A commitment to world-class technology

The biggest threat to the banking business comes from giant technology firms and e-commerce, telcos and fintec businesses, armed with money, technology and a sizeable customer base. In the future, financial business will become seamless and banks still doing business in the traditional way are likely to run into difficulties. This is the reason why Kasikorn Business-Technology Group (KBTG) was set up three years ago.
Somkid Jiranuntarat, the chairman of KBTG, says the group aims to not only develop technology to help Kasikornbank (KBank) add new products and services for the customers, but also to make KBTG a world-class tech company that can provide a platform to all. 
“We are not a bank but a technology company. We want KBTG to be recognised as a world-class technology company,” said Somkid.
When asked if KBank is the leader in the digital financial industry, he replies that KBank is the current leader in mobile banking in terms of transactions and number of customers, not only in Thailand but also in the Southeast Asia region. 
He said in the future, business competition would not be explicitly visible since it would be “undiscovered territory”, hence KBTG needed to find and build its new business model.
He says the changing circumstances undoubtedly were a challenge. He insisted that his company could not remain dormant, escape, or avoid the changes and therefore the situation had to be dealt with proactively.
“My main mission is to help KBTG and KBank as Thai banks are on the brink of being taken over or risk being disrupted by other businesses. Being the leader in mobile banking in Southeast Asia is just a small thing when compared to the global level. Many of the operators have customers running into billions, like WeChat and Alipay,” said Somkid.
Currently, KBank has 10 million users – a small number when compared with the global scale. He said KBank is aiming for exponential growth and not just an incremental increase. “We want to grow 10 times from the current 10 million in the next 5 to 10 years,” he says. 
“We want to be a global player, but we will start from being a regional player – Indo-China, CLMV [Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Vietnam] and the Southeast Asia region. To expand to other countries, we need to have a global-player mindset. We cannot think like a local player at all,” said Somkid.
KBTG was born and grew from mobile banking. And as a part of KBank, it has the source of funds to grow and expand its business. Somkid believes these factors will help KBTG become a leading global technology firm.
He says that KBTG and giant global players such as Alibaba and WeChat might think along the same lines. But, he says, there is one major difference. His parent company is in the financial sector and has diversified beyond banking, while the others are primarily in the technology sector and have diversified into the financial services sector. 
“We come from different backgrounds, but we might have similar thinking and perhaps we would meet at the destination. It depends on how well we concentrate and how hard we work,” said Somkid.
Therefore, KBTG and KBank need to build their own platform, which is KPlus. KPlus is being rebuilt and is scheduled for launch some time soon. The new version of KPlus will enable KBank to become a regional and global player as planned.
The new version KPlus is designed to be a platform that will go beyond one bank and beyond banking. The concept of the new KPlus version is being opened as an AI-driven platform, which supports its partner to take part on this platform. Services will not be limited to financial services and partners need not come only from the banking and financial sector, says Somkid. 
“We are eyeing the global market. Our goal is to have 100 million users, of course not just in Thailand. This is my challenge and KBank’s since I cannot do it alone and we need to work as a team,” said Somkid. 

Coping with digital disruption
He recalls difficult days in earlier times. “It was when I took care of the KTransformation project, the second re-engineering of KBank.” KTransformaton is a 10-year project.
Somkid joined KBank midway through the bank’s efforts to implement KTransformation, when it was faced with difficulties and confusion.
Somkid says it was about technological re-engineering. KBank was building its internal technological capability and it brought technology back from outsourcing. The bank realised that in the next future it would face digital disruption and hence it needed to boost its own technological capacity. 
“It was difficult because we needed to build our whole new technology capacity after having outsourced for a decade. Finally, we brought all the technology jobs back to KBTG,” said Somkid.
KTransformation was the largest, the most challenging, and also the most difficult project. However, Somkid says the current challenges are greater than KTransformation. “The difficulty about KTransformation was the complexity while the current challenge comes from the digital disruption, which is an unexplored territory.
“Digital disruption is not just the third re-engineering of KBank. It goes beyond that. We have to rethink the business model. The second re-engineering was KTransformation, which was primarily a re-engineering of technology, while the first one was about the process,” said Somkid. 
He admits that to build capability for new technologies requires attracting top talents to join the team. KBTG was set up as a technology army for KBank with a vigorous and agile culture.
“It is never enough when we talk about technology resources. Our job is to create new business models and services that are driven by technology. There is never enough resource capability when compared to the jobs we need to do. We still need a lot more digital and technology talents,” said Somkid.
He is confident that KBTG has done a good job on human resource development through the past three years. KBTG has a strong AI team along with blockchain and mobile technology teams. 
Currently, KBTG has 1,200 employees, 70 per cent of whom are tech personnel. KLabs is the key weapon for KBTG as it aims to be world class, working on new and innovative technologies including blockchain, AI design and mobile. KLabs needs to have talent capable of working with global companies.
“We need to be engrossed in, and not give up our belief in our ability to reach, our destination. We need to have imagination the scenario of our destination goal. 
Even though the picture might not be clear, our job is to make it more clear and |more obvious,” said Somkid. 
Leadership is important

