www.digitalfirstmagazine.com
INDIA EDITION
Digital, Technology and Business Insights
FEATURING INSIDE
Akhil Verma,
AIRTEL PAYMENTS BANK Ashish Bajaj,
DSP MUTUAL FUNDS Biswabrata Chakravorty,
INDUSIND BANK
FEATURING INSIDE
Madhusudan Warrier,
NIIF INFRASTRUCTURE FINANCE LTD. Mani Mulki,
TATA CAPITAL LTD. Rajendra Bisht,
BAJAJ FINANCE LTD.AUTO FINANCE
Puneet Kaur Kohli
CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER AND CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, MANAPPURAM FINANCE LIMITED
ADVOCATING A WELL-DIGITIZED FINANCE INDUSTRY AUG-SEPT 2020
2
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
3
www.digitalfirstmagazine.com
8:30
Aug-Sept 2020
Vol - 1 Issue - 2
BFSI Technology Leaders Special (India Edition) Editor in Chief
Dr. Manoj Varghese
Managing Editor Rose Mary
Consultant Editors
Dr. Johny Andrews Anjana K Shyam S
Navya Venkatesh Stanly Lui Emma James
Editorial Enquiry: admin@digitalfirstmagazine.com
Art and Design Ajay K Das
Sales & Marketing
Jyoti Kumari Prathyoosh K Shaji
Arati Waghmare Hanna George
Sales Enquiry: admin@digitalfirstmagazine.com
Subscription
www.digitalfirstmagazine.com
International Representation
GET THE MOBILE ISSUE
London Connecta Education Ltd. 27, Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AX, United Kingdom Dubai Focus Innovation Technologies FZE P.O. Box 48299, Dubai Silicon Oasis Dubai, UAE Bangalore Connecta Innovation Pvt. Ltd. Carlton Towers, Old Airport Road, Bangalore - 560008 India
4
Higher First Digital Education Magazine Digest Aug-Sept March 2019 2020
Digital First Magazine is a digital magazine published by Connecta Innovation Private Limited. All rights reserved. The opinions expressed in the content are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Connecta Innovation Private Limited or any of its members or associates. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for the advertisements and all representation of warranties made in such advertisements are those of the advertisers and not of the publisher. Digital First trademark is owned by DFG Digital First Infotech Pvt Ltd. and Connecta Innovation Pvt Ltd. has permission to use Digital First brand name.
MANAGING EDITOR’S NOTE
The Brilliance of India’s Swiftly Transforming Banking Culture
W
e all rooted for the ‘Money Heist’ Professor, hoping that he and his squabbling team can successfully pull off one of the biggest bank robberies of all times. We even hummed their victory song, not realizing that if not like the Professor, we still have miscreants of varying degrees lurking around our digital banking space, looking for a loophole to squirm in and rob us off our savings. Weaving all our lives together with an invisible thread, the Indian Banking, Finance, Securities and Investments and Mutual Funds (BFSI) industry is the backbone of the Indian economy. According to a recent PwC survey, India is set to become the third-largest domestic banking sector by 2050 after China and the US. With the adoption of new-age technologies like Chatbots, NLP, and datadriven analytics, the industry is surging ahead full steam. However, with great technological advancements comes equally significant threats. Ranging from Trojans, ransomware, mobile banking malware, data breaches, institutional invasion, data thefts to fiscal breaches, one small hiccup can have a dominoes effect. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that we create an agile and resilient threat-counter mechanism. If cybercriminals spend time on novel technologies and software enhancement tools to sneak in, the BFSI industry is spending double the time
to build up a robust risk mitigation system that can identify, isolate and exterminate all potential threats. However, security is not just the responsibility of the BFSI players. It also lies with us. Despite repeated warnings and cautionary audio/videos from financial institutions, people still leave their critically important piece of banking information easily accessible. Financial literacy does not only mean knowing your market risks and investment portfolios. It also means being extra careful with your passwords, your account details, your PINs and frequent checks of your bank account for suspicious activities. Through this issue of Digital First Magazine, we have tried to round up some of the Indian BFSI industry pundits to share their views on the BFSI industry’s digital transformation journey and throw light on the importance of financial literacy. This issue also features incredible insights and opinions from other industry players on all things finance and other wise. We hope this issue is an interesting and informative read. Cheers!
