00:00:20

Hi, Rhonda. My name is practice at Infosys. As we all continue to navigate our way through these uncertain times, they didn't deal with resilience is clearly the new mantra for success for enterprises. The new ways of working driven by lean agile and DevSecOps have become all the more relevant as organizations try to transform themselves to adapt to the new normal. But how do you really drive such a large scale transformation in a complex and globally distributed organization? Well, today we will be sharing with you once success story, the story of DevOps transformation at HSBC Americas. It just BC, as we all know, is a leading global bank serving over 40 million customers across 64 countries. HSBC, partnered with Infosys in this large scale transformation and who better to talk about this story than a leader who has led this transformation from the front, Mr. Donald Batra, the executive vice president and the chief information officer of HSBC Americas, Don heads, the technology function across us, Canada and Latin America, or what is 25 years of career. Don has played a variety of roles starting off as an entrepreneur. Then moving on to being a consultant with a big four consulting firm, and then going on to play various leadership roles at HSBC. Welcome Don. Great to have you in this session.

00:01:41

Thank you. Um, uh, look, um, thanks for inviting me. And that was a fantastic and great, uh, intro and good morning to everybody. Um, and the session over to you,

00:01:54

Don, let me tee off the session by asking you, what are the key business drivers for the bank to undertake agile and DevOps transformation?

00:02:03

Yeah, sure. I'm the way, um, I look at, uh, from a business driver is, you know, three, four, right? First of all, the market dynamics, you know, what's happening externally with the advent of the fintechs and the big is, you know, trying to partnership the partnership that's happening with big Tex on the banks and then the FinTech starting to, you know, uh, chip away on, on the profitability of, of the financial institutions, which is growing, uh, very rapidly. So that's one dimension of what stress bearing in the market, which is, you know, almost forcing, you know, the banks and the financial institution to be agile and nimble. Right. Then the second aspect, that's more, you know, looking at the customers and our regulators. You know, if we look at our customers, you know, they obviously clearly they want fast response. Not only that, you know, it's moving towards more, they want to, you know, see us know what they want, what I meant by that is being very predictive.

00:03:09

And, you know, we, as banks are in a very good position, you know, with the information and data, we have all of our customers to leverage that obviously with their, you know, um, support to say basically what they really want, because we can do that with using leveraging AI and machine learning. So that's the second dimension of what's, you know, uh, coming at us. And the third also equally important in terms of drivers, not necessarily business drivers, but drivers is, is the, you know, need of, of people because the millennials, you know, coming in at the talents, you know, in order to, uh, attract and retain good talent, we need to create an environment which is fast paced, which is also an environment for learning and innovation where people can experiment. They can have, they're empowered, they have the autonomy to, uh, you know, create, you know, solutions for the business. So it's a combination of all three that's, uh, as a driver. But then if you talk about just business drivers is the first tool for more, more important part, but all three are instrumental and important that is forcing us to be, you know, uh, you know, uh, high-speed and agile and nimble to be competitive in the market.

00:04:29

Yeah, I think, uh, quite a complex environment in which the bank, uh, is operating and, uh, you know, that makes this whole transformation all the more complex, but I'm also equally aware that banks internal environment is also quite complex, you know, the way you structure and organize. So give us a sense of the kind of complexity, uh, which existed, um, uh, you know, around which you actually drove this transformation and the bank.

00:04:58

Yeah, the Americas landscape. Uh, but it's just be obviously it's seven countries, uh, as we speak. Uh, but if you look at, you know, all the major markets in Mexico, as well as in the U S it's a, it's primarily growth through both organic and inorganic. And that adds to a bit of it on some of the challenges we face with the legacy, uh, portfolios that we in area. And sometimes it's integrated, sometimes it's not integrated over the years. Um, so that's one, you know, uh, aspect of, of, uh, the challenge, or you can say, you know, a bit of complexity that it brings, but along with that is the geographical spread and the cultural complexity that comes with different, you know, languages, cultures, you know, across seven countries. And then you have distributed teams, you know, look at it in different parts of the world, along with the teams in the Americas.

