Hello, and welcome to the ASEAN b2b growth podcast where we sit down with individuals responsible for driving growth within their organizations here in Southeast Asia. My name is Irza and I will be your host for today. Today we have somebody very interesting joining us. He's dialing in all the way from Thailand, actually not that far away. We have Axel Winter with us. As Axel and I both agree, LinkedIn is the
single source of truth. So based on his LinkedIn profile, he is a chief digital and technology officer, partner, and advisor. Axel, welcome and nice to meet you. I did an introduction for you, but I believe you can do it a little bit better yourself. So tell us exactly what does chief digital and technology officer partner and advisor mean?
Yeah, well, first of all, glad to be here and inviting me. Happy to have that have that discussion, just at the back of your fantastic innovation conference, which you
had in Bangkok. And then, I think, to my background, you know, I kind of believe that you kind of gravitate towards new new ways and different things of doing with with you getting more experience and doing stuff right hustling away, say, and I think in the time before I, I have been in different roles Chief Technology Officer, I think three times in my life. And then lastly, with central group actually helping helping to kick off the transformation in 2017. And then building billion dollar
online business. With many talented colleagues, they're really, really good, exciting, yet very tough time also to start starting up a business is tough. But also in consulting, and so on. And now I think what I focus on now is mostly is at Siam Piwat as the chief digital officer, in a luxury operator, and we set out to do, let's say, a super app for the affluent slash luxury segment, and keeping them engaged and
interested. And it's, it's tough for a property company because by right your customers are the tenants more than most, for most of the time. And then so what we're doing is building a consumer business having having new departments new ways of working and thinking in there. And then aside of that, I have the great opportunity also to, to advise a few other companies, startups, in some corporates and
also invest in them. Capital founders, we have, we're working with a bunch of very exciting startups, one piece is public, one investment in country. It's kind of the, let's say, the vertical lead in Thailand for beauty ecommerce. So very, very exciting company. And then there are a few others. And I, you know, you might think, Hey, can you notice do one thing? Correct? But But actually, it's, it's an opportunity in each of
these roles. I mean, even if you advise you learn, you take things with you.
Let's talk about how you got to where you are, how you became, and how you ended up in Thailand and how you actually, hustled, you mentioned hustling previously - I think it's a word that everybody uses. How did you get to be the chief digital officer that you are today?
You know, it's, for me, I actually started as an intrapreneur. My, my father was an entrepreneur in the property business in Germany. And I was helping in the business, I was actually working business business, really in the business there in the property business. And but also wrote a software for the company, basically. And I had an early interest in technology.
And it was fascinated about data communication, which then later became the internet and out, I can't fully remember, but I had some friends in Southeast Asia. And then we said, why not? Why not set up a business in Asia? I mean, you know, I was kind of 22. And then you don't think much about what I would have said, I still don't think much about some of the things today. But But definitely, I didn't I didn't think that much about
these things then. And just kind of came here and met really exciting people in Thailand, but also in Singapore, of course. And in other countries in Indonesia. We worked a bit Laos and Myanmar. And the we kind of then said, let's have a business to bring data communication, internet email, before the browser was here there was already email and internet. And I was excited about this and
doing it myself. And then when I came into to corporate, the first one was Anderson Consulting, now known as Accenture, although very different company at the time. Now I think, almost 800,000 staff, then 44,000 staff when I joined, so you can imagine the difference. And, you know, being in this type of consulting company is more like a marketplace, do you still have the entrepreneurial sense in
there. But then when I enter corporate, GE and others, then it's suddenly it becomes a little bit more tricky if you are too enterpreneurial, too decision focused, too execution focus, which corporate by the nature of them are. Let's say unless there is a benefit. But it comes also with a lot of headaches, right? Because you're always trying to pitch and to convince and to push to pull. Right? And, but the upbringing is that being an enterpreneur?
And, and I like creating things, pointing hey, I've done something here, I involve myself there that look at how cool that is, right? And then, but the other one is always interest for new technologies, right? Not for the sake of them being new, but to understand them and saying, Hey, what is different here? Why is this new? Why is this business model different? Why is this technology a game changer? Why would you tell me that? And
then critically question it. And then of course, the new things and forget the BS, right?
You were here 28 years ago. So you're a bit ahead of the curve, weren't you?
Yeah, in effect, the first ever ecommerce platform in Thailand, I believe it was no browser, it was a pre Rosa based ecommerce, if you can imagine. And I, definitely some of the Southeast Asian markets where more the big global corporates, maybe for them, it was more retirement position. I remember from some of the global banks, the deputy CEOs, they were given a grace period before retirement, and they get a nice job for the last two, three years to ride into the sunset.
