Hello, Lawrence. Thanks for being here to share with us the transformation journey of your company
Cathay Pacific Airways is a well-known company
could you give us a brief introduction to your role and the company
As a Hong Kong airline
Cathay Pacific offers passenger services and cargo services
We currently operate more than 200 destinations
and over 240 aircrafts around the world.
Cathay Pacific is a member of One World Alliance
And my role in the company is mainly responsible for IT
and digital transformation
Speaking of digital transformation
we have started our cooperation since 2016
What was the business drive for you to start the transformation
At that time, we encountered technical difficulties
Many projects were delayed or overspend
or the quality was not good
What is more, our website would crash sometimes
which would affect the customer experience
Plus, many situations made us unable to innovate
and we did it too slowly to transform
The outside world is changing so fast
that we need to keep catching up
but we are behind in many ways
As a customer, I could feel it
Transformation is not easy
especially at the company level
What does the culture help you in this regard
I think in terms of technology transformation
our colleagues need to absorb and use technology
We have done a lot effort on the clouds
so that we can master the technology
However, on the other hand
because the world changes fast
so do science and technology
so our colleagues need to change in culture
namely, they need to work efficiently and agilely
and to take the risk as well
We should make corresponding change on culture
in order to catch up with the development of science and technology
It's a big start-up mode
and at the level of your company
you've been transformed in many aspects, you've been upgrading
and as I know you've have been agile in major projects
There was a transformation in 2017
We mainly focus on four aspects
The first is customer-centered
Like AWS, which is customer-obsession
We need to focus on customer outcome
The second is operation
How do we operate well
The third is to improve our productivity
and the final is high performance team
How can we cooperate well and do an excellent job
And that is the cultural transformation that we just talked about
You have an organization as big as an enterprise
How do you give the direction to make your team aligned with the company
For a big team, it is difficult to require everyone to change
so we created a small team
Several colleagues have passion in learning
innovation and different technology
Our small team used the popular method
and cloud technology applied in all aspects of our company
We have a lot of different improvement ideas
making things get a new starting point
Many colleagues learned from each other
and joined sharing, workshops and trainings
so that more and more colleagues understand the cloud technology
and agile way of working
gradually, our team can be reorganized
They not only do a project
but focus on the production
focus on customer
managing a product as a vertical team
A vertical team and PVT team were built up to focus on the product development
and to cooperate well with our business units
This team was transformed from business users into the product owner
to participate in the product development
productization
Use cases
and incubation
Many colleagues cooperate in the team
that's a big transformation
but I think the point is we started from a small team
and make more colleagues master the skill gradually
then it will become into a big team
and the organization can move forward
So what did it look like
Was it traditional IT operation mode
It was the traditional IT workshop
Legacy infrastructure, network, and application
They used the water flow working mode
Gradually, we transformed from B2C, B2B
a mode of approaching customers
because these applications needed a timely
rapid and easy transformation
They were also more suitable for us
to use CPCI, Google Deployment and container to achieve development
A COE is a horizontal support project team, right
Yes
How is the scalability
I think this is one successful point
Our team only has four people in the beginning
now we only eight people
We talked about dozens of application
but now we have seven or eight micro services
And our team developed from four to eight people
so the scalability is very high
The cloud technology focuses on scalability too
so the return is very good
I'm glad we can offer help
I'd like to ask what kind of business result you've had
in terms of transformation over the last few years
We saved 50% of our infrastructure costs
because in the cloud environment
we can turn off the infrastructure
in non-business/down time when we don't need them
So the infrastructure cost can be scalable.
Since we have moved to the cloud application
we saved 50% of the infrastructure cost
and the availability has been effectively improved
Our availability in 2019 was 99.95%
but this year it is 100%
We have quite high benefits return in availability and cost
On the other hand
Deployment efficiency was higher
we used to use a few days or weeks to finish a change
but it only takes a few minutes now
so we can be done effectively
so the application is agilely and effectively
A high-performance team only needs two weeks as a cycle
so as to improve the customer experience
and to meet the demand of the market and customers
Speaking of your organization
during the process, it is a big transformation
Traditional businesses have fixed procedures
so to some extent
it was contradicted to agile work
How do you manage in such environment
That indeed a real challenge
On the aspect of IT, we are quite agile
but for the whole company
we are not agile in all areas
For example, accounting, procurement, etc.
In some area it is really quite difficult
so we need to communicate with stakeholders
Everyone needs to have a good communication
and try in different aspect
How can we try agile way
in low risk aspect
under a new environment
so that we have confidence
and trust each other
We start from a small thing
But in relatively high-risk aspect
we will choose a conservative approach
It is a process
In the process
we need to learn how to cooperate with different stake holders
and make them have confidence that we can earn more and more.
It is a process in agility and innovation
Does the management of the company support it
Yes
the real environment doesn't allow us to use the old method
The market changes fast
the customer expectations are high
the technology changes very quickly
so in these circumstances
if we spend a lot of time and money on a project
maybe the project is not finished
a lot of things have changed
So it's an objective situation
we'll not going to start over
but be agile
It's 2020. What are your prospects and new wishes
In different levels
we are doing transformation
There are different mode and technology
for customers, operation, innovation and customer engagement
so that we can meet the need of customers
Everyone is talking about digital transformation
How do we use digital methods
to improve our customer experience
I think it will be deepened in different levels
So still focus on customer obsession
Yes
Thank you for your time
and sharing your company's transformation journey with us
As a successful example
I hope we can give Hong Kong more reference value
Thank you, Lawrence.
Thank you