Debbie Gamble - The Challenges of Digital Transformation

Summary

In a conversation with WatSPEED at the University of Waterloo, Debbie Gamble discusses the evolution and ongoing transformation at Interac, a key player in the Canadian payments landscape. Debbie highlights Interac's commitment to enhancing digital capabilities and expanding beyond just payments to digital identity solutions. The transformation is fueled by strategic acquisitions, modernizing infrastructure, and fostering partnerships with both public and private sectors. Interac embraces continuous transformation, driven by technology advancements and changing societal needs. Inclusivity, diversity, and adapting to new work models post-COVID are central themes as Interac navigates its organizational and cultural changes.

Highlights

• Interac is known for payments and popular e-transfer services, a Canadian success story. 💸
• The company is enhancing mobile and e-commerce solutions, collaborating with big tech firms like Apple. 🍏
• Interac's recent strategic acquisitions aim to leverage digital capabilities for broader service access. 📈
• Open banking next year will allow third-party access to bank accounts, increasing flexibility. 🔑
• Digital ID capabilities are a major focus, allowing integration with government and private digital services. 🔐

Key Takeaways

• Interac is expanding its digital service offerings beyond payments to include digital identity solutions. 🚀
• Strategic acquisitions have strengthened Interac's capabilities in digital transformations. 🛠️
• Interac collaborates with a wide range of partners including government, tech giants, and academic institutions. 🤝
• The organization is on a continuous transformation journey, embracing changes in technology and customer needs. 🔄
• Interac is committed to fostering a culture of inclusivity and adapting to hybrid work models. 🌍

Overview

Interac is a household name in Canada, primarily recognized for its payment and e-transfer services, making day-to-day transactions seamless for Canadians. With initiatives like enhancing digital capabilities and entering into digital ID solutions, Interac is stepping beyond its traditional domain, spearheading innovations in financial technology. 🍁

The company has consistently expanded its tech portfolio through strategic acquisitions, integrating with Canadian businesses like Two Keys and SecureKey, thereby fortifying its position in the digital security landscape. Partnerships remain pivotal, with extensive collaboration across government levels, major tech firms, and academic institutions to drive national digital enablement. 🔄

Culturally, Interac is in a transformative phase, embracing continuous innovation to stay relevant. This includes adapting to remote and hybrid work settings post-COVID, with a strong focus on inclusivity and mental well-being. Interac’s culture promotes a unified approach termed 'One Interac,' ensuring every team member is aligned with the company’s forward-looking goals, fostering an environment primed for innovation and collaboration. 🌟

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction to Interac's E-Transfer and Success This chapter introduces Interac's E-Transfer service, highlighting its significance and future direction. Interac is primarily known for facilitating payments, with a goal to integrate changes that will enhance user experience in the coming years. The service is commonly used daily by many for activities such as purchasing coffee, indicating its pervasive role in everyday financial transactions.
• 01:00 - 03:00: Bringing Digital Capabilities to Canadian Businesses The chapter explores the development and implementation of e-transfer services in Canada, highlighting its success as a digital capability for businesses since 2003. It emphasizes the significance of e-transfer in facilitating direct money transfers between bank accounts within the country, showcasing it as a remarkable Canadian innovation.
• 03:00 - 05:00: Acquisitions and Digital Services Expansion The chapter 'Acquisitions and Digital Services Expansion' discusses the banking landscape where nearly the entire teen and adult population is banked, allowing them to easily transfer money using mobile devices. The focus is on new capabilities being introduced to bring the conveniences enjoyed by Canadian consumers to Canadian businesses, emphasizing that these advancements are pivotal as businesses form the economy's backbone.
• 05:00 - 07:00: Modernizing Canada's Payment Infrastructure This chapter discusses the efforts in modernizing Canada's payment infrastructure. It highlights the significant role of small to medium businesses in the Canadian economy and the ongoing enhancements in mobile and e-commerce solutions. The chapter also mentions Interac, a notable Canadian success story, which was the first domestic debit network globally to launch Apple Pay. The collaboration with large companies in this domain is also emphasized.
• 07:00 - 10:00: Digital Identity and Industry Disruption The chapter explores the growing role of digital identity in enhancing daily activities such as using public transit and interacting with government services. It highlights the focus on improving digital access and enablement through advancements in digital ID capabilities, predicting increased implementation throughout the year.
• 10:00 - 15:00: Cultural and Organizational Adaptation to Innovation The chapter discusses recent acquisitions by the company to enhance their branding and innovation strategies. Over the past few years, the company has acquired two Canadian tech companies, Two Keys and Securky. Two Keys, based in Ottawa, became a wholly owned subsidiary in 2019, marking a successful integration into the company's operations. These strategic acquisitions reflect the company's commitment to innovation and adapting its organizational structure to embrace and incubate new technological advances within its framework.
• 15:00 - 18:00: Building Partnerships and Ecosystem Engagement This chapter explores the theme of building partnerships and engaging with the broader ecosystem, particularly in the context of modernizing Canadian infrastructure. It highlights the concept of leveraging technology to foster more interactive branding and accessing various digital services across federal, provincial, and municipal levels, as well as the private sector. The focus is on active collaboration with both the government and the broader ecosystem to drive modernization efforts.
• 18:00 - 21:00: Navigating Organizational Culture and Innovation This chapter discusses the integration of innovative capabilities within the Canadian payments infrastructure, focusing on modern solutions like open banking. Open banking enables users to authorize third parties to access their financial data, a system already seen in other markets.
• 21:00 - 24:00: Hybrid Work Model and Employee Engagement The chapter discusses the future of hybrid work models and their potential impacts on employee engagement. It highlights upcoming trends and developments in areas such as bank account accessibility and data privacy. The chapter touches upon the involvement of government regulations in driving changes related to data privacy and portability. The focus is on providing insights into what employees and organizations might expect in 2023 regarding these issues.
• 24:00 - 29:00: Conclusion on Continuous Innovation and Future of Work The chapter explores the integration of multiple functionalities into a single tool, allowing for seamless experiences by users such as entering buildings, making payments, and managing official documents like driver's licenses online. The focus is on delivering secure capabilities and payments, familiar to Canadians, while aiming to broaden these services into new areas.

