Transformation at Bradesco

Bradesco is nominated in the Transformative Innovator of the Year category at the Qorus-Infosys Finacle Banking Innovation Awards 2025. We asked the bank to present its strategy and actions in terms of transformation.


What transformation strategy has your organization led in recent years?

In 2024 we started a strategic plan focused on transformation, efficiency and customer-centric innovation, which includes adopting emerging technologies, optimizing internal processes and creating business models that improve customer experience and boost the Bank's results.

The plan includes leaders in decision-making, increasing the autonomy of technical teams and establishing complete capabilities in the squads, reducing dependencies. The transformation organizes product-oriented delivery, with clear roles and responsibilities, extending agility to areas such as the Business Unit, Operations and interfaces.
All initiatives are guided by customer needs, ensuring alignment between backlogs and OKRs. 

Agile integration across all departments enables rapid responses to changes in customer behavior, increasing operational efficiency and reinforcing the commitment to service excellence, making the bank more competitive.


What prompted this strategic transformation?

We carried out a diagnosis and identified strengths and opportunities:
•    The Brazilian banking market is one of the most profitable in the world, with a high Return on Equity (ROE);
•    In 2023, the Brazilian market generated R$1.3 trillion in post-risk revenues, with 30-40% concentrated in retail banking, whose challenge is the cost to serve;
•    Small and medium-sized companies account for 15% of revenues and should double in 5 years;
•    Bradesco leads the market with 1.7MM clients and a portfolio of up to R$148 Bi. We have 1.7 billion affluent clients, with room to increase the share of wallet;
•    Credit is a strategic anchor, with an advantage over fintechs;
•    The organizational structure needs to be simplified;
•    Investment in technology is in line with the market, with a chance to accelerate via the cloud and modular platforms;
•    With more than 71MM clients, a strong brand and broad operations, Bradesco has solid foundations to move forward.

What have been the most significant changes implemented, and how were they led?

We restructured the organization and evolved the people management model and culture, adopting the RUN the Bank (daily operations) and CHANGE the Bank (strategic transformations) approach. We created Business Units (Wholesale, Wealth, Retail, Digital Business and Credit) to speed up decisions and increase customer centricity.

Infrastructure and Operations were redesigned with a focus on the customer journey. The “tribes” integrate technology and business, simplifying relationships and delivering value by product, channel and segment.
The use of AI and automations is also an important point. We focus on the AI First mindset connected to customer centricity to increase efficiency, using agile best practices.

BRIDGE, Bradesco's first Generative AI platform in the cloud, simplifies AI development and offers integrated services. The platform has generated several initiatives, including automations and internal virtual squads that increase agility, efficiency and productivity, in addition to a more fluid and resolutive service to clients, with emphasis on BIA TECH, BIA Corporate and BIA Clients.


What unique or key transformation practices do you follow to ensure success?

The transformation is conducted according to a detailed methodology, based on the progress of the initiatives through 5 stages: Holistic set of ideas generated and recorded; Responsible person Designated impact captured and preliminary value estimated; Value and feasibility validated; Detailed plan with main actions and KPIs; All actions completed; Impact captured.

In addition, we created an Agile Operating Model with the aim of advancing the adoption of Enterprise Agility at scale, through a blueprint that includes the design of structures and tribes, processes, attributions and governance -  promoting greater integration between technology and business, with the adoption of structured practices.

We are working on accelerating the migration of applications to the cloud, supported by a Cloud Center of Excellence. We are also promoting the simplification and standardization of architecture to modernize applications, evaluating strategies for contracting IT services and solutions, as well as increasing productivity and speed of delivery with the use of Generative AI for process automation.

How has your workforce been engaged and transformed through this journey?

We held meetings, ideation sessions, training and capacity building to map out opportunities for change in flows, processes, products and services that would make up the initiatives of the 19 work fronts.

In the planning phase, more than 2,600 ideas were analyzed, resulting in 850 prioritized initiatives. Since then, SOU Bradesco has been launched, a cultural evolution movement that connects behaviors and mentalities to the future we want to build.

The evolution seeks to align our daily actions with the demands of the market and our aspirations for the future. It is a process that involves developing leadership and strengthening good management practices. The plan also includes a robust Talent strategy, focused on upskilling and reskilling as well as continuous performance improvement.

With defined and measurable objectives, we improve the skills of our employees and integrate cultural evolution as essential to the transformation, aligning the team with the Organization's values of innovation and excellence.


What measurable outcomes demonstrate the success of your transformation?

•    Expansion of services to small and medium-sized companies: 150 new corporate agencies, +Relationship Manager with new account load and 10 middle market platforms;
•    Expansion of the base in the new Main segment: ~50 thousand clients;
•    32% reduction in delivery lead times;
•    Internalization of +1,400 people in technology;
•    By March/2025, we had directed R$319 billion to socio-environmental activities, with a target of R$350 billion by the end of 2025;
•    Generative AI corporate platform: 200+ experiments, accelerating the development of use cases by up to 10 times, with support for multiple AI models (Large Language Model and Small Language Model;
•    Virtual assistant with Gen AI for customers: 3 million customers served 100% by Gen AI; 89% retention and 87% resolution of product and service queries;
•    Virtual assistant (CO-PILOT) with AI Gen for software development: 47 percentage point improvement in story quality, 20% reduction in incident resolution time and 90% gain in impact analysis. Developers feel 37% more productive, with 28% acceptance of GitHub Copilot suggestions.