Somkid believes the leader’s thinking and vision is very important in leading the company forward. The challenge is how to turn leader’s vision into reality. Execution is the key to success, he says but adds, “Having the same strategy will not guarantee the same level of success.
“We need to get our team to truly understand the company’s strategy – only then we can ensure proper execution. Execution is not just about the leader’s thinking and talking; it must develop the team’s trust and understanding and doing. 
There are many factors to get execution done successfully, including leadership, teamwork and support.
“There are so many details that the leader needs to have a bird’s-eye view of while the team needs to help make the vision a reality. There should not be much of a gap between the leader’s thought and the team’s execution. If the leader has both the vision and the capability to act on it, the company will have a lot better chance to achieve the vision,” said Somkid. 
At age 58, Somkid is leading a KLabs team whose average age is less than 30, a situation similar to many giant world-class tech firms. 
“I am from the baby-boomer generation while most of my team members are millennials, who were born as digital natives. They can think and do multitasking quickly. We need to tune our mindset to minimise our gap between generations,” said Somkid.
He says trust and respect are the key. Executives and the team need to get in touch, share, listen to and respect each other as well as learn together. A generation gap should not be allowed to develop.
“It is like a family consisting of people from different generations but our relationships are good. We respect and listen to each other, learn together,” said Somkid.
He shares not only his vision, but also his mission and passion with his team to create an impact on society, not just create another new product or service. He has built their ambition to develop a new platform with new technology that would create benefit for all people.
For example, he says, KBTG has developed a platform, the new version of KPlus, with the aim of helping people, especially those who lack opportunities. He believes technology will help reduce the wealth gap in society. 

Meaningful platform
Poor and underprivileged people will be worse off since the economic structure is not designed to encourage poor and underprivileged people access opportunities needed to make their lives better. People who have no chance will be poorer, while people who get chances will be richer, says Somkid.
“For example, when farmers or small people who need loans cannot get financial support, they turn to informal debt. There is no one to help them develop and improve their productivity to earn money. Technology can help in this area. The platform we are |developing can help this group of people to have more opportunity to first get capital to invest in farming or do their own business,” he said.
“Then, the platform, driven by AI and machine learning technology, can help them to easily reach the huge potential market without middlemen. This is the chance we can offer them. It is a new economic structure that we are dreaming of making happen.”
He wants to see his platform developed by KBTG help create new entrepreneurs. He says that is one of the aims of the new version of the KPlus platform. 
Of course, he insists that cybersecurity and privacy are also things they are concerned about. Still, he does not see these as a threat to move forward in the digital life. 
“We dream to make it an open platform to help people have a better life. And, we hope to expand it at the regional and global levels eventually. The platform itself can be still be sustainable, while helping the country’s economy, the people and small business to have tools to make better and new products.”

Striving for work-life balance
Somkid works hard with his team but he always pays importance to balancing his work and family life. 
“I do not have a 9-to-5 working life. Sometimes I work 24 hours, sometimes I stay with my family for 24 hours. The thing I need to improve is spending time in my own life. I need to improve balancing of these three: my personal life, my family life and my work, since these three things are important for me and for society,” he said. 
Somkid’s motto is to never give up when he is working on something and faced with a difficulty. He does not believe in the concept of “impossible”.
“We can make the impossible or beyond possibility to become possible. If we never give up, we are always fighting, some day we will win,” said Somkid.
Somkid says he is fearless because he has had close brushes with death many times. He once had to undergo a five-hour operation to change his heart valve. Hence, he said, he was not afraid of anything because, “in the worst-case scenario, one will just die”.
“My heart did not beat for five hours. I have also been in difficult situations where I wondered if I would live to see the morrow. So, I never worry about the future,” said Somkid.
He would like to see the good ideas from skilful talents develop meaningful products and services that would inspire others to join the KBTG ecosystem.