Debbie Gamble - The Challenges of Digital Transformation Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 what does this mean for what interact will be doing uh in the future what are the main changes that you're working on at the moment uh what will be different about interact in a few years sure thanks um so we we um we are known for payments right so you know many of you hopefully will use interac um on a daily basis whether that be to you know grab a coffee
• 00:30 - 01:00 um or or use e transfer which is you know a really popular um uh solution that's out there so we've it e transfer has been in market since 2003 so you know not many people realize like what what an incredible canadian success story this is um you know since 2003 we've been able to move money directly from your bank account um to somebody else in canada and because canadians are
• 01:00 - 01:30 very well banked statistically that pretty much means you know the entire um kind of teen and adult population so if you've got a bank account you can you can use the transfer and you can move money and um you know you can do that quite easily on a mobile device etc but we've been exploring and we've brought some new capabilities to market to bring what canadian consumers know and love with be transferred to um canadian businesses and and as you guys know you know the backbone of the
• 01:30 - 02:00 canadian economy is small to medium businesses so um you will see more and more of that um you'll see uh you know enhancements to some of the the mobile and e-commerce solutions that we've we've um had out in market we were the first another canadian success store in canada uh with interact was the first domestic debit network around the world that launched apple pay um so we work with big companies as i said earlier to be
• 02:00 - 02:30 able to bring some of those solutions you will see more and more um kind of digital capabilities and to be able to do your day-to-day uh activities whether that's get on transit um or interact with the government um so one of the big kind of focus areas for as i mentioned earlier was kind of digital access and enablement through our digital id capabilities this year you will see um much more of that through
• 02:30 - 03:00 our branding exercise so the past couple of years we've done a couple of acquisitions um both to canadian companies sounds like i'm i'm really doing the canadian show here but um both with canadian companies which is a you know incredible success story we did an acquisition in 2019 of a company out of ottawa called two keys that is now a wholly owned subsidiary um of interac and then in um last year we concluded a deal with another canadian tech company called securky to uh
• 03:00 - 03:30 leverage their their technology so you'll see more interact branding around being able to access lots of other digital services um at the federal provincial municipal level and in the private sector so you will see a lot of that um we are working very actively uh with the broader ecosystem and the government to modernize canadian um the kind of more infrastructure so you know for the the
• 03:30 - 04:00 payment geeks um we'll appreciate uh the you know some of the the the infrastructure challenges so we are bringing um you know some incredible modernized capabilities around the canadian payments landscape that will include open banking so you you might have heard that from other markets that basically allows um a user to author authorize a third party
• 04:00 - 04:30 to access their bank account so you'll see you'll see some cool stuff um in that arena that's uh probably next year you'll see 2023 you'll see um some of that um and i think as data continues to be a major topic you'll see changes driven from the government around privacy and data portability that we are actively involved in as well um including things like um
• 04:30 - 05:00 you know being able to access the same tool to get into a building as well as pay for something as well as a you know um get your driver's license online so all of those things under the guise of how can we bring some of these assets together deliver to canadians what they know about from us which is you know secure capabilities secure payments and expand it to some new
• 05:00 - 05:30 pretty cool experiences it sounds like a digital id or you're branching out from the payments to more of a digital id type yeah yeah you're right those those two assets that i mentioned um really allowed us to think about how we um continue to deliver uh to canadians across the country you know that secure transaction which means
• 05:30 - 06:00 especially now that you know our many industries are interconnected you know whether that be uh health and we've seen that um you know the need for a digitization in the healthcare industry over the past couple of years for sure so health transportation education manufacturing retail um so some of the great tools that we're known for obviously you'll see that
• 06:00 - 06:30 um permeate across the payments landscape and to others particularly with a digital id capability and market issue very interesting and so this presumably implies changes for the organization for interac as an organization uh how disruptive are those uh is does this mean big changes that you need to make um i like every organization's being disrupted right that's the reality of
