Corporate Profile of DBS Bank: A Case Study in Leadership and Strategy

This case study examines DBS Bank's corporate profile, focusing on its ethical code of conduct, organizational strategy, and transformational leadership. The bank emphasizes integrity, responsibility, and trust, fostering a culture of ethical conduct. Under CEO Piyush Gupta, DBS implemented a new strategy focusing on Asia, process improvement, and technology enhancement, leading to a matrix management system and a PRIDE-based recruitment approach. The bank's transformational leadership, embracing digitization and innovation, has been crucial to its success, with a focus on humility, vision, courage, and execution. DBS prioritizes human relation management through stakeholder engagement, customer communication, and employee involvement via various channels, including social media, surveys, and internal forums. Furthermore, DBS invests in human resource management through comprehensive training programs, academies, and digital initiatives to equip its workforce for future challenges. The case study highlights DBS's commitment to sustainability, responsible banking, and social impact, making it a leading example of corporate excellence.

Organizational Behavior 1
Title: Business, Environment, and Society in the Tropic
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Organizational Behavior 2
Ethics and CSR
DBS Bank has a code of conduct that is to be followed by each member of the group. The
members are expected to display behavior that is in high standards of ethical conduct. The three
main elements are integrity, responsibility, and trust. In addition, the people working in DBS are
expected to use the company assets only for the purpose of work and not any other means.
Another important principle is maintaining confidentiality. As employees, people get access to
confidential and valuable information which can be wrongfully used if fallen into the wrong
hands. The information of the client should also remain confidential. Also, conflict of interest
should be handled in a mature and proper manner without losing the values of the organization.
In addition, the banks promote fair dealings and no illegal practices are encouraged. Most
important of all is to raise the voice if any person hears or sees something that shouldn’t be. This
ethical code of conduct has made the bank successful and it has maintained that position for long
now.
The DBS-NUS Social Venture Challenge is an Asian social enterprise contest open to
any community participant. The competition was launched with the goal of defining and
promoting social enterprises with the potential to generate a scalable and sustainable social
impact. Besides programs, DBS is the only bank that offers its skilled workers a Social
Enterprise Package, with virtually non-compliance transactional banking, preference loans,
special subsidies and volunteer aid. Sustaining social companies–self-supporting companies that
address social requirements creatively and effectively–is their way of addressing the myriad
social challenges of a rapidly growing Asia. Social companies provide jobs, goods, and services

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for the disadvantaged and marginalized in developing commercially sustainable solutions. The
bank’s heritage as a development bank reinforces the promotion of social enterprises and relies
on our expertise in serving the small-sized enterprise sector.
Organizational Strategy
Piyush Gupta began formulating a new direction for the bank during the first 100 days of
his tenure as CEO, concentrating on three areas: defining a new strategy and focus areas,
improving processes, and improving technology, and building a stronger culture. On an off-site
retreat, the bank put Gupta and his management team to work. He explained: “Our strategic
intention: to be the Asian bank of New Asia to choose from. Asian Bank' said we'd like to
concentrate on Asia. We wanted to be the' Bank of Choice' to ensure that customers and
employees had the qualities and qualifications that they would select us.” New Asia' was a far-
sighted declaration of what Asia seemed to be. Implementing the plan will entail internal
communication, training of the organization's people and the creation of software infrastructure.
Gupta and his strategy team visited DBS offices across countries to convey the strategy in order
to ensure harmonization across the whole community. Both country leaders had to apply their
plans to implement the new strategy. Internal and external relations were also organized and
communicated across the company at all levels.
The system of matrix management was updated to determine who was best equipped in
the organization, which made different types of decisions accountable. The bank also
concentrated on selling companies that didn't suit the plan. In recruiting, potential candidates
were judged on whether they embodied PRIDE's values–"passionate and dedicated, connections
of quality, integrity, and respect, teamwork, faith in excellence." To help assess and analyze their