And you know, that was then. So this is, of course, as you rightly said, very different. Today, we are mainstream. And I would say that the the internet. Now we talk, about it in terms of digital transformation and technology businesses and so on, FinTech and what have you, but now I think the message came through, is that well, but if you build a global tech business, it could be anywhere. It doesn't have to be in Silicon
Valley. I have nothing against being in Silicon Valley, obviously on or in Shanghai or Guangzhou or wherever or Beijing. But it can also be, you know, in, in Singapore, it can be Jakarta, or it can be KL Penang, Phuket or Bangkok, or Chiang Mai. And in fact, there are quite a few of Chiang Mai. And, you know, just to share is that, that and I think that kind of changed it. And with the big consumer base we have in the region, and also kind of the
additional integration. We see exciting tech companies are coming up, we see that actually the Asian startups in general, not only Southeast Asian, but Asian startups are leading on innovation leading on VC investment over Europe, where I almost feel, let's get worried about Europe, Europe here because there is not one big tech company there. And at least Asia Pacific and can name a few. And even our region has a few fairly significant players in
the market. I think we're thinking about payment markets and so on. I mean, we see to suit up and we see OPN, obviously, and then more on the on the web three side, bid cap and the likes. So I again, I feel I always felt bullish about the region. And now kind of before it was just me being bullish alone. And, you know, over the last couple of years, the market went and came to me where I was already in a sense,
In some way, It's perfect because you've had some time to actually acclimatized and be very, very familiar with with the local markets. Yeah. That's the spirit. Exactly. Let's take a look at the two portions of your you mentioned two things which I thought were very interesting. One is you will always interested in software. And the second part was you came from a family which was entrepreneurial driven. So your dad was was in the business and you want it to be an
entrepreneur yourself. Let's look at the technology and the business mix in there. And right now, you know, there's been a lot of, increasingly especially in this part of the world, I think what you're seeing is you're seeing a lot of new Chief Innovation Officers you're seeing Chief Digital Officers Chief Digital Transformation Offices, and and Axel made a very interesting point online around how almost everyone today is a digital transformation
expert. All right, excellent. So I like to go down that route. What what exactly is a chief innovation or Chief Digital Officer? And how does that differ from the traditional chief technology officer that we knew from, you know, a few years ago? Just a few years ago?
Yeah. I mean, first of all, I wouldn't I wouldn't make the bow tie. Right. I mean, just to say your question is good. And I fully agree that there are many heads of innovation and digital leaders. And my own title right now is CDO. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't make this, I wouldn't hold the title against someone who actually does cool things. And that's what it is about. I think what happened is that traditional traditional CIOs have been overly reactive. They
have. And it's difficult to speculate, because you could be wrong. Every company is kind of dif different. But as an advisor, and obviously, also having CIOs now used to work for me now, they're CIOs in their own rank. And so I can, I can see that many have, especially before COVID, have just been reactive and said, okay, then we need, we need our ERP platform, we need core banking, okay, we need to do some mobile banking, if you're a bank, because
everybody has. So let's add on, and then you get these type of Lego blocks. And you keep building this out, right, and then you create these funny shapes. And then some of them in the bottom, very old, and then some new ones here, some new colors, because we just bought them. And it's pretty much what you get what you get in big corporate. Oh, and then that model of work, does not work to build a tech business anymore. That's the issue. Right? So you play here where you have to be
on the other side. And then corporations have been thinking about different answers. In the beginning, this year was try to, again, react, be reactive about some of them managed well, the minority though, they dig themselves out of their problems, so on So to be improved, like I remember standard shebang being being good example, just because I know it, probably more more good ones. But but that was exactly
the time 2011 to 2017. When I was there, we started to to basically fix the bank, or from reactive to strategic and change, change the business. And I remember early discussions of do we need branches, right. But if you don't have branches to keep relationship, right, we just call them it's going to be tough on the relationship, you should be able to do everything online. But what it shouldn't mean is that you leave out all
personal relationships. That was kind of my my argument then and many in the management team agreed, obviously. And but just to show that was some of the some of the early discussions. So companies will have not been able to turn this around strategically, and I saw many CIOs and saying, let's put it as innovation head or head in or CTO earlier it was called more CTO and split the technology responsibility basically, in one more hybrid business and tech
organization. And one which is only let's say, IT or CIO who is the order taker and manages the the so called legacy platform. So ERP and core banking if you want so, with shouldn't be legacy either, but anyway, so a lot of time they are still. And then the digital teams not everywhere, but often got also revenue KPI, so as I had IN Central. the KPI was on revenue. And, and then and so it's now how do we contribute to the to the greater good of the company,
Your team, for yourself, you're on like the digital team, say at Siam currently? What kind of skill sets are you looking for when you're looking to build out your team? What, based on the KPIs that you have, based on the goals that you're supposed to hit? What kind of skill sets are actually necessary to be successful within a team like
Yeah, I mean, there is. I will say for my role yours? and say, because maybe twofold. One is to help the executive team and literally advise them also on items which are not necessarily under my jurisdiction, as they say, this is one and then of course, it is building and expanding our One Siam Super App as a digital growth platform, right. So it's
a revenue generator. And the skill set here would be, which we need in order to do that would be obviously products as a productisation of technology, which is good to improve each of the products. So it was product skills there, we would have Scrum masters, project management, very traditional, and then data science and different tech tech skills from different developers, cloud
skills. Also legacy integration, there's also some, because again, we need to then do financial transactions and so on, and they need to be set up correctly. So this type of skill set, it's, it's fairly much typical, I would say. If you would have an app-based business, it's not it's not that untypical. Right, I think that the trick is to find people who want to grow. So I would look more for the probably for the acumen and the interest and the approach to work.
