Đột phá về Chiến Lược với Tư Duy Thiết Kế | Dr. Sơn Đỗ Lệnh, Private bank hàng đầu Thụy Sĩ |#TQKS 60

Quốc Khánh introduces Dr. Sơn Đỗ Lệnh, who is the Customer Experience Director for Technology and Asset Management at a leading private bank in Switzerland. Dr. Lệnh has extensive experience in various sectors like banking, shipping, data, education, and consulting, having worked abroad for nearly 20 years. He was invited back to Vietnam to give a keynote speech for a Thet company event and to consult on strategic transformation.

Dr. Lệnh defines innovation as observing old contexts or phenomena with a new perspective and devising new, practical solutions to old problems. He emphasizes the importance of asking many questions and rethinking established methods.

Dr. Lệnh shares his most significant innovation experience: transforming an investment portfolio management platform in the banking industry. This platform, built over 20 years, involved thousands of people and numerous processes, creating a complex, entangled system. The core challenge was not just outdated technology but also people and processes, especially with new regulations impacting banking secrecy.

He elaborates on the challenges, highlighting that the main problem wasn't technology (though it became obsolete over 20 years) but rather human and process issues. The flow of data was inconsistent across many departments due to manual processes and disconnected systems. Regulations requiring banks to be more transparent about client funds added layers of complexity, leading to an entangled web of procedures and policies.

Dr. Lệnh explains their 'rethink' strategy, which involved re-evaluating everything, even existing good practices, as they might be built on inefficient foundations. This led to simplifying by 'removing' unnecessary elements before rethinking. The approach was to design an ideal end-to-end customer journey, then build the organizational structure and technology to support it, focusing on customer experience, processes, and technology layers.

The biggest obstacle was people's resistance to change. Many employees were accustomed to existing processes, having optimized them over years. To overcome this, they formed cross-functional and multidisciplinary teams to observe processes, gather diverse perspectives, and help individuals see the bigger picture. This approach helped employees understand the impact of their work and the benefits of new, more efficient solutions.

Dr. Lệnh recounts a large-scale project involving hundreds of thousands of people that failed after two years because it delivered results too late and too slowly. The project focused too much on comprehensive planning rather than quick wins and iterative execution (Agile methodology). This taught him not to spend excessive time perfecting plans but to generate many small, testable ideas and adapt along the way.

Transformation goes beyond 'digital'; it can involve strategy, business models, operational models, and even culture and workforce. Dr. Lệnh believes strategic transformation brings the most value, influencing all other aspects. He categorizes transformation into three types: efficiency (improving existing processes), sustaining (expanding current models with new products/services), and transformative (building entirely new business models). Many companies, like Blockbuster, fail by focusing only on efficiency in a declining model.

Dr. Lệnh predicts a dual future for banking. For younger, digitally native generations, banking will become invisible and integrated into daily life (e.g., through IoT, Digital Banking). For others, it will evolve into a personalized, relationship-based service, where bankers act as personal assistants, handling tasks beyond financial transactions. He cautions against directly applying lessons from developed countries to emerging markets like Vietnam, as contexts and cultures are vastly different.

As someone with a technical background turned business interpreter, Dr. Lệnh discusses the common communication gap between technical and business teams due to differing personalities and knowledge bases. He sees his role as a translator. His advice for business owners interacting with tech professionals is not to force tech language, but to help tech teams understand how their work impacts the company's core objectives like revenue, profit, and customer satisfaction.

Dr. Lệnh advocates for 'design thinking' as critical for innovation. It's a method that encourages extensive observation and data collection to define the real problem, then generates numerous potential solutions before selecting and testing them. He illustrates this with an example of a banker's task, where design thinking revealed the true need for a consolidated task list rather than merely automating a specific reporting process.

He shares that his career path was not entirely planned, driven more by personal curiosity and a desire for continuous learning and self-renewal. He emphasizes that transformation, like a child's growth, is a gradual process. His personal philosophy, instilled by his uncle, is to always ask 'Why?' and 'Why not?' to challenge assumptions and explore new possibilities. He believes this mindset helps maintain a fresh perspective and drive continuous improvement.

Based on his experience with international corporations, Dr. Lệnh observes that true leadership in change management comes from those who 'walk the talk' and genuinely commit to what they advocate. Such leaders inspire greater passion and engagement from their teams. He reiterates the importance of small, fast, and frequent experiments to minimize risk and adapt quickly, rather than investing heavily in single, lengthy plans.

Dr. Lệnh expresses a strong desire to contribute to Vietnam's development. He is currently exploring various opportunities, including consulting and participating in events, applying his philosophy of small experiments to see how he can best integrate his international experience with Vietnam's dynamic market.