Rose Mary
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
5
ADVISORY BOARD
Dr. Kuldeep Nagi, Ph.D, MBA, BSc. Program Director of Ph.D, Recipient of Fulbright Fellowship Award & Dan Evans Award for Excellence and Writer columnist.
Mr. Amulya Sah, PGD PM & IR, PG Diploma in PM&IR (XISS Ranchi) Senior Director HR. Former Head HR group Samsung R&D Institute India,Transformative HR Leader, Change agent, Digitization facilitator, Engagement architect, Trainer and Diversity champion.
6
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
Dr. Varughese K.John, PhD, MBA, MPhil, MCom, LLB. Program Director, MS in Management Program, GSATM - AU
Dr. Ajay Shukla, Ph.D, MBA, BE. Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Higher Education UAE
Mamta Thakur Former CEO (ASEAN), Arc Skills
Mr. Sreedhar Bevara, MBA, B.Com Senior General Manager: Panasonic Middle East & Africa, Thought Leader, Speaker & Author of ‘Moment of Signal’ (Amazon’s International Bestseller)
7
DigitalCXO FirstOUTLOOK Magazine Aug-Sept May 2020
7
CATALYZING DIGITAL DISRUPTION IN THE BSFI SECTOR
Madhusudan Warrier Chief Information Officer, NIIF Infrastructure Finance Ltd.
26
A HARBINGER OF SAFE AND SECURE DIGITAL BANKING EXPERIENCE
Akhil Verma Chief Information Security Officer, Airtel Payments Bank THE TECH SAVVY GENIUS SPEARHEADING DIGITAL CHANGE
Mani Mulki Chief Information Officer, Tata Capital Ltd.
34
62
CHANGING THE FINTECH GEAR FROM DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION TO DIGITAL INTELLIGENCE
Ashish Bajaj Chief Technology Officer, DSP Mutual Funds BOLSTERING THE INDIAN BSFI SECTOR THROUGH TECHNOLOGY
Rajendra Bisht Vice President-Technology and Digital, Bajaj Finance Ltd.-Auto Finance
42
54
LEADING THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION FROM THE HELM OF AN INDUSTRY PIONEER
Biswabrata Chakravorty Chief Information Officer, IndusInd Bank
70
LEADER’S INSIGHTS
C O N T 22 E N T
38 How to Overcome Financial Challenges in Businesses during the Pandemic Outbreak
Dr Vivek Bindra, Founder & CEO, Bada Business Pvt Ltd
30
Hyper Collaboration and Innovation in the Dawn of the Work from Home Age Jay Smith, CIO & Head of Innovation, TracFone Wireless, Inc.
S
IN MY VIEW
Top 10 SaaS Technology Trends in 2020 Rupesh Kumar, Microsoft Practice Head at JK Technosoft
UX Psychology Principles Amolendu H., Design Specialist, Mumbai, India
74
EXPERT’S OPINION
50
Coping with the Crisis
46
Arvind Thakur, Former Managing Director, NIIT Technologies Ltd.
Social Media Listening: Why brands should use it before, during and after a crisis
Ranjit Nair, CEO, Germin8
58
Steps Companies can take to keep their Employee’s Mental Health in place Swati Sawhney, Founder, Center of Healing
66
Is COVID19 a Good Opportunity for the Sales Industry? Chitranjan Kesari, CIO/CTO/CDO & CEO, Tech 4 Logic Pvt. Ltd.