00:05:52

Uh, we got about sarcoma or lower, uh, 6,000 in our technology, um, uh, staff in this, in this America that are supporting our businesses. Uh, we support about, you know, close to several thousand services, uh, across the jurisdictions in seven countries, uh, supported in three days in their pairs, right. You know, we've got, you know, a peer in Argentina and Mexico us, um, and I'm, it's all of this. Then you have the local, regional, global construct of our organization. And then, you know, the, the seven lines of business and functions, you know, three major legs of business and that there are functions. And then within technology, you have all the different departments, which is not nothing, you know, unique outs, uh, in, in a lot of organizations, you know, you will have, uh, infrastructure, uh, architecture and different departments that come together. And then, you know, obviously as banks and with the history that we have, uh, we have a very hybrid technology portfolio. So you can imagine or take all of this into account, you know, it's, it's not a trivial in terms of running our transformation at that scale and languages.

00:07:06

Don, if I really reflect back on my experience, one of the challenges that I've seen is that most of the agile and DevOps initiatives are initiated and led by technology with business coming into the game quite late, and which obviously is not desirable. But I know that, uh, you know, you were able to secure business commitment quite early on, uh, just wanted to understand how did you go about it?

00:07:29

Yeah, I think that's why we started to call it biz dev ops or biz dev sec ops. Yeah. Um, more we'll get at it, I guess, as we go on, but it has to be business led. So we started off, you know, back in 13, when I started first with agile, uh, you know, in Mexico or Latin America, we started with the top of the house, you know, like with the CEO and the CEO. And I recall, you know, in the first instance, having a conversation in their office about what our dial is with the little, you know, uh, exposure I had, and then with partnership with Infosys, we were able to showcase what's happening in the industry, you know, and what kind of benefits that business can potentially drive through this kind of, uh, ways of operating. So that was the first step, you know, and that's where it first started.

00:08:18

But again, you know, it was, you know, very early in, in terms of getting real buy-in across the board and the top of the house. So with that, we started doing, you know, in Cuba, you know, uh, small, um, examples of how we can actually deploy as I am to demonstrate some of the benefits in a smaller scale, right. To actually prove the point and that those were became our showcase. And we started to rally with that. They want straight, you know, as to how it's done and what the benefits are that became more apparent because they can more touch and feel. And through that process, we used to have floor walks and have the business and the, uh, heads of the, of the different departments, the CEO come in and even the CEO to come and look at how we are actually deploying, uh, as island DevSecOps.

00:09:08

And that was quite motivating for the staff as much as it was very instrumental in trying to get the, uh, the business, you know, to, uh, take ownership, you know, to what we used to all the product owners, you know, because we had significant challenge initially try to get product tumors, you know, into, in involved in the day-to-day, um, in the parts specifically the teams, you know, teams of the scrum teams. So lead by example, in a showing some success stories, making sure that they have that visibility through the floor walks. So that was the other aspect that we brought in and the, the, uh, the other important thing we did when we actually kicked off the whole transformation of which agile DevSecOps was at the heart of it was to make it very self-funded right. You know, and make it attractive for the business, you know, and returning some of the, uh, efficiencies back for reinvestment, you know, at the discretion of the business.

00:10:08

And that became, so we are not going and asking for money. It's rather, we say, okay, if you, we do this, we are going to make sure that we return, uh, the benefits, you know, and it will be self paid or self-funded, but on top of that, we can give you back, uh, additional savings that you can choose to, uh, redeploy reinvest in the, in, uh, business growth. And that became a very attractive proposition. So making it, you know, uh, less barrier to entry, making it very attractive for the business, showcasing, you know, uh, what substance looks like and rallying behind that to get broader, you know, um, um, ownership as much as involvement engagement from the business.

00:10:52

Yeah. I think talking about showcasing the successes, don't I still recall, uh, you know, one of your tech innovation days, and I happened to be there in Mexico and, and you had your, uh, top, uh, ITD leadership, as well as business leaders actually walking the floors and the different pot teams showcasing what they're done. I think that was pretty powerful. And I could also see a clear sense of pride right? In the, in your people, as they were showcasing, uh, doing a show and tell to all these leaders, I think that went a long way in getting the entire moment building up and getting buy-in from all quarters. The other thing that stood out for me, when you just, when you were just talking was about the self-funded model. I think, again, that can be a very compelling proposition for any organization. You know, how will you use the gains from the transformation to fund the transformation itself? Pretty interesting.

