A recent Kearney study found that 99 percent of senior leaders across Asia Pacific believe that having a regenerative business—one where transformation is at the core of its operations—is very important to their future. Keppel is no exception. As Manjot Singh Mann, the firm’s chief digital officer and CEO of M1, explains, “Keppel has always been an agile organization, even with its size and structure. During the past decades, it has gone through many transformations. What we are doing now is another chapter in that journey, as we redefine the business model to focus on becoming a global asset manager with deep operating capabilities in infrastructure, real estate, and connectivity.”
Digitalization has an extremely important role to play. Mann continues: “At M1, we already used digital to establish a new business model. And in the same way, we are building the Keppel of the future.”
There are three parts to the transformation:
- Standardization and optimization. Mann describes this as more of a defensive play, whereby Keppel is looking across its entire operations to implement common processes, principles, and ways of working, which will bring cost benefits across the organization and create additional value.
- Moving to a new organization structure. Rather than being organized vertically around specific business units, Keppel is moving to a new, horizontal model, which, as we will see, is at the heart of its future direction.
- Becoming service-oriented, rather than asset-oriented. According to Mann, this is where Keppel will go on the offensive, becoming more asset light and building out new “as-a-service” models serving priority sectors such as infrastructure, real estate, and connectivity.
As experts in digital transformation, we have seen too many programs and initiatives stumble when organizations place too much emphasis on getting the technology in, and then try to retrofit their processes, ways of working, and even the way they are structured around their newly acquired technical capabilities. At Keppel, it’s the opposite.
As Mann explains, “We have created three core platforms: a fund management platform, an investment platform, and an operating platform. To be an efficient, effective, and productive asset manager, you need seamless, end-to-end visibility. This is one area where digitalization is going to play a big role, as everything we do today has to be measured very differently, from fund modeling to the performance of the asset to the way we invest. How do we create a data lake where there is one source of truth across the three platforms? How do we manage everything horizontally, including analysis, planning, budgeting, consolidation, and reporting, instead of in vertical silos? That’s really the meat of the transformation.”
With digital also at the fore as Keppel standardizes, improves, and creates fresh, service-based business models, for Mann and his team it’s about enabling the firm to take its new shape, create additional profit pools, and be more productive, resilient, and effective as an organization.
At Keppel and M1, the transformation approach is as much about people and processes as it is about technology. For Mann, technology is the simplest part. As he says, “Once you drop the architecture and you know which technology to use where, that's not very difficult. Of course it's not easy, but it's relatively easier.
“Process is more difficult because there has to be a mindset change in terms of how people look at things. You can't have the technology without processes around it, whether that's on the governance side, the execution side, or even the architecture side.
“The toughest part is people. This is about ownership and having a change mindset. Being able to communicate the change and execute it are quite difficult in a transformation piece. And that is something that I'm quite sensitive about and really want to work on.”
As for the “how” of making a transformation stick, according to Mann there is no silver bullet. “I think it's a journey,” he adds. “As we deploy new products and services and platforms, we have to take it piece by piece. I am a big believer in starting small and then expanding the scope, rather than trying to do too many things that don't work out. As then, people start doubting the whole model.”
Context is also key. “In M1, for example, digitalizing was probably a little easier because it is a single consumer business. So, we broke down our customer journeys very simply and went journey by journey. Now, we have to find a way to break things down into simpler parts at Keppel.”
Of course, the linchpin in any digital transformation is data, and at Keppel, Mann is at the helm of a multi-pronged data strategy.
- Data capture and creation. This includes capturing data from all parts of the current organization, and creating the new data types and datasets that will fuel the new Keppel, from both the asset management side and the operating platform side.
- Data governance and protection. Here, the focus is on who has access to and control over which data, and how this is protected, whether by regulatory or other means.
- Data literacy. Equipping Keppel’s people with the knowledge and skills to use its data effectively.
For Mann, data literacy is equally, if not more important, than the other two elements. “This is sort of going back to technology, processes, and people,” he reflects. “You can capture data, create a data lake, and design the processes around how you mine it and structure it. But if it is not used to make your decisions more efficient, make your business more productive and so forth, then it’s meaningless. That’s why when you talk about having a data-led organization, it is not only done by technology. It’s about how we become more data-led in our thinking processes and apply it to drive the business forward.”