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efficiency, new performance measures and processes have been put in place for workers. There
was a robust execution of the talent development program. A comprehensive "Triple E" model–
Training, Experience, Exposure–was created for the creation and growth of an affecting learning
environment for people. Eventually, the whole team is carrying out a cohesive technology
platform for increased visibility for people, companies, and countries.
Transformational Leadership
The transformation of DBS has been remarkable since 2014. It has digitized nearly every part of
its service and how it communicates with customers. The leadership style at DBS is
transformational as the organization has adapted to the latest trends and technologies as soon as
they entered the market, Moreover, the digitization has been a major step which indicates that the
kind of leadership carried out is transformational. The theme is humility, vision, courage, and
execution. This readiness for any change portrays the reason as to why the bank has been so
successful. The leadership of the DBS team made up of Piyush Gupta (CEO), David Gledhill
(CEO) and Neal Cross (CEO), profoundly transformed DBS operations and culture through
recognition of how internal hackathon processes have progressed in various business units, mass
adoption of new technology in order to reinvent the software architecture and the implementation
of new systems. In the background of this digital revolution, and in the cases of Uber, Airbnb,
Alibaba, and Amazon, we hear a great deal about disruption in the banking sector and elsewhere.
Clearly, the Digital Revolution changes the framework of the lives and how they work. It is
something DBS as a bank needs to win over today and in the future. The bank has been
transformed culturally by Piyush Gupta and his management team, placing DBS in the lead as
one of Asia's leading banks, and an internationally recognizable brand DBS has been able to

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quickly embrace new technologies in its business and solutions through this transition. DBS has
extended its customer scope and acquisition with significant investments in strategic solutions
like DBS Lifestyle, PayLah, POSB jolly, and POSB Smart Buddy.
Human Relation Management
The bank’s key players are those who have a major influence on it or are directly affected
by their approach. This consists of the stakeholders, clients, staff, our societies, and our
regulators. Taking part in them gives us an understanding of the issues they most concern. The
stakeholders are engaged openly and transparently. An ongoing dialogue is also maintained. In
this conversation, the issues that are recognized are appropriately considered. Further, these
issues go into the formation of the balanced scorecard. Via quarterly reports and financial
briefings, and regular meetings with senior management and executives the bank connects with
its investors. They plan roadshows and take part in conferences of stakeholders. Such channels
are utilized to educate investors about DBS and to look up their expectations for our financial
performance and strategic outlook. The bank communicates with the clients on a daily basis,
through branches, call centers, and our Relationship Managers. In addition, social media
platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn also involved. However, through customer
surveys, they search for input on results to see how the products can be enhanced. In some cases,
for order to develop new products, the bank meets with its clients. These conversations enable
them to better understand and create financial solutions for the needs of the customers.
Efficient and transparent communication channels across all the DBS grades give us an
up-to-date understanding of the thinking of the employees. The senior managers also
communicate regularly with staff at group-wide meetings and town halls. Moreover, the CEO is

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running an online forum in which staff share ideas, perspectives, and questions. For example,
through the bank’s Dragons DEE projects, where cross-operational teams face real business
problems, the employees engage actively in creative programs. An annual Gallup survey is being
carried out to gain input on our level of involvement. In the balanced scorecard, the Gallup Q12
score is one of the KPIs for workers. Active participation in the neighborhood is an effective way
of learning from the people they represent. In 2014, about 3,500 of the bank’s workers in Asia,
served more than 5,800 vulnerable individuals through our' People of reason' voluntary
campaign. The bank encourages young adults to see how DBS can help them build the future of
their communities. Moreover, they collaborate with universities and secondary schools in
Singapore, India, Indonesia, and China by promoting their social innovation and business
incubation programs. The bank also provides mentorship to young people who address social
problems. DBS partners with social enterprises in its key markets to help them achieve their
social goals in a commercially viable way. These experiences help to understand more clearly
what role the bank should play.
Human Resource Management
The DBS bank announced in August 2017 its investment of S$ 20 million in a broad-
based program of five years for its 10 000 digital banking and technology employees in
Singapore, which enables them to succeed in the new economy and to adapt to work in the
future. The DBS program aims at encouraging broad involvement and digitization of all bank
employees, including digital e-learning, experiential learning, grants, and scholarships, and
creative learning spaces. The program includes a number of facets. People thrive here because
they have the freedom to decide, take possession of themselves and make things happen. 10 Dec

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2015 — DBS Bank launched an ambitious DBS Academy, which will focus on building a strong
talent pool to shape the future of the financial sector. Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Peter Seah,
Chairman of the DBS, worked at the opening ceremony, as Deputy Prime Minister and
Economic and Social Coordination Minister. The bank is committed to building a talented,
healthy, diverse, and ready workforce to tackle any challenges that the future might hold. At
DBS there are 15,000 training sessions every year and approximately 129,000 days are fixed for
the purpose of training. In fact, the Bank has launched three academies. Also, 6,000 employees
from DBS took part in iStep initiative. DBS is committed to creating and equipping workers with
the latest tools and technology in a collaborative environment. Highly dedicated workers who are
respected and proud of the company's growth are indispensable.