Cultural change leads the way

While Ejima-san acknowledges that agile lies at the heart of Danamon’s digital transformation, he emphasized a larger catalyst for change: organizational culture. “We want to grow and play a meaningful role in Indonesia’s economy,” he explains. “To achieve that, we must innovate and improve how we operate. We cannot expect to see a difference if we continue doing things the same way. So, it’s agile, yes. But it’s not just about IT development—it’s about cultural change. This should be the core driving force not only for product development but also for broader organizational transformation.”

Leadership needs to be top-down—and bottom-up

Ejima-san recognizes the vital role he plays in driving the transformation. “As CEO, it’s important for me to lead, drive, and facilitate change,” he explains. “However, for this cultural shift to be truly effective, it must come from the bottom up, not just from top-down directives. Once we communicate the vision clearly, we expect actions to emerge naturally, creating a balance between leadership-driven and grassroots-driven efforts.”

Start small, then scale up

Two years ago, Danamon began its agile transformation journey with a single squad: a multidisciplinary team focused on delivering customers’ needs at speed. Ejima-san reflects: “At first, I think people were cautious, wondering, ‘Is this really going to grow, or is it just another project?’ But as the team demonstrated its value—not just in IT development but also in areas like risk and compliance—others began to see the potential and value. The whole team got together to create this valuable product using a step-by-step, minimum viable product approach. By focusing on delivering incremental value, we were able to grow from one squad to more than 10, each delivering customer value in parallel.”

The early days are the hard yards

That’s not to say the transition was a walk in the park. “There were tremendous efforts over the past two years to get from one squad to double digits,” Ejima-san continues. “Our agile transformation team played a critical role, supporting the journey, from managing governance and simplifying processes and policies to fostering new ways of working, accelerating digital capabilities, tracking key measures so that people could understand the progress, and crafting top-down messages.” Moving away from past norms and behaviors was also a challenge at first. “In the past, there were silos,” he adds. “Bringing them closer to the market and to the customer by being in the squad and contributing to the product’s progress was a new concept. I think people understand it now, but in the initial stages, it was probably more like, ‘Why do I have to do this?’”

Regenerating success beyond Danamon

Having successfully scaled up agile in digital, Ejima-san is eager to expand the transformation approach to other parts of the business—and beyond. “So far, we have primarily focused on the retail banking side,” he notes. “I want to see if we can expand it to the corporate banking side, as well as to other companies within the MUFG group and beyond—not just in banking but also in multi-finance companies—and to our partners. We all face similar challenges: how to speed up processes and become more customer-centric. These are the values I aim to share with all our partners and group companies.”

To learn more about Bank Danamon’s agile transformation and its future direction, watch these insightful video clips featuring Daisuke Ejima.