the West Java provincial government. During the pandemic, Setiaji also used technology to reduce the risk of transmission and physical contact across a broader level of government structures. Using Sapawarga, West Java was also able to effectively allocate social assistance during the COVID-19 crisis, with data analytics providing transparency and accountability throughout the data collection and disbursement efforts. 

L&T Financial Services is a leading nonbanking financial company (NBFC), transforming lives in rural India while focusing on rural, housing, and wholesale loans. To date, it serves 11 million customers and leads the industry with the fastest turnaround time for loan approvals by adopting analytics and cloud technology. As the chief digital officer (CDO), Abhishek Sharma plays a pivotal role in ensuring that L&T Financial Services can reduce loan process complexities for customers through digital transformation (DX). By leveraging cloud and analytics, the company has created an app to deliver an “anytime, anywhere“ banking experience to customers. Through this mobile app, loan officers can authenticate a borrower‘s identity through biometric-based verification and perform credit evaluation through credit scores and online assessments. The app is integrated with more than 15 critical real-time data sources, including Aadhaar, India‘s biometric ID system. Credit assessment and sanction loans are run within seconds, based on an algorithm delivering real-time predictions, which are continuously updated through extensive data collection. The app is also integrated with various payment gateways, allowing borrowers to pay their debts and ensuring seamless customer experience (CX). 

Based in Guangdong, China, Country Garden is a property development group with more than 700 residential, commercial, and urban construction projects worldwide, offering its services to more than 3 million property owners. Country Garden has since focused on developing into a diversified ecological enterprise, with scientific and technological attributes as its core competitive advantage. To support this goal, Jiewen Lu, departmental general manager, Country Garden, has led the team to build its data middle platform, big data platform, and “Phoenix Cloud” house purchase platform, which together generated a total annual quantitative value of CNY1.15 billion and CNY180 million in cost savings, whereas production capacity per capita reached CNY10 million. Specifically, the data middle platform has built more than 300 core indicators, breaking down barriers among lines of business, including investments, marketing, operations, costing, finance, and human resources, among others. Meanwhile, the big data platform accessed nine process systems, analyzed more than 120 million pieces of data and more than 20 indicators, and optimized problems in process, data, and management receipts. Over 15 million users have registered on Phoenix Cloud, and by the end of February 2020, online subscription and contract signing exceeded CNY100 billion in sales

Founded in 2011, Anker is one of the largest overseas consumer electronics brands in China, with a focus on design, development, and sales of smart accessories and hardware. It started its business online and currently occupies a large market share on Amazon and other large overseas ecommerce platforms. Currently, Anker boasts more than 65 million users in more than 100 countries and regions around the world. Committed to building a China consumer electronics brand in the global market through continuous innovation and offering products that enable smarter lives, Anker’s digital transformation (DX) strategy, led by its founder and CEO Steven Yang, is centered on customer experience. By using agile data platforms and intelligent solutions, Anker responds to changing customer and market demands. From precision customer acquisition to marketing automation and multichannel collaborative operations to a one-stop marketing experience, Anker has upgraded its members’ consumption experience, strengthened the accurate positioning of ecommerce data, accelerated business innovation, increased performance by 30% year over year, and reduced human input by 30% by automating processes. These have also helped Anker and its five sub-brands increase their influence and customer loyalty.

The Information Technology Center of the Bureau of Geophysical Prospecting (BGP) is the largest and strongest support team of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). It established its digital transformation (DX) vision and road map in 2019 with the goal of using digital technologies to increase produce capability, lower costs, and raise operations efficiency. Starting with the creation of a cloud platform, the CNPC leverages data connections, technology sharing, business collaboration, and intelligent development upstream to enable co-creation, co-construction, and a DX ecosystem. Led by Yang Jianfeng, manager and party secretary, the CNPC has successfully sped its automation and digitization. Facing various challenges, he led the company’s DX team to success by gaining the trust and confidence of stakeholders. Jianfeng and his team conducted in-depth research and interviews to push DX. His five-year strategy also focuses on enabling employees, optimizing operations, transforming products and services, and delivering new value for the organization. The strategy aims to establish CNPC’s Information Technology Center of BGP as a world-class DX partner in the energy industry. Furthermore, he has created win–win scenarios within the ecosystem to ensure that digital initiatives are implemented smoothly. In 2019, CNPC’s revenue hit a new record of CNY3.5 billion, opening a new chapter for DX for the organization.

