digital innovation Archives

Manila, Philippines – Union Bank of the Philippines has announced the expanded role of Albert Cuadrante as chief marketing, customer experience, and digital channels officer, reflecting the bank’s commitment to strengthening its customer-centric strategies and digital innovation.

In his new role, Cuadrante will lead the charge in ensuring the bank delivers exceptional customer experiences across both physical and digital channels. As the overseer of UnionBank’s digital banking platform, UB Online, Cuadrante is also responsible for optimising the app’s user interface and continuously enhancing the customer journey to make banking easier and more convenient.

In an exclusive interview with MARKETECH APAC, Cuadrante outlines his vision for enhancing customer experience at UnionBank, highlighting its leadership in digital banking through technology, customer insights, and agile innovation.

Blending digital innovation with customer care

Cuadrante began his journey at UnionBank as chief marketing officer before taking on the additional responsibilities of chief customer experience and digital channels officer.

For Cuadrante, his expanded role naturally integrates with the marketing function, as building strong customer relationships is essential to effective marketing. He believes that businesses must engage in continuous interactions and research to gain valuable insights into the customers they aim to attract and retain.

In his words, “Being intimate with the consumer is the core of marketing.”

Cuadrante’s vision is to create an empowered digital banking experience that liberates customers from traditional constraints like paper forms and limited banking hours, all while ensuring exceptional support at physical branches when needed.

A prime example of this vision is UnionBank’s ‘The Ark,’ the country’s first fully digital branch launched in 2017, which set the standard for the bank’s nationwide branch experience by seamlessly integrating digital and physical services.

“We are mindful never to lose sight of the fact that behind every digital transaction and interaction is a person,” Cuadrante shared. “That is the thread that binds the design of our products and services. We now have over 15 million retail customers and are growing, with our app being one of the highest-rated and most downloaded local banking apps. This motivates us to keep on looking for ways to delight our customers.”

Recognising the diverse needs of UnionBank’s clientele, Cuadrante is committed to continuously improving the customer experience by making it as seamless and frictionless as possible.

“We want our customers to open accounts, get credit cards, or have loans approved in the fastest possible time,” he expressed.

Beyond banking, the goal is to provide exclusive deals and offers in areas like shopping, travel, dining, and entertainment, helping customers enjoy the best experiences life has to offer. Cuadrante emphasises the importance of customer feedback, which UnionBank uses to identify areas for improvement and better meet the financial goals and aspirations of its clients.

“We constantly get customer feedback to allow us to determine which areas of our products and services we can do better at. Technology combined with our agile way of working allows us to keep on iterating and quickly make adjustments based on what we are learning to help ensure delivering our desired customer experience,” he said.

Embracing AI to drive efficiency and fuel growth

As the banking industry evolves with advancements in technology, Cuadrante emphasises the importance of agility.

“The UnionBank Team thrives in a fast-changing environment, as this is the nature of a digital world. We have built our processes around the agile way of working to enable us to introduce and/or improve products, services, and features,” he shared.

Under Cuadrante’s leadership, a culture of continuous learning and innovation is also actively fostered within the marketing and CX teams. This approach ensures they stay attuned to emerging trends and shifts in consumer behaviour and sentiment, which in turn informs the ongoing refinement of UnionBank’s products, services, and customer experiences.

UnionBank’s early adoption of AI technology is another key part of Cuadrante’s strategy for future growth. He highlighted the bank’s commitment to leveraging AI to design and deliver more personalised products, services, and offers that align with the diverse needs, behaviours, and aspirations of its customer segments.

“I believe that AI will allow us to become more efficient and targeted in the way we communicate, as well as allow us to respond more quickly to queries and requests for assistance,” he added.

Looking ahead, Cuadrante envisions a future where AI continues to shape the banking industry, enhancing the customer experience and driving further growth for UnionBank.

“We have already made a lot of progress with the models and tools that we have developed since, and we are actively working with our strategic partners in testing and experimenting on new solutions that can help make us more efficient and take our growth to the next level,” Cuadrante concluded.

London – hedgehog lab, a global digital product consultancy, has announced strategic partnerships with the content management platform Contentful and the e-commerce platform SHOPLINE, to support customers in delivering on their digital experience aspirations.

