Disruption 3.0 Beyond Agile
By Brent Burgess, Head of Engineering, Macquarie Bank
Since the beginning of the Digital Age many industries and literally thousands of organisations have been disrupted by the rise of technology companies.
The news and media industries have been disrupted by Google, the taxi industry by Uber, hotels by Airbnb, video stores by Netflix, retailers by Amazon, the music industry by Napster and Spotify, and the motor industry by Tesla. These are just a few examples of the industries that have seen rapid change and disruption in the last 10–20 years .
There are also many examples of organisations that have successfully disrupted themselves to not only remain relevant but consequently grow at exponential rates. Netflix, Adobe and Microsoft are just a few companies that have transformed from traditional businesses to become hugely successful digital businesses.
Netflix was originally a DVD rental company that shipped DVDs, making most of their revenue from advertising on DVD covers. They made a strategic decision to disrupt themselves and forego advertising revenue to become a media streaming company. Netflix now ranks as one of the largest media and entertainment companies in the world.
Adobe originally shipped software (Illustrator) on a CD and hoped that you would pay for the upgrade 12–18 months later. They made a strategic decision to pivot from a company that manufactured and shipped software to a cloud-based, subscription business and Adobe is positioned as a leader in the creative industry.
Bill Gates famously pulled an all-nighter in the mid-90s to study the internet and its potential impact on Microsoft’s traditional software business. He pivoted the entire company’s efforts to counter the challenge Netscape and the internet posed, stating in a 1995 David Letterman interview, “If your business is not on the internet, then your business will be out of business”.
Disruption 1.0
Ten years ago Macquarie made a strategic decision to invest in its retail bank, with the aspiration of becoming a leading Australian digital bank. Key to this strategic decision was migrating Macquarie’s banking platforms to a true 24x7, real time banking system (SAP) and developing a market-leading home loans origination platform that provides some of the fastest home loan approval times in Australia. At the same time, we invested in our digital technology, adopting similar technology platforms being used by Netflix and Facebook and introduced agile ways of working. Internally we recognise this event as Disruption 1.0. This first significant step laid the foundation for growth and provided a launch pad for Macquarie Bank to become one of Australia’s leading digital banks.
Disruption 2.0
Fast forward four years, recognising the need to take the next step in our journey meant that we needed to fundamentally change our technology landscape and ways of working. Disruption 2.0 was born. We pivoted to enterprise agile and committed to moving our entire technology landscape to the cloud. This process included consolidating all our data assets in one modern cloud-based data platform. This disruption has been successful and Macquarie Bank is now the 5th largest retail bank in Australia, our mobile banking app and online banking are consistently ranked as best in their category and more than 95% of our technology landscape has been migrated to the cloud (including our core banking platform). Agile is so deeply ingrained in everything we do, that we no longer talk about it.
But we recognise that to evolve in the banking and financial industry we need to disrupt ourselves yet again. Today we know that software powers the world, our phones, homes, cars, offices, networks, energy supply and planes. And if software powers the world, then data is the energy source . Understanding customers better than anyone else, meeting their needs and exceeding their expectations is where the technology companies compete the hardest. This is where the power of data and the ability to leverage insights truly differentiates digital business from traditional industrial age businesses.
And the technology companies know that it’s the experience that matters most when it comes to delighting customers.
That is why digital, data, design and engineering are going to be the capabilities that will differentiate us, drive exceptional customer experiences and continue our growth journey.
Your company is a software company, you just haven’t worked it out yet!
Disruption 3.0
In order to continue our growth, from a digital, design, data and engineering perspective, we need to not only look and feel like a technology company, but we also need to act like one. Therefore, we recently embarked on the next exciting phase in our journey. This next phase has been guided by some of the best minds and talent in the industry. We have spent countless hours talking to and studying the market leaders across the technology sectors, we’ve hired world class talent from a diverse range of industries, we’ve looked inwards, at our end-to-end architecture, our enterprise Agile framework, our risk, regulatory and compliance efforts, the way we prioritise work and track value.
This has been a truly eye opening and rewarding exercise, one that has surfaced significant insights into the opportunities we have to continue to evolve the effectiveness and efficiency of the way we operate.
The insights that have surfaced, coupled with the invaluable contribution from some of the world’s leading technology businesses, business leaders and internal talent have shaped the key opportunities for Disruption 3.0.
- We have adopted a yearly and quarterly planning and prioritisation process.
- We’ve adopted company-wide Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and North Star Metrics (NSMs) which guide our prioritisation and decision-making processes.
- We’ve pivoted from ’enterprise agile’ to a “platform operating model”, creating platforms that are groupings of like business capabilities and the systems and people that deliver and operate them end-to-end, with a view to reduce dependencies between teams and increase the velocity and reliability of our technology ecosystem.
- Adopting a product mindset in everything we do, treating our experiences, APIs, data and platform capabilities as products.
- Investing in the evolution of our digital, data and design practices driving customer obsession, insights and digitalisation in everything we do.
- Continuing to grow and deepen the engineering experience, tooling, platforms and paved paths that will continue to accelerate our velocity and increase the reliability of our platforms.
- Ensuring that engineering continues to have an equal voice in the organisation to be certain that we are building the right thing the right way, continuously paying down technical debt, automating out legacy processes and creating experiences that are market-leading.
It’s truly exciting to work at an organisation that has such a strong culture of diversity and inclusion, and an executive and business leadership that are world class. Where digital, data, design and engineering capabilities are among the best in the world. I have found that Macquarie Bank has all the right ingredients to be a world class software company that just happens to be in financial services.
If you are a Digital Native, Designer, Data Guru or Engineer then Macquarie is an organisation that will provide you with amazing career opportunities. An environment that is exciting, where diversity, inclusion, personal learning and development is embraced. This is a place where your talents will be recognised, and where accountability, entrepreneurialism and integrity are fostered at all levels.
Join us and grow your career in an organisation where you are part of something truly disruptive, challenging and fulfilling!