SAIC Motor Passenger Vehicle Company is responsible for the R&D of the SAIC Motor Group as well as manufacturing and sales of passenger vehicles, producing over 1 million vehicles annually. Zhang Liang, deputy general manager of data services and chief digital officer (CDO) and executive director of marketing, is committed to building the SAIC Motor Group’s digital system by comprehensively promoting the “1 + 4” digital transformation (DX) strategy, encompassing areas such as marketing, manufacturing, R&D, and supply chain. He pioneered the automotive industry’s first retail marketing system, with a user satisfaction exceeding 97%. Additionally, he led the advancement of R&D in intelligent connected vehicles and transformation of intelligent manufacturing production lines. The intelligent manufacturing production line connects more than 500 factory-built vehicles, which led to an annual production increase of 240,000 vehicles. The smart supply chain allowed real-time collaboration between multiple parties as it connects over 700 suppliers in its network. Ultimately, SAIC Motor Passenger Vehicle Company’s strategy, which was pioneered by Liang, has further established it as a benchmark in the domestic automotive manufacturing industry, leading its industry’s development direction in DX.

The FAW Group is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in China. With over 60 years of automotive development, the FAW Group has developed a comprehensive product lineup catering to a wide variety of customers in China and the rest of the world. As the domestic leader in brand value, production scale, and profitability, the manufacturer continues to assume the historical responsibility of revitalizing China’s auto industry. To ensure its position, the FAW Group has established digital transformation (DX) as one of its core strategies. Focusing on the theme of “data-driven wonderful travel,” the FAW Group integrates the digitization, value, and innovation of its core business into its internal digital platform. Using this platform, the FAW Group sustains industry leadership and achieves business empowerment, product and ecosystem intelligence, and value realization. Led by General Manager Yongfeng Guo, the FAW Group has successfully deployed its Hongqi Marketing Cloud and Hongqi Smart Cloud Project, implemented digital twin technology in the R&D department, and built a Hongqi digital factory. In the R&D process, the FAW Group has built a collaborative design and simulation platform based on 3D models, whereas a 5G industrial internet platform was built for its manufacturing link. Focusing on the entire customer journey, the FAW Group has also developed a unified customer ecosystem cloud platform covering users, dealers, marketing, management, and other stakeholders. The FAW Group uses this platform to carry out big data analysis and application and build its data middle platform.

Established in 1984, Haier Group Corporation is a world-leading provider of solutions to better life. In the Internet of Things (IoT) era, Haier Group has transformed from a traditional manufacturing enterprise into an IoT community ecosystem, building the world’s leading IoT ecosystem brand. Lucheng Chen, chairman and general manager of Haier COSMOPlat, made sure Haier’s Rendanheyi model was observed to encourage continuous innovations within the organization. Furthermore, Haier has penetrated the technical fields of artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, cloud computing, data technology, edge computing, facial recognition, and 5G (ABCDEFG), digitized all business processes, and repeatedly attained increased user, enterprise, and ecosystem value through its COSMOPlat industrial internet platform. Under his leadership, this platform has supported Haier Group in the upgrade of its seven major nodes comprehensively and implemented a mass customization model with the successful participation of users in the processes of its 15 intelligent interconnected factories. With COSMOPlat, Haier Group has also empowered more small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to realize the value of digital transformation (DX) and high-quality development through its “1 + 7 + N” experiential cloud platform. To date, the mass customization model has been replicated in 15 industries, 12 regions, and more than 20 countries.