This makes upskilling and reskilling crucially important. Pressing his point, Mann continues: “If I don't know what this data can do to my business decision, I have to learn how to know it. And therefore, it is our job to make sure that we train people, we skill people on the platform that we are going to use, so that they're able to use it effectively and say, ‘Wow, this worked.’ When employees start seeing the benefits of using data, then the snowball effect starts. And that all boils down to literacy.”
Generative AI (GenAI) is set to radically accelerate organizations’ ability to use their data, but many questions remain about how the technology will continue to develop. This presents two crucial challenges for any CxO: how to best use it for the organization’s benefit, and where to start.
At Keppel, where AI and machine learning are already being used to understand behaviors and influence better decisions, it’s about taking a considered, measured approach with GenAI, rather than jumping straight in with both feet. Mann comments, “I think it might be a little premature at this point in time to understand how GenAI will transform the business, or what opportunities it will present going forward.”
In response, Keppel has established an AI forum to enable the organization to understand and experiment with new technologies like Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, and others responsibly. As Mann describes it, “Everybody wants to do something on AI and GenAI, but we have to do it responsibly, without compromising security or data. So that is something we are very cautious about. In Keppel’s forum, we can apply these technologies to multiple use cases, and create sandboxes where people can go to understand what works and what does not work. From there we can learn and apply what works within the organization on a larger scale.”
With developments in the AI space turning cybersecurity into a much larger concern for all organizations, and Keppel itself being involved in critical infrastructure, which is highly regulated, this has resulted in the firm establishing a robust cyber governance model to protect the organization as the technology landscape continues to evolve.
As for being able to assess the impact of its digitalization journey, Mann is quite clear that this also comes back to enabling Keppel’s business model to operate effectively. “For us as an asset management business, the driving principle for digitalization is making the business work. So, the question is what metrics do we put in place to assess the digital journey as an operational asset manager? At the heart of it building this seamless, horizontal pipeline. But what are the success factors? Being able to measure everything in terms of ROI is slightly difficult, because [things like] productivity improvement can be measured to a certain extent, but whether you can convert that into ROI is another matter.
“Then there is resilience. Digitalization brings a lot of resilience to the business. Can you put an ROI on that? I'm not so sure, but you can put [other] metrics to it. To me, it's not so much about ROI per se. I think it is more about what are you seeking from digitalization in terms of improving productivity, or creating new profit pools, or building resilience in the organization, or improving speed to market, and so on. So, it's more about the KPIs around those factors rather than ROI specifically.”
One critical question for all organizations as advances in technology—and specifically GenAI—fundamentally change what the workforce needs to look like is how to gain and retain the skills and talent they need to be fit for the future. Mann has a pragmatic view on this. “I think talent will always be a challenge in this space,” he notes. “Everybody is going to try and do the same thing. And even if you do have the right people, you’re always worried about attrition because it’s a skill set that’s in demand. So, I think being able to train and upskill our own people is as important as getting in fresh talent from outside, if not more so.”
It's an approach that has already worked for Keppel at M1. As part of the digital transformation in that part of the business, which included creating a new data lake and customer analysis and interaction model, large parts of the existing workforce were retrained to use the new system, such as how to conduct digital data analysis. New data scientists and data engineers were also brought in to increase M1’s capabilities in this important area. In addition, the company created an offshore development center in Malaysia to make up for a shortage of relevant skills in Singapore, where it has its headquarters.
For Mann, the jury is still out on what approach will be needed for the much larger task of completing Keppel’s transformation. But he says, “There are multiple ways to assess talent gaps and how we fill them. But to me, reskilling and retraining people to make them ready for future ways of working is far more important.”
As any transformation expert knows, leadership style and influence play a huge part in the outcomes and impact that are achieved. The three topics that are most important to Mann are:
- Ownership. “I’ve learned the hard way over many years that this comes first and foremost,” he says. “When you go through something so complex, it is very important for every person in the organization to own the change because it cannot only sit at the top, or at the bottom. Everybody in the chain has to play a role.”
- Communication. In Mann’s view, “No amount of communication is enough when you are going through huge change. The more you communicate, the more people will understand. And if there are doubts or areas that we need to clarify so people are able to understand why we are going through it, and what the end goal is, the better. Because change is painful.”
- Action. “To me, being action-oriented and results-oriented is something that comes very naturally,” explains Mann. “Because if you can’t execute, nothing gets translated into results. I always say, ‘You can talk about it, but eventually if you are not able to deliver it then probably your operation is successful, but the patient is dead.’ Nobody wants that.”