00:11:41

I'm more, you know, does, the other thing is, is just not funding the translation, but we actually saving more than what is required to be invested in transformation. So those can be, and we have in clever ways, you know, obviously in partnership with the business investors, those in innovation, you know, and, and ensuring that we do, I don't design thinking workshops on bras, solving business problems. We reinvested those in very innovative ways, um, to create, uh, invest them in learning right. You know, to grow the organization, build capability. Right. And so,

00:12:21

Yeah, absolutely. Now, you know, uh, the, I want to just move on to the part wrong. Uh, so you got the business buy-in in the leadership, uh, commitment. Uh, but the other challenge, which I often sees getting the alignment with your next line, right. With your senior management middle management, because that's where it can come start. So just tell us a bit about how you went about aligning everyone, setting up some goals and measures, and just ensuring that, you know, your next line of leadership and, and below that are all kind of aligned to this larger objective that you were driving. Yeah.

00:12:55

I think the first thing I did was, uh, assessed myself, you know, at the onset. Right. Um, so I recall having, you know, an external third party come in, um, and along with, and that was the first step later on. I landed up hiring bureau and our psychologist coming in from impulses and with, uh, with the engagement. And, um, we had with, uh, with Infosys to, uh, help me, um, uh, fix myself first and I'll find out, am I ready for change? Am I ready for, you know, this kind of transformation and what are the behavioral aspects that I need to, you know, resolve? So that was where it started. And then I encouraged my next level, the leadership, the tech leadership, uh, in, in that jurisdiction in Mexico. And similarly, um, now in us to actually think of whether they want to follow the sale, whether they want to really understand, uh, where their strengths and opportunities are in terms of, you know, leading a large scale transformation and DevSecOps, because it's clearly a cultural, uh, reorganization, you know, the way you think, the way you approach different things is where do we different?

00:14:06

So are we ready for that as leaders ourselves is the first step. And then from there on, you know, obviously, you know, once we have gone through that and understanding where our strengths and opportunities and still work together to ensure him in bootcamp, you know, we used to have number of boot camps where I used to go and actually hone in on how we can improve ourselves in leading this kind of change and where as an organization, we need to make some of these, uh, you know, change and where the opportunities are, uh, with that. You know, obviously there are certain guidance that was put in place with regular rigor of discipline of having, you know, uh, regular, uh, meetings, uh, our standup meetings to understand how you're progressing through that change. And that's quite important is when our, the rest of the organization sees that the top of the house and the leaders are actually digging this in such a serious way, where they're regularly on a daily stand-ups, they're taking stock of how much more progress we have made, then it becomes, you know, quite apprehend, you know, the tone from the top is quite obvious, you know, for the rest of the organization.

00:15:17

And through this process, obviously we came up with very interesting measures and metrices, we leveraged, you know, I'll give you medication at the onset. And that was an interesting learning there because gamification worked very well when we started to, you know, create healthy competition, advance it. But later on, we found, you know, that was not being very effective, uh, because people started to compete with each other rather than, you know, you know, getting ahead themselves and competing with themselves. Um, so yeah, so it's a combination of measurements having a very metrics oriented kind of, uh, approach, uh, with the reg regular cadence and rigorous around being how we are progressing, but also having a very, uh, you know, concerted and conscious effort of changing each of us as the leadership layer in ensuring that we are equipped ourselves to drive a change of this magnitude.

00:16:15

Yeah. And you're not talking about the measures and metrics. You mentioned that Europe highly matrix oriented approach. I still recall, you know, these TV screens on your floors showing live, uh, feed of, you know, how the different parts were doing. I mean, you talked about gamification, there was live metrics being shown and very powerful, uh, information radiator with things, everybody on the same page in regards to the performance. And what also struck me was that, you know, you actually had that screen in your office as well, when you actually had a live view of how these were performing. When I thought that was pretty powerful, because as a leader, you also was, you know, kind of tracking this, uh, almost on an ongoing basis now, uh, you know, I'm also kind of cognizant of the fact that, you know, when you're trying to change the ways of working, it's not just about introducing the practices and dueling, it's also about changing structures, right? Your team structures, organization structures. I know that you talk brought in this, uh, kind of a model and that's also evolving. Can you just talk a bit about, you know, what are some of these changes that you introduce as part of this transformation?