Yum China Holdings (Yum China) is China’s leading restaurant company, operating 9,954 restaurants in over 1,400 cities located in every province and autonomous region in Mainland China. Yum China has the exclusive right to operate and sublicense KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell in China. It also owns East Dawning, Little Sheep, Huang Ji Huang, and COFFii & JOY. Yum China has been recognized for its pursuit of digital innovation and relentless efforts in improving consumer experience through technology. Led by Chief Technology Officer Leila Zhang, Yum China has developed an in-house artificial intelligence (AI) middle office to empower its full line of businesses. The AI middle office enhances online membership engagement and provides excellent customer experience through informed decisions for store operations improvement to boost overall sustainable growth. Efforts have also been made to drive seamless integration between big data and AI to increase sales and operational efficiency. On the sales side, Yum China has rolled out AI-enabled menus and recommendations for all mobile preorders, providing personalized customer interactions, and trade-up opportunities. For in-store operations, Yum China has been able to continuously improve abilities in sales forecasting, natural language processing, and operation research to empower store operations and promptly reallocate resources to growth areas. With data and AI combined, Yum China has built a powerful digital ecosystem for the entire value chain, persistently and aggressively making technological enhancements and elevating standards that ultimately benefit Yum crew and customers.

Mark Denvir is the director of ICT at Auckland Council. Denvir has led transformational change in the council to optimize how ICT serves and supports the organization and the people of Tāmaki Makaurau. Each day, ICT systems keep community facilities connected to the council while internally supporting over 10,000 devices across 300 unique locations, with the ICT Service Desk seeing up to 850 interactions per day. The Super City amalgamation saw Auckland Council’s ICT inherit multiple legacy systems, including 16 datacenters that were slow, complex, and difficult to use; frequent outages that resulted in business disruption; slow project delivery; and poor customer experience (CX). The alignment of ICT to organizational strategy has seen the digitalization of services and the council’s acceptance of automation. This has enabled the council to deliver on its strategy and commitment to reduce IT costs to serve and improve CX. Denvir also navigated the council’s commitment to invest in an optimized technology landscape, embrace emerging technology and cloud infrastructure, and mitigate significant risk of city data loss with the implementation of a multicloud strategy while leveraging multiple cloud platforms, including public cloud services and council–owned infrastructure. Denvir’s ICT strategy and vision of a flexible workforce also aligned with the organization’s strategy to see all corporate council staff equipped with hardware, tools, and cloud technology. This provided the foundation for a flexible workforce of the future and enabled an adaptable organization, which ensured that the council was resilient, completely connected, and operational during the COVID-19 lockdown. Denvir’s vision enabled Auckland Council to retain a high level of engagement with vulnerable people in the community, kept Auckland Emergency Management online and operational, and allowed the council to continue delivering to Auckland remotely. 

IoMT-HC healthcare and clinical operation systems (IoMT-HC) is a digital ecosystem that supports the clinical operations and medical services provision at the newly established International Medical Centre (IMC). Opened in the fourth quarter of 2017 under the leadership of CIO Henry Mo, IMC is the latest venture of First Shanghai Group and the first vertically integrated medical facility in Hong Kong. IoMT-HC involves over 13 different digital systems to support the operation of seven medical specialty centers and various clinics located across a 21-storey building. This digital ecosystem incorporates the latest digital technologies, including IoT, big data, and business intelligence to facilitate both the clinical operations and medical services provision. The success of the IoMT-HC ecosystem is a combination of Mo’s experience, technical knowledge, and effort to collaborate with different business units as well as his technology vision to drive business changes. The IoMT-HC is a demonstration of the new generation of healthcare practice, which provides scientific medical analysis as well as efficient and safe clinical operations.

Under the leadership of Fu Gang, Chairman of the Board of Directors, the Baheal Pharmaceutical Group has embarked on its Digital Transformation journey and is determined to lead in the intelligent healthcare and services domain. Fu champions two main thrusts in Baheal’s Digital Transformation road map: to ensure Baheal will incorporate latest technological developments, such as IoT, big data analytics, and machine learning, in its operations, and to leverage Baheal’s position and knowledge in the market to uncover new business models and channels.

Digitalization is a key part of DBS’s strategy to thrive in the digital economy where productivity, scalability, and agility are the key characteristics of a successful organization. With DBS’s longstanding 49-year history and 24,000 employees in the highly-regulated Banking, Financial services, and Insurance (BFSI) industry, DBS considered cultural and organizational changes brought about by this strategy.

