Lessons in acceleration: PrivatBank’s transformation in times of war (INO113)

Accelerating Transformation: Lessons from PrivatBank's Journey

Introduction

  • Jana Werner, from AWS Innovation and Enterprise Transformation team, welcomed the audience to re:Invent.
  • She introduced the session on accelerating transformation and her co-speaker Aleksey Zaets, from PrivatBank in Ukraine.

The Challenge of Accelerating Transformation

  • Jana explained that the traditional, 19th-century way of thinking about organizations, focused on prediction, efficiency, and top-down control, no longer works in today's world of accelerated innovation and business change.
  • Organizations are complex systems, not complicated ones, with uncertain outcomes from the interactions of different components.
  • Transformation efforts often fail because they treat organizations as something to be "solved" through predetermined programs, rather than an ongoing process of learning and adaptation.

Accelerating Transformation: Three Key Principles

1. Clarity

  • Clearly communicating the "why" behind the change, connecting it to customer outcomes and painting a compelling vision of the future.
  • Reducing the number of priorities and aligning incentives across the organization.

2. Ownership

  • Giving people problems to solve, rather than just tasks to complete.
  • Replacing processes with principles and empowering people to make faster decisions.

3. Curiosity

  • Shifting the focus from output to value creation.
  • Encouraging experimentation, learning, and the use of data to inform decision-making.
  • Investing in development and ensuring people can apply new skills in their daily work.

Aleksey Zaets' Story: PrivatBank's Transformation Journey

  • Aleksey introduced PrivatBank, Ukraine's largest retail bank, and its critical role in the country's financial stability.
  • When the war in Ukraine began in February 2022, PrivatBank faced the urgent challenge of protecting its infrastructure and ensuring business continuity.
  • In just 43 days (and nights), Aleksey and his team managed to migrate PrivatBank's critical systems to the AWS cloud, despite initial skepticism and technical obstacles.

Overcoming Barriers and Accelerating the Journey

  • Aleksey shared how PrivatBank's leadership provided the necessary support and empowerment, allowing teams to experiment and fail without consequences.
  • The bank also focused on optimizing cloud costs and establishing clear ownership and accountability for applications.

Embracing Innovation and AI

  • With the cloud migration complete, PrivatBank is now exploring innovative use cases for AI, such as chatbots, financial monitoring, and fraud detection.
  • The organization has created an environment that encourages experimentation, learning, and the scaling of successful initiatives.

Key Takeaways

  • Clarity, ownership, and curiosity are critical principles for accelerating transformation.
  • Celebrating and amplifying positive behaviors, innovating everywhere, and embracing progress over perfection can help drive change.
  • Leveraging the ecosystem, including partners and external expertise, can support the transformation journey.

Your Digital Journey deserves a great story.

Build one with us.

Cookies Icon

These cookies are used to collect information about how you interact with this website and allow us to remember you. We use this information to improve and customize your browsing experience, as well as for analytics.

If you decline, your information won’t be tracked when you visit this website. A single cookie will be used in your browser to remember your preference.

Talk to us