80
How can businesses deal with the COVID-induced Liquidity Crisis? Rachit Chawla, CEO, Finway
MOST-INSPIRING
BFSI TECHNOLOGY LEADERS
IN INDIA
First Magazine 12 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
UPGRADING FINANCE TO DIGI-FINANCE
H
aving a diversified financial sector, India has undergone rapid expansion in terms of strong growth in existing financial services firm and new entities in the market. Comprising commercial banks, co-operatives, pension funds, mutual funds and other smaller financial units, the financial services sector in India accounts for a significant amount of the nation’s GDP. Financial sector reforms in India have improved resource mobilisations and allocation. The liberalisation of interest rates and the easing of cash reserve norms have helped make funds available to various sectors. One of the largest-earning sectors in the world, there is a new kind of promise in the banking and finance industry—hence, no better time than now for transformation. Economic fundamentals are strong, the regulatory climate is favourable, and transformation technologies are more readily accessible, powerful, and economical than ever before. India is today one of the most vibrant global economies on the back of a robust banking and insurance sector. The relaxation of foreign investment rules has received a positive response from the insurance sector, with many companies announcing plans to increase their stakes in joint ventures with Indian companies. The next few quarters expect to see a series of joint venture deals between global insurance giants and local players. With that in mind, we at Digital First Magazine present to you “10 MostInspiring BSFI Technology Leaders in India”, with an aim to showcase how these stalwarts have successfully carried out their endeavours in helping their organization, and by extension, the Indian BFSI domain, equip for future technological developments in the Industry.
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
13
Name A Shiju Rawther
Designation
Company
Chief Information Officer
Poonawalla Finance
Chief Information Security Officer
Airtel Payments Bank
Amol Pai
Chief Technology Officer
State Bank of India
Ashish Bajaj
Chief Technology Officer
DSP Mutual Fund
Biswabrata Chakravorty
Chief Information Officer
IndusInd Bank Limited
Gururaj Rao
VP & Chief Information Officer
Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services Group
Madhusudan Warrier
Chief Information Officer
NIIF Infrastructure Finance Limited
Mani Mulki
Chief Information Officer
Tata Capital Ltd.
Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Officer
Manappuram Finance Limited
Vice President Technology & Digital
Bajaj Finance Ltd. Auto Finance
Akhil Verma
Puneet Kaur Kohli
Rajendra Bisht
First Magazine 14 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
Want to find Investor for your Startup?
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
15
COVER STORY First Magazine 16 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
Puneet Kaur Kohli CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER AND CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, MANAPPURAM FINANCE LIMITED
ADVOCATING A WELL-DIGITIZED FINANCE INDUSTRY By Navya V
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
17
N
ever before has the importance of technology been greater in financial services. Competition from fintech firms and big tech giants, increased expectations from the consumer, and innovations connecting data to digital delivery are requiring banks and credit unions to embrace new technologies to build winning strategies. A boon, the emergence of new-age technologies like Robotics Process Automation (RPA), Augmented Reality, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Analytics has played a huge role in the financial sector. Without manual intervention, RPA has reached out to the masses through auto readers and bots, which has created a big turn in terms of customer engagement. Implementing these technologies from almost a year, Puneet Kaur Kohli has been helping Manappuram Finance Limited reap its benefits and come out as an integral player in the Financial Sector. Having a strong IT backbone, Manappuram, a non-banking finance company, was prepared with the apt technologies and emerged out of the crisis with its perks when needed.
