They aim to drive digital transformation and enhance user experience in Singapore’s telecommunications landscape through cutting-edge technology and made-to-measure offerings.
Digital re-platforming delivered for a hyper-personalised user experience
M1, a subsidiary of Keppel Corporation, is Singapore’s second-largest telco, providing a suite of communications services, including mobile, fixed line and fibre offerings, to over two million consumers and corporate customers.
M1’s Mission Office is in charge of delivering transformation goals and running product delivery. Emad Bakhshy, Head of M1’s Mission Office, and Desmond Ng, General Manager of Product Development, recognised the need for a partner to enhance their digital transformation. “We embarked on a journey to redesign everything across our touchpoints, interfaces, and applications to create a new platform. This includes our customer-facing applications such as the mobile app, website, and in-store retail shop console.”
However, during the transformation journey, M1 identified that some of their goals were unmet. Emad highlighted that “hyper-personalisation and self-service were our main goals for the app and, unfortunately, we were off track.” The M1 app is the company’s primary customer-facing interface, as Desmond points out: “When people think of M1, they usually download the app first before they even go into the website”. Being mobile-first is vital, and hyper-personalisation is critical to providing customers with what they want based on their behaviours. The Mission Office realised they needed to find a solution to get back on track and achieve their transformation goals.
During the digital consultancy selection process, M1 required vendors to demonstrate a proof of concept for a new feature. Desmond notes that onepoint’s performance and aspirations to establish a centre of operational excellence and design in Singapore were crucial in the decision-making process. “These aspirations helped us make a decision because we wanted an end-to-endtech provider with design capabilities, rather than a regular vendor who provides only resources for development,” he says.
Onepoint used the agile methodology, implementing Scrum ceremonies, artefacts, principles and values, best agile practices, agility KPIs, and a continuous improvement framework. Emad remarks that this was a significant change for M1, since “M1 had never done anything in agile, so it was a completely new skill set, and I think we found the right mix with onepoint’s app team. It was the right level of structured delivery, but flexible in the right places for us to get to our desired outcome without sacrificing the quality. Actually, we want to model our Agile product team on onepoint’s app team going forward.” Desmond adds that “When I was the app owner, it did give me a lot of timely reminders of how Scrum should be run. Also, as clients to other vendors, we also advocate for this model, and it has had a positive influence on those vendors as well.”
According to Emad, M1 is already seeing the results of this digital transformation, with a higher NPS for their new app than the old one. In addition, the company is on a journey to provide a better toolkit for their organisation to interact with customers.
Onepoint transfers knowledge to M1 teams to build in-house skill sets and establish a software development centre to serve the organisation and the Keppel group. “We want to build a delivery capability which we can leverage for the group, and part of that implies having our own talent in-house“, affirms Emad.
After working with onepoint for more than two years, Emad and Desmond’s experience is “we found a partner who was able to take our vision and translate it into a go-to-market product, and that goes beyond just value.” Onepoint’s expertise in agile methodologies and design has enabled M1 to improve customer satisfaction by providing a unique digital multi-channel experience across all their platforms: “It is the incremental consultancy that we got with the onepoint team that made it work for us, beyond just the contractual arrangement or the quality of individuals”, says Emad.
We got a rounded partner who didn't just come in and provide bodies to fulfil activity but laid the pathway for us to deliver on a desired outcome.
Key achievements
- x4.34 Business Value (based on customer usage –how often customers use the app)
- +34% of customer satisfaction (based on App reviews–Apple Store + Google Play)
- x3.7 team’s learning curve (based on velocity –how many features implemented)