00:17:22

Yeah, we did a, you know, and, uh, we put together teams, Serling products, like, so for example, you know, in the banking industry, we have cards as a product, you know, so we started out that way where we, you know, lending as a product or back then as a product. So we have teams who are self content, all aspects of technology and a business owner, all sitting together in what we call . Right. You know, now in that kind of model, you kind of break the silo structure, you know, that the organization typically runs ransom. So you're, there all have a common goal of delivering outcomes or business features set for that particular product. And they're empowered. They have all the tools, they have the, the funding and they're making decisions, you know, less time spent on hands-off and handoffs. And they're just delivering outcomes, you know, to the, so I think that was the first structural.

00:18:20

Now in that context, there, obviously, you know, moving from traditional structure into a port structure brings in a lot of challenges in terms of, you know, uh, scalability, whether, you know, like for example, we had 40 parts, you know, in one jurisdiction, like in Mexico, similar number in U S you don't have that many, uh, you know, like for example, DBS, um, or solution architects that can be allocated to every 40 ports. Right. So how do you, you know, kind of pull them, have them in a centralized practice model, but then they're ha they're named individuals allocated to X number of ports. Right. You know, so they're still responsible. They have accountability, you know, for this number of parts. So we came through all those kinds of different models to make it work in our context, without, you know, adding costs know to the whole system, right?

00:19:12

So that's one owner structural. And then very quickly we started to encounter, uh, challenges in terms of prioritization, which was a huge learning again, uh, where we figured that know in each of the parts, the business driver is more about revenue and putting things out in the market, which rightfully so that's what we are incentivized to do. But at the same time, things that are important to, you know, as production fixes or cyber related issues that needs to be fixed, our regulatory was not getting, you know, priority. So we came up with a prioritization metrics, you know, at the top, again, you know, it was agreed at the back level that this is how we are going to prioritize that every individual board, once we sorted that, and then people was clear along with the business owner in the part, they were very, very clear in terms of priorities.

00:20:03

Then we ran into these challenges of cross, cross, uh, board prioritization, uh, which is basically cross product, you know, and there was no single, we had stumps of scrums, which used to call par council, but that, you know, necessarily there was no arbitrator who can make a call that at a vac level, which one should take priorities priority. So, uh, we went through that, you know, kind of journey challenge for a little while, till we got to the set and we're still evolving in that journey. But, you know, with the safe, we are able to, you know, through the API or the program, increment planning, we are able to bring teams across the organization, uh, and the necessary support to make those priority calls. Um, so more mobilizing and moving in that direction to drive customer outcome. Um, we have actually, you know, got into that kind of model where we were able to, um, get to the priority priorities when it has cross line of business across product, you know, um, competing demands, so to speak. Yeah. And the evolution of that,

00:21:11

Tell us a bit about, uh, what kind of business value were you able to actually realize out of this transformation?

00:21:17

Yeah, I think, uh, you know, who the first, uh, it's kind of a bit of a rollercoaster initially, um, where we thought we were making progress, then we started to retract and also we ran through numerous soaks and numerous learnings, you know, starting from, we have to redefine every individual's roles and responsibilities. Um, you know, because there was lack of that clarity surrounding that, you know, so we, we went through different phases of maturity and sometimes we felt that we were going backwards, but most important to that journey is always, we started. And, you know, I, one of the things that I was always concerned with, how to make it sticky, how to make it sustainable. Right. Very, very important. Right. Um, and, and in doing so, making sure that we have, and that's why the culture shift and the culture change was so fundamental, because if you don't address that, it will, it's not about just a bunch of tools and, and, and putting in a slapping in the process, it's about people's mindset, that's where it fundamentally.

00:22:18

So once we got some of those going, you know, you know, it was kind of interesting to see, you know, the, uh, the business level, there are two dimensions. One is business varied, business value. Like for example, in Mexico that you call them back in 18 in the card space. Um, we had, you know, obviously we came up with a brand new digital channel to grow market share, and it went up quite dramatically in that market. Right. Um, I recall that we sold in one single month, uh, sells, you know, jumped from the previous month to the next month, almost not of 60%, right. So there are, you know, obviously measures and mattresses that we used to collect, which was giving me an onslaught of that was to do with how fast we were delivering feature sets to the market at, at a higher quality.

