Business Lab · MIT Technology Review Insights

Building great digital customer experiences with agile infrastructure

September 7, 2022·22 min·2 clips

UBS automated 3,000 tests, slashing testing time from 12 days to just one through agile pods.

This episode of Business Lab explores how UBS is transforming into a digital-first bank through strategic technology investments and cultural change. Host Laurel Ruma interviews Mike Dargan, UBS's Group Chief Digital and Information Officer, about making technology a competitive differentiator. Dargan explains that technology is central to UBS's strategy and a key factor for value creation. The conversation details UBS's "leveling up technology" initiative, which focuses on five key areas: agile delivery, engineering excellence, quarterly business reviews (QBRs), automation, and modern tech infrastructure. Dargan states that over 10,000 employees moved into a unified agile model in April 2022, with a goal of over 20,000 by year's end. He shares that UBS moved about 1,000 applications to the cloud and decommissioned over 500 legacy applications in 2021. The bank has progressed from being 90% mainframe when Dargan joined in 2016 to over 50% cloud-based. Specific agile successes include automating over 3,000 tests in the investment bank, reducing testing time from 12 days to one, and a 10% increase in online trading clients in APAC from a wealth management upgrade. A surprising insight is that Dargan equates banking with technology, stating "banking is technology, but technology is people." He emphasizes creating the best engineering culture to attract talent, aiming for "fewer, but better and more productive engineers." The shift to cloud computing enabled 95% of employees to work from home, handling over 60,000 simultaneous logins and 3 million Skype calls weekly. UBS's internal venture capital arm, UBS Next, with a $200 million fund, invests in fintechs like Trust & Will, ConsenSys, and Indalis to catalyze business. The company also joined the Green Software Foundation to integrate greener development principles and reduce emissions from its cloud operations. The episode reveals that UBS manages its tech investment portfolio through quarterly business reviews, which have already led to stopping some large projects. Dargan argues that automation must become embedded in the firm's DNA, supported by a new AI, data, and analytics center called ADA. The bank's DevCloud platform allows engineers to reduce tasks that took five days to just one, based on the principle that "all engineers or developers wait at the same speed." A goal is to achieve a "third, a third, a third" infrastructure split between private cloud, public cloud, and mainframe. The tone is educational and conversational, featuring a straightforward interview between an industry journalist and a senior banking executive. The style is corporate and strategic, focusing on practical case studies and measurable outcomes from UBS's transformation. Listeners interested in corporate digital transformation, fintech strategy, and technology leadership in traditional industries would find this episode valuable. Those seeking highly technical deep dives or critical debates on banking practices might prefer to skip it.

As heard by us

A measured look at how banking culture shifts when technology becomes strategy.

Business Lab treats digital-first finance as a strategy question, not just an IT one. Laurel Ruma keeps the conversation grounded in the pressures shaping that shift, while Mike Dargan makes the case for engineering excellence, an inclusive culture, and a state-of-the-art…

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Why you'd press play

Hear how UBS makes technology central to its strategy and treats engineering culture as something to build on purpose.

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