• 06:30 - 07:00 our life so yet for us like you know certainly myself and my team the these are things that we embrace so we're on a i would you know i kind of characterize it as a continuous transformation journey this isn't a one and done it's a as as technology evolves and as our you know living environment changes uh we have to be able to adapt to that and that is that i believe is going to be you know the cornerstone of any
• 07:00 - 07:30 successful organization especially an organization like ours who are in the business of trust right so you have to be able to adapt um so yeah we are you know we're on that continuous journey to ensure that our products and our service offerings are relevant to what canadians need to go about their daily lives so that also means that you know we have to of course we've talked a fair amount about technology we have to be able to embrace technology it also means we have to be able to
• 07:30 - 08:00 staff up with the skill sets required not just for today but the skill sets for tomorrow um and um that we have a you know a continued role in the the evolution of our economy um and and that means that we have to be inclusive um and we have to be relevant and that that so we have to be in tune with what's going on in in the marketplace um whether that be through you know environmental challenges and
• 08:00 - 08:30 climate change to um changing policies at the government level to just i mentioned you know the notion of being inclusive just to being relevant to the market certainly around a focus of um diversity and inclusion so that continuous journey for us is is pretty much part of our kind of dna it's it's something we work very hard on to ensure that um
• 08:30 - 09:00 it is part of our culture at interac and um to ensure that we are connected with the broader ecosystem and so we are you know we're engaged with uh many of the kind of think tanks across canada we're engaged with policymakers um with the standards bodies um so you know we're active with the the things like the cio strategy council
• 09:00 - 09:30 which is a public private partnership um with um the with an entity called dayak which is the digital id and authentication council of canada with and the the standards council of canada um to ensure that whatever we're looking at continues to allow canadians to have trust in the services that we bring to market
• 09:30 - 10:00 wonderful and so you've described a number of the internal challenges i guess or the things that are impacting you internally earlier you described that you worked with a number of partners and that's been a theme in a number of your responses how are you managing your relationship with them as you're making these changes how do you ensure that that operates effectively it's a great question i mean you know
• 10:00 - 10:30 partnership is is is kind of a pillar of how we go about doing our work um i'd say that's actually probably a theme right across canada right for for our industry and and we are very very much focused on a public private partnership um i mentioned earlier uh interacts unique we are our shareholders of the financial institutions in canada um they are regulated we are regulated so we have to have um you know very strong
• 10:30 - 11:00 relationships with um the various governing bodies the regulators the policy makers um so i would say if you think about the you know your your venn diagram of partnerships um there's definitely the government sector um there's definitely and as i said earlier that said that the federal and the given the constitution obviously that's at federal provincial but also municipal levels um and then we've got the ecosystem
• 11:00 - 11:30 partnerships and i would characterize that um as uh kind of innovation um and and players who are really trying to you know move the needle in canada around our digital enablements that includes the universities in the university of waterloo it includes um you know the kind of academic think tanks um it includes uh the accelerators and the incubators across the country um we have to have partnerships at the
• 11:30 - 12:00 technical level so we have um partners in you know what i guess traditionally would think of as vendors but given the dynamic of technology and the continuous evolution of technology that is really more like a partnership you know whether that be at the big the big um you know kind of um fintech players whether that be apple google um microsoft uh you know you guys know who i'm talking
• 12:00 - 12:30 about so we have partnerships there um we have partnerships at association levels because we have to work on standards that don't just work for canada but allow canadians to interact around the world so that you know if you want to make if you happen to be lucky enough to be on vacation or you're studying abroad that you can still transact in the way that you would be able to transact in canada with trust and we have those kinds of