First Magazine 18 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
As the CIO and CTO, Puneet has taken these unprecedented times to showcase the technological capabilities of the team and herself at Manappuram, emerging victorious. She planned an approach to prioritise actions, communicate with teams to reduce labour, and mitigate risks. One decision that most of the leaders took was to operate remotely, regardless of whether the company has the policy to work remotely or not. Keeping the business’s IT support as an important aspect, Puneet accelerated her decision and aligned the company’s priorities and requirements with its IT resources. Supporting business continuity with IT solutions, one must keep in mind to make sure technology works and does not fade. With timely corporate measures taken care of, Manappuram Finance has provided its employees with the core IT services that facilitate and focuses on remote working. Supporting end customers from across the country, Manappuram Finance has been concentrating on digitally engaging clients through Chatbots versed in vernacular language; thus further
underlining the fact that BFSI institutions should strive to create more digital initiatives that are understood and accessible to the rural masses. Celebrating Employees Portraying a true leader, Puneet has been inspiring her team by recognising and appreciating the extra efforts and hours they are putting in for the company. “The success of the employees should be celebrated and promoted so that the rest of the organisation has someone specific to appreciate and draw inspiration from”, opines Puneet. Focusing on revenue generation as well as end customer count during the crisis to help the IT dept and the organisation, Puneet feels giving importance to remote delivering capabilities should be more permanent than anticipated. Puneet feels that businesses should have a strategy in place to create immediate middle term and long-term plans that revolve around remote working. By creating an emergency IT governance committee, Puneet aligned and re-aligned Manappuram’s governance
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION • Received the “Jewels of Punjab” Award from Dr. Manmohan Singh (Former Prime Minister) • Won ‘NBFC Tech 100’ award for Disruptive Technologies In 2019 and 2020 • Received ‘Achievements Award’ at Manappuram Finance Limited. • Recipient of ‘Top 100 CISO’ Award for the years 2011,2012, 2013 2014, 2015 • Recipient of ‘Infosec Maestros’ award 2014 • Recipient of ‘Hall of Fame CIO Award’ for 2017 (for bagging CIO 100 for 4 years in a row) • Recipient of ‘Business World Award’ for ’IT Acceleration for Innovation in Storage’ In 2014 • Recipient of ‘CIO of the Year’ 2006 In Manufacturing Segment
models around protecting employees while maintaining the corporate revenue. Inspiring them to deliver extraordinary results across impossible times, Puneet used her leadership skills to communicate with her team on the importance of speed and impact. With the IT leaders focusing on the core processes and technologies to enable business continuity, Puneet put a rush on extending the core technology that was required for working remotely. Monitoring the digital infrastructure and key functions for unexpected issues, she made sure everything and everyone was adjusted to working from home by consistently communicating across teams at the
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
19
Focusing on remote delivery capabilities and understanding how the finance industry can use technology to innovate, Puneet took the opportunity to lead digital transformation initiatives in the long term and derive its value
First Magazine 20 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
organisation wherever possible. Protecting core IT operations, Puneet managed shortterm surge and demand, bug report system and processes needed across the crisis. All the employees were provided with laptops (to support remote working capabilities), customer-facing websites, call centres, focusing on end-user security training. Keeping existing projects on priority moving forward and delivering on precrisis projects wherever possible, Puneet did not let the panic derail critical projects and built key long-term IT capabilities that created a guide with lessons to be learnt in the crisis, which would be the future operating models for IT. Focusing on remote delivery capabilities and understanding how the finance industry can use technology to innovate, Puneet took the opportunity to lead digital transformation initiatives in the long term and derive its value. Moving forward with well-researched digital transformation projects, she fast-tracked innovative initiatives in the portfolio that enabled work from home strategies in delivering products and services. Capitalising on creativity and adapting to long term efficiencies, 22,000 employees were shifted to remote working in just 4-5 days. Providing laptops to the employees while shifting to remote working, Puneet also created inhouse capabilities and skillsets, instead of having a huge external dependency. She also optimised the workforce by motivating and empowering them to overdeliver through project prioritisation and giving them considerable raises to keep their spirits high. While most of the organisations were facing major brunt on their revenue, Manappuram Finance disbursed gold loans of almost 360 crores, thus proving that ensuring a productive IT department will help bear the weight of any losses or issues that comes the way of the organization. Having worked with senior stakeholders to help the organisation
through the eye of the storm, Manappuram created visualisation tools, where analytics played a huge role by finding whatever they searched for. Using tools to build the boardroom-ready cost-cutting strategies, Puneet came up with proactive and strategic cost-cutting tactics, which are currently being executed. Working Towards a Digitally Competent India Intending to make at least 1 lakh people IT illiterate, Puneet has donated old, yet operational, Desktops and PCs from her previous companies to Anganwadis. This act of kindness enabled children access to computers and learn about cybersecurity and IT. Inspiring children to learn coding, Puneet has helped spread awareness about computers and IT among 1,10,000 children and women. This initiative of Puneet’s was recognised by the CRY Foundation, landing her a feature in the acclaimed Forbes Magazine. Having a vision of implementing digital strategies in the organisation’s plans, Puneet ensured that all the IT and key personnel of the organisation were updated regularly. Considering critical decision-making and project management as the key to success, revising initiatives and updating their update their plans has been of top priority for Puneet. “This is how I want to do my business and build up the revenue streams for the organisation along with backup plans as we can’t afford to fail”, says Puneet. With the digital being the new revenue or a new normal, ownerships for initiatives were assigned to key IT personnel, along with backup personnel if required. With technology becoming an integral part of our lives, everyone is accustoming themselves to making all processes automated. Helping businesses become the frontend to drive technology, Puneet has been envisioning to make this process very innovative by bridging the gap between IT and businesses.