The partnerships are part of hedgehog lab’s ambitious growth strategy, aimed at empowering enterprises to deliver exceptional digital products and services. By integrating hedgehog lab’s expertise in strategy, design, and engineering with Contentful’s cutting-edge content management capabilities and SHOPLINE’s leading commerce tools, these collaborations promise to enhance the digital experience for customers.

Contentful empowers teams to build digital experiences at scale. hedgehog lab’s recognition as a Silver Partner highlights its best-in-class implementations of the platform, encompassing content modeling, Contentful integration, change management, training, ongoing content services, and technology solution consulting.

hedgehog lab has successfully implemented content strategies and Contentful solutions for various clients, including Cynergy Bank. For Cynergy Bank, hedgehog lab developed a comprehensive strategy to enhance the company’s digital experience, featuring a web redesign and an omnichannel content refresh, along with the integration of Contentful.

Meanwhile, hedgehog lab has also chosen to partner with SHOPLINE, an e-commerce platform currently serving over half a million merchants globally. SHOPLINE provides cutting-edge omnichannel solutions across e-commerce, social media, and point-of-sale (POS), enabling rapid scaling of online and offline operations. The platform also offers top-tier technology integrations through partnerships with Meta, Google, and TikTok.

This partnership grants hedgehog lab full access to SHOPLINE’s cutting-edge tools and resources, enabling the development of applications tailored to the unique needs of eCommerce brands.

Daren Fitzgerald, chief commercial officer of hedgehog lab, said, “hedgehog lab has an impressive track record of leveraging partner relationships to create best-in-class solutions for our clients. Achieving Silver Partner status with Contentful is a recognition of our valued partnership and expertise in creating digital experiences that solve business problems and add value to the end customer. This is complemented by our new strategic partnership with SHOPLINE, which significantly strengthens our ability to deliver innovative and agile applications for our ambitious e-commerce clients.”

Meanwhile, Patrick Finn, global VP of alliances and partnerships at Contentful, shared, “Our partners are the innovation engine for many of the world’s leading brands. Partnering with hedgehog lab brings Contentful’s market-leading content platform to brands that are building demanding, cutting-edge digital experiences.”

Also speaking on the partnership, Deepak Anand, general manager for EMEA at SHOPLINE, said, “This is an exciting time for SHOPLINE as we continue our rapid EMEA expansion. hedgehog lab is a company we have admired for some time, and we’re thrilled to announce this partnership. With its established reputation for designing and building captivating digital experiences for top e-commerce brands, hedgehog lab is the perfect partner to help us grow and enhance our ecosystem.”

Manila, Philippines – Majority of Filipino workers consider digital innovation crucial to their work, but only half believe that the companies they work for are putting in the resources to drive innovation, according to innovation outfit F(DEV)’s Philippine Employee Digital Readiness Report with market research firm Tangere.

Data from the report suggests 47% of respondents cite lack of resources and support or unpreparedness for innovation as the biggest barrier to digital adoption, with budget or financial cost following at 42% and the lack of relevant knowledge or skills coming third at 38%.

Despite these barriers, Filipino employees remain keen on upskilling. 70% of respondents are willing to invest in and learn more about business innovation and leadership, whilst 65% prefer other areas of interest such as design thinking, product development, graphic design, and marketing, as well as 59% wanting to explore data-related skills such as collection, analysis, and laws.

In upskilling outside of corporate spaces, employees have notably taken strides using outside platforms, especially social media. Notably, 44% rank TikTok as the most effective platform for consuming educational content, followed closely by YouTube at 38%, and Facebook at 36%.

Talking about the study, Xavier Marzan, group chief digital officer of the Filinvest Group and CEO of F(DEV), said, “We believe that innovation is about disrupting ourselves first before others can disrupt us. While we’ve initiated various programs internally in collaboration with industry experts, our primary objective was to gather unbiased data into employees’ perspectives on innovation and the factors that drive their ability to innovate.”

“The findings have not only reaffirmed the effectiveness of our existing programs, but have also unveiled exciting opportunities to elevate our strategies for empowering our workforce to be future-ready,” he added.