ASSIGNMENT-1

DRIVING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AT THE DBS BANK

"Evaluate the impact of hackathon in DBS bank. Mention the criteria for your
evaluation."

“A hackathon is a relay design exercise in which computer programmers, graphic designers, 
etc., sometimes including market experts, are intensively working on software projects
to create a software and hardware compatible solution.”

To achieve the following targets, while ensuring easy scalability and empower growth, DBS
adopted multiple strategy as well as hackathon as a part of it.

 Reimagine the customer journeys

 Embrace modern technology
 Transform the company culture

Hackathons were used as a medium my DBS bank to bring together the executive
talent and start-up entrepreneurs to work together for the hackathon to create a productive
solution.

The Hackathons were able to attract start-ups, as it allowed their teams to participate in
multiple events. They were able to create 50 prototypes in the areas of SME banking, digital
banking, marketing, HR and corporate social responsibility solutions. The bank was rolling
out few of the solutions created via hackathons as part of new digital banking solutions for
India and in retail banking business. Some of the solutions were successful in securing
business commitment and were under the review process for further “design and build
procedure”.

These hackathons were helpful for the bank to connect with the new generation of their
prospective clients and customers. With help of the hackathons they were able to understand
what could be the requirements their customers could have from them or what kind of
services and facilities could help them gain better customer satisfaction and improve their
customer’s journey. Also, these hackathons worked as a great initiative for them to include
high-potential talent and include them as a part of their teams, in order to improve their
productivity. At the same time, the internal demand of hackathons was growing as business
leaders across DBS were keen to apply the new methodology to try to solve problems they
had been struggling with for a long time. These events played and important role in raising
awareness of the means and ends of the digital transformation they were going through.