The Problem
The Philippines’ digital financial services sector has posted losses since early 2023 — over PHP 7 billion by end-2024, due to heavy upfront spending on tech, talent, and customer growth—with losses expected to continue for 5–7 years.
Major upfront investments, in particular, require digital transformation delivery with full clarity, coordination, and control. Needing to avoid delays and cost blowouts, financial institutions must ensure their projects and deliveries first align on fundamentals:
- What problem are we solving?
- Where will value be created?
- Who’s accountable for delivery?
A common challenge is the transformation gap – the mismatch between an organisation’s need for change and its perceived ability to deliver it successfully. As resources for any initiative are limited, prioritisation of initiatives that are closely aligned with organisational goals becomes essential for success.
This lack of alignment delays ROI, derails delivery, and drains resources. In a sector shifting from legacy systems to cloud-native platforms, that’s a risk that financial institutions can’t afford.
The Fix
A well-run Digital Transformation Management Office (DTMO) can create structure, clarity, inclusive collaboration and discipline from day one.
Here’s how business leaders can use a DTMO to take control:
1. Clarify the Why
Problem: Competing visions and vague objectives dilute impact.
Action: Define a shared strategy for the business and a single, sharp business objective for every initiative. A DTMO ensures every transformation move is tied to a real problem—and a measurable business goal.
2. Set the Pace
Problem: Timelines slip, and urgency is lost.
Action: Use the DTMO to lock in delivery milestones. Build in health checks and escalation triggers to keep pace and course-correct fast.
3. Engage Early, Engage Right
Problem: Teams are left in the dark, and adoption suffers.
Action: The DTMO drives engagement early and often—across business units. This includes building digital literacy so people don’t just understand the tools—they use them.
4. Bring in the Experts—From the Start
Problem: Key risks like data security are flagged too late.
Action: The DTMO involves SMEs like product, cybersecurity, compliance, and operations upfront. This prevents blind spots and builds trust in the new solution from the ground up.
5. Define Fit-For-Purpose solutions
Problem: The solution fails to connect to the business benefit specified. The scope has crept with nice-to-have, non-core bells and whistles of the solution platform.
Action: The DTMO’s initiatives have a well-defined, quantified connection to specific business goals, which is shared early to all stakeholders including vendors. Keep it tight and relevant.
6. Make Progress Visible
Problem: Leaders lack real-time visibility into what’s working.
Action: The DTMO tracks progress, KPIs, and ROI. That transparency helps leadership back what’s working—and rethink what’s not.
What It Unlocks
✔ Faster time to value
✔ Fewer failed projects
✔ Higher team alignment across the business and buy-in
✔ Fit-For-Purpose solutions that deliver on business goals
✔ Stronger digital adoption
✔ Greater confidence in delivery
We Help Make It Happen
At Renoir Consulting Philippines, we bring deep transformation expertise and an outside-in view to help financial institutions align strategy with execution. Our DTMOs are designed to do one thing: Deliver real results with full adoption, fast.
Ready to stop the drift and take control of your Digital transformation?