If you look at the rate of growth, or you looking at the speed of growth in developed markets, Germany, US, in Europe, you're seeing the top few companies change every year, you know, Apple wasn't the biggest company in the world, what, just 15 years ago, but in this part of the world, in Southeast Asia, the biggest company in Thailand, I believe, 10 years ago, was PTT today it'ss still PTT. In Singapore, it was Singtel today, it's still Singtel, but we are seeing a lot of innovation by these
corporates to some extent. And that's why I think part of the term digital transformation is being used quite a lot as well. But they take a step back, right? How do firms traditionally, in this part of the world, especially look at digital transformation? How do you look at it? How should they approach digital transformation?
Now, the smartest companies, and what we're seeing is where the people who tried if the first two models didn't succeed, aiming at now, and some of them who started with that in mind, Central was one of them, and Siam Piwat certainly is one is, if you what you need in order to be successful, is you need a clear business strategy. And clear not not not in like three bullet items. Within a bigger statement, we need to clear strategy, how to make a revenue, what's a new business model.
they can just talk to too many digital transformation experts now. That's a magic bullet. I think.
This is the issue that you have some people I mean, many people with with great knowledge, obviously and good mobilities having done things and sharing, which is good. But you also see the ones who come and say "you buy this technology or you do you buy some some service for me, and you're going to be happy and rich ever after." Right? You know how that goes? snake oil sales? (Charlatans.) Yeah,
exactly. And but it happens and and then you know, you if you're a business executive, you haven't, you really don't have the expertise and you're trying to do the right thing, then I can see how you fall into into that trap of believing that guy who says it's very easy, versus the guy in the company who might be good, and saying, "Hey, this doesn't work like that." Right? So it's, it's, of course, we want to believe it's can be done in six months. Exactly. It's just not realistic.
You know it's interesting to see it from both angles, right? Building a startup within a large corporation versus actually being involved in startups from ground zero with no money, who, you know, they have to go hustle it and get it out. What what are you most excited about when when it comes to growth in Thailand and in Southeast Asia, especially within the spaces which you operate in within the retail space, for example?
Yeah, I mean, I would say is that Thailand specifically, and increasingly, the neighboring markets, have on retail have really, really been extremely strong and innovations. I, I would say it has really turned the tables. And then when I look what some of the American not even talking about the European guys, but some of the American retailers are doing. I don't think it's
that far. It's that far off. I think if you're looking at the Chinese retail landscape, the digital landscape, obviously, the order of magnitude is much bigger, I would say I'm very excited about actually Southeast Asia leading in innovation in the consumer space in the superapp space in the retail or retail space. And when I see Europeans come here to learn from us or even Americans, versus I mean, some of the earlier days when I was here, they came with "Hey, this is the
way to do it. Don't even think about it. Do what we tell you." Literally right I mean, I had I have people explaining what a laptop was right and then I don't want to say the company, but I had some research company came out explaining, it was in Singapore. They explained to me that mobile banking is never going to be interesting. That was in 2012. And everyone at a table from us basically had two mobile phones in their hand. Right? So I thought, how could that be the conclusion of
anything? Right that that mobile banking is not going to be important if everyone had a table, except the analyst, had two phones at the end, right? Yeah. And now Now we don't even worry. I mean, now you actually see that, that on the desktop on the laptop webpages, the feature set is reduced. If you look carefully, you can see it's actually less features than on the phone. And the app, the mobile app is the full featured one, which is not only b2c, but
also b2b. A lot of decision makers tend to want to have it in a slim format on their on their particular app.
And if you look over the next two, three years, just within technology as well, what what are the technologies you're interested in? And how do you think that will change the landscape in Thailand or in the region?
The Thai market is absolutely different from from Europe there are differences to Singapore, right? Smaller ones, and it's a good thing, right? So everybody can make can make a living. And there's a reason for traveling. So but, but what I would say is that I see companies then looking towards open source, selectively as a way to gain knowledge and innovation. And also at the same time lowering
the OPEX. I feel that that's that is another trend, which I'm seeing now, in almost all discussions I have, it's about how to better use OPEX, but do more. Right. So I think these are probably two highlights, I feel that in the blockchain space. I'm using purposely a generic term that I think that again, there are business models beyond board apes and, and crypto brothers and all of this,
right. That, you know, I think that our business models beyond in the US a digitization space, smart contract space and so on, which which companies know they have to do and slowly start doing it. And I think that's going to be a bit of a medium term to for companies to transform