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
21
LEADER’S INSIGHTS
Hyper Collaboration and Innovation in the Dawn of the Work from Home Age Jay Smith, CIO & Head of Innovation, TracFone Wireless, Inc.
Jay Smith is a commercial and operations pro with a relentless focus on quality and execution. An intellectual blend of technology and business with a reputation for dismantling functional silos to produce seamless operational processes, innovative solutions and profitable technology products & services, Jay continues to develop a career as a results-driven and transformation-minded leader. Jay possesses a deep understanding of how collaboration and strategic execution drive success. His experience at the executive level has honed the maturity and change leadership required for successful growth in the most difficult corporate environments.
First Magazine 22 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
W
hether you realize it or not, the landscape of corporate America has just changed. The effects of COVID19 on how we approach work, gatherings and collaboration will be felt for years, maybe decades, after we tame the virus. How leaders respond to and enable the work from home shift over the next few weeks and months will affect their corporate culture and ability to serve customers into the foreseeable future. This shift has the potential to literally define if a company is around in 2021. So how do we ensure the transition is healthy and successful? Our recent transition has been wildly successful – in our most recent employee survey we found 61% of our employees’ report being more collaborative and productive then before the transition. I believe there are 3 key behaviors behind our success. Don’t Underestimate the Power of “Together” In the weeks before the COVID19 shelter in place orders, I sat across from my peers and listened to them express the worry I felt too – How would employees react to a sudden change in technology and environment? Would they stay as productive as they were before the transition? Would the pandemic be too distracting? Would our evolving cultural transition wither and cool? Would we find ourselves scrambling
For the first time we actively asked people to over communicate and modeled it ourselves. The level of collaboration and networking that has fruited from that effort is explosive and amazing
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
23
to find the resources we needed to carry on day to day operations? These weren’t loud worries. In general, we trust and respects our employee base – but this sudden transition was jarring, especially considering so much culture is based on human relationships and face to face meetings. We were unsure what the reaction would be from employees, therefore unsure how we should show up as a leadership team. But our fears were unfounded. Because we have been so diligently transitioning to the Cloud, we were able to get every single employee transitioned to work from home, regardless of their current technology set up or experience with remote work, in two weeks. And because it all happened at once, together we learned how to use our collaboration tools. Doing something new together is the great equalizer. The executive team worked from home so rarely we were definitely at a disadvantage in regard to our personal knowledge of how to use our work from home tools. We had to learn quickly and along the way we demonstrated and modeled what we hoped the transition would look like. We rallied around changing our leadership behaviors and prioritized employee engagement. We embraced the once a day stand up, the art of rapid communication and checking in to our employees’ wellbeing. Guided by our obsession with our customers first, and our employees’ well-being at a close second – we were able to change quickly by embracing the concept of togetherness. We changed our general working culture, virtually overnight. Over Communicate When I ask myself how we were able to pull it off so seamlessly I keep coming back a quite simple concept: Communication. Before COVID our corporate communication cycle was sporadic and event driven. Although our Agile transition created pockets of daily standups, it was far from a generally accepted practice. I knew we had to step up my communication game. Immediately I embraced the act of daily formal communication and we started publishing a daily digest. I began a once a week video address. As we shared support and work from home tips – we encouraged our managers to embrace daily stand ups as a way to keep in touch. We deployed departmental digests to keep groups up to date with things like project and transformation status. Our Executive team embraced the idea of an open invitation, weekly virtual “coffee” hosted by a rotating set of executive leaders. I began encouraging engagement and play in a new way – hosting weekly internal and external games, challenges and photo