• 12:30 - 13:00 partnerships so it is a it is a very big uh focus for us and as we look to the future that kind of you know that uh flywheel from a partnerships perspective actually gets broader it gets bigger and bigger as those industries started uh to to kind of blend into each other so we have partnerships at the retail level um we have partnerships at the entertainment sports et cetera so it is a very big focus for us at interac
• 13:00 - 13:30 very interesting and the other aspect i wanted to ask about uh are the cultural implications of your innovation and change i guess uh you know we often talk about the need for organizations to change culturally to be more open to change and uh and to be more oriented towards innovation uh how does that impact what you do i
• 13:30 - 14:00 guess it's a big piece in that you know we um so we have this we we have this internal um name that we call one interact like many organizations we have lots of different departments right so um and and to ensure that we have a kind of cohesive uh approach we map out a vision we figure out what our strategic priorities are we have rolling priorities usually kind of every three years they kind of roll on so we
• 14:00 - 14:30 have we've got a a north star if you like we have the vision we have um our corporate priorities so that um everybody is part of that journey everybody knows within the company what we're doing um and we have um we have lots of different um cultural areas or focuses that make up our culture rather um so i mentioned earlier diversity and
• 14:30 - 15:00 inclusion that's a big part of our one interact culture um being able to um work as a team remotely like that was a challenge for all of us at the start of code right so we um we quickly formed a team the team um was made up not just of our hr professionals but also representatives across the organization um come together what and figured out what was the what could we do
• 15:00 - 15:30 as a group to continue to deliver our first and foremost are continue to deliver the service for canadians could continue to innovate and grow and bring new products to market but how do what's that dynamic of working together and so you know we we instituted some interesting things that some of work some continue to evolve we we have quiet hours um we we do try to continue to do some fun things together because it's important to celebrate right because uh
• 15:30 - 16:00 we're all faced with with the challenges so it's important to acknowledge your success and to celebrate so we have um we have things like we have yoga classes we have painting classes we have and and these were all conducted remotely throughout uh the pandemic and we're trying now we're almost at the start of getting back to the office and even that is going to look differently like many companies it's going to be most likely a
• 16:00 - 16:30 hybrid approach so we've been very um we've engaged the entire organization as to how we best do that what's going to work for every individual how do we support that as an organization um and we've been very conscious of you know the mental impact of covet um lots of people had to work remotely while they're still either looking after people in their family whether it's elderly people in
• 16:30 - 17:00 their family or you know young families still logging on every day so we're very conscious of that and um we we try to to institute programs that are mindful of things like um mental illness awareness and what can we do to to to support that um you know this is a journey right for any company i would say
• 17:00 - 17:30 we are um we have the luxury of we already had a fantastic culture before covid what we tried to do was continue to drive that uh employee engagement um in a in a remote way and that it seems to have worked um and now we're we're trying hard to work through okay what does the next flavor of probably a hybrid model where
• 17:30 - 18:00 you know some people will want to come back to the office full-time which is great some people won't want to come back to the office at all and our stats are our surveys um and the research we've done with the team is going to suggest that um we'll we'll likely have a hybrid model so we're working hard at the moment actually to redesign what our office space will look like um because as you said you know um my team's focuses is innovation and
• 18:00 - 18:30 future proof in the organization so we have to collaborate on that um and uh and see what what tools work best for us in in that journey and so far i think we're doing okay um to be honest we were uh again this year we were um we were recognized for some of our work um as an organization with our teams um and we've been certified with a company called uh diversio which looks at
• 18:30 - 19:00 diversity and inclusion um but you know i think again like technology this is just an ongoing journey of you know how how a corporation and its employees continue to be successful yeah it's it's very helpful to hear you talk about the different areas that you're working on at the moment uh you're describing some things that have moved on and worked well and you're discovering discussing
• 19:00 - 19:30 others that are still in progress and and fairly clearly many organizations are in the same boat uh of now working out what the future of work will be and uh so it's very good to talk to you at this point in your own uh change you