Y3 Technologies appoints Marc Dragon as new CEO

Check out his 3 goals.

Supply chain management Y3 Technologies recently announced the appointment of Marc Dragon as Chief Executive Officer. Marc is responsible for driving business growth, enhancing Y3’s solution portfolio and strategies, as well as driving operational excellence to support the vision of Y3 as the region’s Supply Chain and Omni-channel Technology Solutions.

Marc has over 18 years of experience serving clients in Asia Pacific and has also co-authored multiple whitepapers. He is a speaker in the region talking about big data, analytics and supply chain management.

Besides his corporate experience, Marc has been actively involved in the startup scene in Singapore, having founded two analytics startups.

Singapore Business Review caught up with Marc to talk about his new appointment. Here’s a transcript of the interview.

1. What makes you excited about your new position?
This is an interesting time for our industry, a time which is ripe with disruption and change. I am fortunate to be able to join Y3 at this time of change and to lead the reinvention of Y3 from a quiet regional supply chain solutions leader into a globally recognized industry-leading supply chain and Omni-channel technology solutions company.

Y3 has traditionally been known as a supply chain & IT Solutions company and the opportunity to grow and extend beyond that is extremely exciting to me. For example, we have just acquired Ascentis, a regional award-winning CRM/Loyalty and e-commerce solutions provider. With that, we now have a complete end-to-end in-house software and solutions capability, from e-commerce to delivery.

In addition, we are in the midst of a strong push into analytics, and will have 4 analytics R&D Labs by the end of this year, including 1 in China. Y3 is also starting to be heavily involved in Smart Cities, especially from a transport and congestion management perspective.

Finally, I’m fortunate to have the opportunity to work with and build a fantastic team. The team alone has a different profile from the rest of the IT solutions industry. For example, my 6 GMs have an average of 20 years in the supply chain solutions & IT business, which shows the depth of knowledge within Y3.

2. What three goals are you focused on?
Expanding our capabilities and offerings
We have come quite far since our humble beginnings as a supply chain technology solutions provider. Today, in addition to supply chain solutions, we also offer comprehensive technology solutions in CRM, Loyalty,E-Commerce, and Analytics. We are always scanning the industry, especially venturing into areas that complement our core offerings, including Smart Cities and IOT.

Another area that we are moving into is to help SMEs in Singapore and the region leverage technology to improve productivity. We will be launching something very soon in this space.

Growing our business in China and Southeast Asia
Against the backdrop of an emerging digital economy, markets like Southeast Asia and China represent significant areas of opportunity. While Singapore continues to remain a key pillar for us, we are expanding aggressively into China and Southeast Asia.

One initiative that I’m particularly proud of is Y3’s involvement in the Chongqing Connectivity Initiative, Singapore government’s 3rd large G2G collaboration with the China government. We are not only helping with the Smart Cities conceptualization there, but also are working with some of the largest SOE to jointly grow capabilities and footprint and to enable Chongqing’s ecosystem to have the leading edge capabilities to support the growing supply chain and regional development requirements.

Growing our people
We’re committed to retaining and growing the capabilities of our people. People are ultimately the core of Y3 and we are rolling out a fairly extensive people development program, from leadership development and specific technical capability building, to more general service oriented programs.

3. What will you do differently in this position?

I feel that to survive and indeed thrive in this dynamically changing market landscape, Y3 would not only need to build on its core, but also constantly sense the industry and reinvent itself. I feel that bringing a blend of MNC best practice and a start-up reinvention mindset is critical to driving Y3 forward.

4. What changes are you planning for?
We are constantly moving across multiple fronts.
We are developing new solutions to enable small and midsized enterprises (SMEs) to help them leverage technology to improve productivity.
We are pushing very rapidly across some focused countries in the region, and as such, our organization sales and delivery capabilities are being optimized to lead and support that push.
We are building new solutions in the Analytics, e-Commerce, and Smart Cities areas

5. What are your key business philosophies?
Reinvention features front and center for me. An organization cannot keep still and needs to constantly scan the horizon for opportunities and potential disruptive areas, even if it might not be directly within the same industry. Reinvention is also relevant internally, from the people constantly upgrading their knowledge and capabilities, to even adapting organization processes to compete better in the marketplace.

To that end, I sometime like to take the mindset of a startup/entrepreneur, and challenge the norms.

6. What previous positions prepared you for this one and how?
Having founded/co-founded two start-ups, that taught me the hunger and mindset of an entrepreneur. Having worked in large organizations like IBM and Deloitte Consulting, this has armed me with best practices in many areas.

The combination of all of my experiences have prepared me for this role at Y3, from organizational, sales & business development to supply chain solutions, consulting, and analytics.

I have always been a strong advocate of business and technology innovation. Being at Y3 technologies enables me to further pursue my passion of empowering enterprises with game changing technology solutions and driving businesses to greater heights.