Its leadership team composed of Piyush Gupta (CEO), David Gledhill (CIO) and Neal Cross (Chief Innovation Officer) have fundamentally changed the operations and culture within DBS by identifying how processes are changed through internal hackathons within various business units; and mass adoption of new technology to re-architect its technology structure.

As the President and Managing Director of KPJ Healthcare Berhad, one of Malaysia’s private leading healthcare providers, Dato Amiruddin Abdul Satar has played a vital role in leading the adoption of digital technologies in the organization and in the healthcare industry. His earliest projects involved moving the entire Group to adopt KPJ Cloud, which has reached 18 hospitals today, as well as the reengineering and redevelopment of core applications including organization-wide use of Electronic Medical Records and Cloud ERP.

His latest initiative is the use of artificial intelligence in cancer research and treatment in five KPJ hospitals, being the first in the country to utilize this technology. By initiating leadership transformation in the Group through training in advanced programs to cater to innovation and transformation, Dato Amiruddin Abdul Satar ensures that KPJ Healthcare Berhad remains a leader in digital adoption in the healthcare industry.

The National Information Resources Service (NIRS) oversees management for information resources of central government institutions based on integrated computing centers. Led by Director Kim Myung Hee, NIRS has begun its organizationwide digital transformation. Kim has proposed three management principles: business innovation through process improvement and utilization of new technologies, technology leadership enabling government bodies and the IT industry to respond to the Industry 4.0 initiative, and customer satisfaction of the public and government departments with reliable egovernment services.

She has presented a vision to enable an intelligent cloud computing center, creating a seamless service environment across the Daejeon and Kwangju datacenters. Kim has also designed the “”Development Plan 2022 TF”” road map, which includes major digital transformation technologies, such as IoT, mobile and media data, and VR, plus evolving into an AI datacenter that minimizes human intervention. Kim has initiated G-cloud expansion, established a cyber breach response system based on AI, and realized scientific administration through a government big data common platform. Kim is also leading the transition from an individual equipment-focused model, to a visual integrated monitoring system focused on service. NIRS is carrying out reorganization into technically specialized groups and providing information literacy education customized for employees.

As the Chief Digital Officer (CDO) for the City of Brisbane, Australia, Cat Matson is charged with the digital transformation of the city as a means of accelerating economic growth and empowering residents and businesses to thrive in a globally-connected, digitally-enabled world. Matson was instrumental in the establishment of the Chair in Digital Economy in 2015 and the Digital Brisbane master plan released in 2017.

The Chair in Digital Economy is a world-leading collaboration between industry, academia, and two different levels of government to provide robust academic, yet practical insights into the implications of the digital economy. Its strength comes from the academic rigor informed by industry, which in turn can inform government policy and programs. Digital Brisbane 2.0, developed in collaboration with the Chair in Digital Economy team, is a human-centric digital strategy that has fueled a thriving tech-enabled ecosystem with global connectivity and put the residents and businesses at the heart of all transformation.

The Hung Hing Printing Group, a printing pioneer in the region, has embarked on its digital transformation journey, spearheaded by the group’s first-ever CIO, Yee Yu. Under Yee’s leadership and guided by the overarching theme of “Innovation Every Day,” the Group has successfully implemented over 150 projects to digitally transform a 70-year-old organization in a historically traditional industry.

Yee has articulated the role and value of IT in the business, establishing an IT Center of Excellence and project management office to introduce digital technologies and centralize the Group’s businesses across the region. Most notable of Yee’s initiatives is ‘The Smart Factory,’ which leverages automation, big data analytics, Internet of Things, and robotics to drive steady improvement in productivity and efficiency in a data-enabled culture. In streamlining operations, the Hung Hing Printing Group has seen revenue grow by 31% while reducing its workforce by 21%. From Hung Hing Printing Group’s digitalization, two separate technology-enabled businesses were formed in the process, which are both led by Yee: Beluga which offers ‘print + digital’ services and Toppwork, a provider of Industry 4.0 solutions.

