M1 brings home win at SBR National Business Awards 2025 for digital transformation initiative

It has revolutionised customer choice in Singapore's telecom industry by streamlining 300 legacy applications to 30 cloud-native ones.

Telecom company M1 took home the coveted SBR National Business Awards 2025 in the Telecommunications category for successfully embarking on an ambitious digital transformation to become Singapore’s first fully digital-native telco.

Starting in 2019, the comprehensive transformation redefines customer experiences through hyper-personalisation, operational efficiency, and the adoption of forward-thinking technologies. M1 has partnered with leading vendors to make this possible, consolidating legacy systems into a unified hyper-cloud platform and achieving a 90% cloud-native operational framework.

At the core of this initiative is a new digital stack that streamlined 300 legacy applications to just 30 cloud-native applications. This overhaul, alongside the creation of a unified data lake of over 200 databases, has enabled seamless, real-time analytics.

M1 has migrated all postpaid, prepaid, and fibre broadband customers to new cloud-based telecom systems, facilitating the development of hyper-personalised services—an unprecedented level of customer choice and engagement in Singapore’s telecom industry.

The company has also taken an “inside-out” approach for this project, empowering internal teams through reskilling initiatives to effectively use new digital tools. Agile delivery methodologies have also enabled the company to quickly adapt to new opportunities.

Leveraging its agile cloud-native platform, M1 has also integrated sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) tools to enhance customer care as preference for digital interactions increased. Its award-winning virtual assistant Mindy now serves 100,000 unique customers monthly, handling 90% of general enquiries. It is also fostering AI literacy across the entire company, ensuring employees are equipped with the skills to leverage the technology’s potential.

Since the beginning of the digital transformation initiative, the company’s Net Promoter Score has improved by 30%. It has also achieved 75% faster sales process and a 50% YoY surge in enterprise business revenue to $222m as of H1 2023.

Looking beyond telco operations, the integration of AI and 5G is significantly catalysing innovation across industries. M1 is strategically working with leading technology partners to conduct internal proofs of concept to test and develop AI solutions.

“M1’s journey from a traditional telco to a fully digital-native, AI-powered organisation is a model of innovation and progress and dovetails Singapore’s Smart Nation ambitions. By embedding AI across all aspects of its operations and customer interactions, M1 has not only improved its operational efficiencies and customer satisfaction but has also set the stage for long-term growth and industry leadership,” the company said.

Now in its ninth year, the SBR National Business Awards honours the remarkable achievements of homegrown companies in Singapore, highlighting transformative business initiatives, innovative strategies, and impactful projects that have made waves in the competitive business landscape of the Lion City.

The SBR National Business Awards is presented by Singapore Business Review Magazine. To view the full list of winners, click here. If you want to join the 2026 awards programme and be acclaimed for your company's exceptional contributions to the local business landscape in Singapore, please contact Jane Patiag at [email protected].