From IT utility to digital platform — an MDB operating model story

The starting point

The client is a Multilateral Development Bank whose business had been organised, for its entire history, around a single lending product. The board approved a bold new strategy — expanding into crowdfunding, private equity and venture capital — and quickly discovered that the IT department, run as an infrastructure and network utility, was not the partner that strategy required. The bank did not need a bigger IT team. It needed a different one.

What we did

Working directly with the President and the C-level team, we designed an end-to-end digital strategy anchored on the new business ambition. That strategy translated into a portfolio of initiatives with one purpose: transform the IT department into a fully empowered digital department, moving it from an infrastructure-centric service model into a genuine business partner. We designed and implemented the full operating model from a people and process perspective, and defined the end-to-end technology blueprint that is now being executed.

“The bank did not need a bigger IT team. It needed a different one — and an operating model that made the difference stick.”

Rewriting the sourcing model

In parallel, we redesigned the full outsourcing model. Activities far from business priorities were rationalised — commodity infrastructure, low-value application maintenance, generic service desk — freeing budget and management attention. The activities closest to the new strategy were brought back inside, or elevated inside existing partnerships. The reskilling and hiring plan we defined named the exact roles the bank needed to acquire — product managers, data engineers, cloud architects, digital risk officers — and the sequence in which to acquire them.

Why it worked

Two things made the difference. First, the operating model came before the technology. We did not start with a cloud plan or a core banking replacement; we started with decision rights, funding model and how the department would be run day to day. Second, we stayed. Our people worked alongside the bank's leadership from strategy through implementation, which is how a plan survives contact with reality.