PhilHealth is the sole administrator of national social health insurance for all Filipinos, which makes effective data management a vital to achieve the mandate of providing financial risk protection to the entire population. Led by Jovita Aragona, Senior Vice President and CIO, PhilHealth’s data management strategy commenced in 2016 with business intelligence and cloud technologies. As it broke down traditional barriers to efficiency, information accessibility-availability, and collaboration, data became a strategic asset for PhilHealth.

With integrity of mission-critical data, system- and process- harmonization, and standard data report-analysis-mining techniques, PhilHealth has improved its programs and services for Filipinos through a comprehensive analysis of health insurance claims over time periods, diseases, social classes, national-LGU geographical areas, demographics, benefits programs, payment schemes, and other insurance-health dimensions. With advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, PhilHealth has also initiated a framework in detecting fraud and abuse in insurance claims. Finally, data on hand has also empowered PhilHealth to support the Department of Health in the creation of health programs, control of real-potential epidemics and emerging health conditions and trends, and synchronization of Universal Health Care initiatives.

Transport Corporation of India’s Digital Transformation-Customer Order Vs. Fulfillment Project aims to address the organization’s growing challenges on customer dissatisfaction and order tracking. Jasjit Sethi, President & CEO lead the formation technical and functional leaders to execute their Digital Transformation project. A key focus of the project was to establish operational excellence and ensure 100% fulfillment of orders which was completed in 6 months and lead to business excellence.

Inspired by the growth and changes of customer behavior in the ecosystem, Danny Natalies has become the university’s digital ambassador. Natalies has introduced AR/VR to support long-distance learning and learning activities in the engineering and medicine departments, as well as chatbots to facilitate student advisory on campus news and updates, to improve collaboration and user experience, resulting to higher cost efficiency and stakeholder satisfaction.

United Overseas Bank (UOB) uses technology to have a richer understanding of its customers’ preferences and to make their banking experience simple, safer and reliable. It also harnesses emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance its operational performance. The Bank also continually develops its AI and Machine Learning capabilities to meet the various needs of its businesses.

UOB has worked with its Hadoop to develop a big data solution that would enable various functions in the Bank to have quick access to relevant and quality data for analyses. These functions, such as compliance and retail banking, are then able to draw on the insights generated to optimize their business processes and to design distinctive customer experiences.

The trend in healthcare is shifting from a traditional to a more preventive approach. In combination with the strong competition in the marketplace, BDMS has been driven to offer healthcare business that provides extended services of more than just reactive healthcare model.

The Precision Medicine at BDMS is a continuous program, with sub-projects such as the B-eXchange system, Genomic data, Sweet Heart Project, and Health Passport created. It brought up a new constructive business model that the hospital has never been accustomed before, putting BDMS in a leading position compared to its peers.

Commonwealth Life established its “Digital Transformation Office,” involving IT and other business units to leverage technology in optimizing talent sourcing, business productivity, and stakeholder engagements. Customer engagement apps have been deployed with features like Financial Calculator and e-Services. Other platforms for Commonwealth Life agents and its younger market are also being developed to increase interest and engagement.

Taking the Big Data Expo as an opportunity, the Guizhou Province Government unified data interfaces to build an Open API platform which resolves problems such as data inconsistency and storage costs existing in both unified portal and storage.

This project has made technological breakthroughs in asynchronous data grabbing, data classification, and dark data capture. Government administration offices achieved successful leadership transformation of e-government business by increasing API data interfaces and data sets and sharing data among departments. Utilizing open big data platforms, Guizhou Province Government has fully realized the digital dividends and benefits for the people.

With the support of its leadership and top management, True has recognized the value of Data Analytics in driving its business growth. The data scientist team, increased in scale by five times in four years, has been integrated and incorporated into the heart of the organization’s transformation. Insights obtained over time has proved to be useful for cross business-unit collaboration.

True is now able to provide its customers with spontaneous response, more effectively manage and operate its business, and plan for its future demand. The transformation into a data-driven organization is key to drive its today growth.