00:23:06

Um, one reason, one with the pandemic it's interesting, uh, which is the paycheck production plan in the U S the teams were able to deliver, you know, in few days, you know, uh, processing over 4,000 months, there were delivered that delivered a solution that can process 4,000 loans with $1.2 billion, you know, um, which we, you know, earlier we could have taken much, longer, much, much longer time to do something like this. Right. So this kind, and it was quite timely that in the U S was it weekly that we embarked on this about, you know, 18 months back and, you know, with emphasis again in partnership. And it has been, you know, quite, uh, um, enriching journey thus far to deliver something like this at the right time in the pandemic who does right. So, and then, you know, that's kind of pure bad business benefit.

00:23:57

But when I look at my technology measures, you know, um, like buy meantime to recover when the production incident happens, how quickly we are able to recover. And we clearly seen, you know, optic of 70%, not all 70% improvements, uh, year on year, you know, as a result of, of, uh, DevSecOps and, and bringing agility release frequency has gone off at 2%. You know, it's just the beginning. I'll tell you, you know, it'll go mass for much faster as we, you know, uh, match your, in that whole journey, um, that the disruptive changes, you know, when we do, you know, over a thousand changes, you know, every, almost every week, uh, in production, uh, this does, and, uh, we have practically, you know, uh, less than 0.0, 2%, you know, disruptions, you know, as a result of this change. Uh, and most of the time it's zero week after week, you know, so, uh, these are, uh, you know, obviously not direct customer benefits, but these are purely, um, things that business do appreciate. And these are the things that when you showcase to the business, it creates a, the credibility and the, and the strength in driving with force and rejuvenates the team and excites them to drive the change that we are looking for.

00:25:11

Yeah, certainly I think it's been a, it's been a great partnership, I would say between HSBC and enforces, uh, as we went about this, uh, transformation journey, uh, and this constant has been very engaging Don, and I, I'm sure we could have gone for another hour or so, but I'm also cognizant of the time. So let me kind of wrap this up by, uh, asking you to share, uh, with our audience and with your peers who are on similar journeys or planning to take a journey on this front, what would be your advice to them if you just reflect back on your own personal experience?

00:25:46

I think it's kind of very relevant to, um, you know, what I just talked about, one of the key things is when we look at DevSecOps, uh, one of the learnings that we had is we cannot look at it by an isolation because it's a part of a broader transformation that needs to be whether we call it digital transformation, you know, are, you know, transformation or technology transformation, how you want to put it. Yes, dev sec ops or biz dev ops is one aspect of it, but you need to also encapsulate how we are going to change the mindset that people are in culture dimension of that, along with, you know, um, the, um, building innovation and the experimental kind of environment where people can come and, you know, try different things. Um, one of the things in that is also about, you know, uh, sustenance.

00:26:36

It's also important to keep in mind, how do you create, uh, you know, change the fabric of the culture. Um, and every 30 left fabric has to vibrate at the same frequency as to where you want organization to be. Um, so the top of the house might, you know, uh, you know, the CXS and next executing comment is, might want our direction where we have travel, but you need to, you know, get the rest of the organization in that same path. And there's a huge cultural dimension and ends, uh, the ability to sustain that if the cultural change doesn't happen, it's not going to be sticky, right? So in that context, you know, a building that kind of, or focusing on the people aspect is very, very key, uh, to make sure that, you know, uh, that people are coming along, you will always have that, you know, last third that'll be the laggers.

00:27:29

And, you know, we need to make some hard decisions, some tough choices on those, but for the most part, you will get, you know, people to come along. And we have an exciting journey for, uh, the company at the UN and our staff and the last, but not the least is always capitalized on small, incremental success as we go, because this journey, this kind of transformation is not meant to be easy and seamless. It can be overwhelming, and it will be challenging at times, but keeping that moment, keeping that excitement, uh, building on, on successes as we move along and reinforcing rejuvenating, you know, reinventing sometimes is very, very important and communication through that process with the staff, with the top management, bringing everybody together, along with the business is very, very key in that journey.

00:28:18

No, I think this has been a great conversation, Don. So thanks once again for sharing your, uh, visa insights and your own personal experiences, which I think would be very valuable for our audience. So thanks a lot for making time available for this conversation. It was great talking to you and, uh, we should have very best as you continue to move forward on this journey.

00:28:41

Thank you very much. Thanks for inviting me.

00:28:44

Thank you.