First Magazine 24 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
contests to keep our employees engaged. For the first time we actively asked people to over communicate and modeled it ourselves. The level of collaboration and networking that has fruited from that effort is explosive and amazing. 96% of our employees feel confident in our ability to lead, 93% say their direct manager is fully supporting them and 96% find the more robust communication cycle helpful. By no stretch of my wildest imagination did I think that our engagement and productivity would go UP as a result of transitioning to home as a team. Engage in Employee Well-Being Like Never Before You may have noticed the impressive statistics about our employee base. How and why do I know these numbers? As a result of COVID, I have significantly evolved my thinking about employee engagement. We shifted from asking employees about how we could improve twice a year in our Employee NPS – to checking once a month on how people feel. Using a ‘Sunny to Stormy’ Likert scale we have been asking employees about their general well-being vs. asking if they approve of us as a company. This sounds like a subtle change – but has elicited a whole new level of detail from our employee base – and shifted both the way we think about employees and also how they perceive we think about them. By untethering our query from our company, we have created the opportunity for employees to talk about their whole selves. This reframing has allowed employees to share more transparently than they felt they could before. This new measurement lets us figure out when we need to lean in interpersonally to our employees and transitions us as leaders from a defensive position to an enabling position. The simple shift has created an unprecedented level of trust between employees and leaders –and we feel ourselves growing closer as a group. Working remotely has let us blossom more trust amongst our employee base, which in returns, translates to high employee well-being. Small but effective changes have come together to create an exciting new environment. We are collaborating and innovating like never before. We recently hosted our first company-wide hackathon, which was hosted virtually and was put together in less than 10 days. We are actively discussing how we capitalize in this new and exciting paradigm and are generally feeling a sense of optimism in the face our current shelter in place order. I hope you can take this information and help your teams evolve even closer while we are asked to socially distance.
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
25
Akhil Verma
Chief Information Security Officer, Airtel Payments Bank
A Harbinger of Safe and Secure Digital Banking Experience
W
hen a crisis befalls a country, not everyone gets affected the same. Usually, it is the bottom of the pyramid that suffers the most, even though it might seem that they have very little to lose. A visit to some of the most distant corners of the country will prove that they are the ones who suffer the most and also the ones left behind during trying times. For instance, while we dabble with at least ten different apps to send/receive money and pay bills, something as simple as taking a bank account is still considered a tedious task in most remote villages. Owing to the laborious task of educating and guiding these left-out villagers, most financial institutions chose to let them be, leaving them just that—left out. However, Airtel Payments Bank stands as a beacon of change and hope with its declaration of taking banking services to unbanked villages in remote areas of
First Magazine 26 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
Digital is not just a ‘tech’ thing anymore; established players are redefining themselves for the digital age and financial services companies are more likely to stress AI, Machine Learning and Blockchain
Chhattisgarh. For a state that had over 1650 unbanked villages, where a majority of the residents either had no bank account or had to travel long distances to reach the nearest bank branch, Airtel Payments Bank have given access to formal banking services. For a financial institution to take steps like these, which unites the country to go fully digital, the inspiration and strength have to come from within the organization. Presiding as Airtel Payments Bank’s Chief Information Security Officer is Akhil Verma. An Integral Part of the Ecosystem Hailing from a family of bankers, Akhil was always fascinated with banks and the stacks of money at the cash counter. As he grew up, he realized that baking was not merely counting money, rather it was how an entire country’s population was connected. “Everything requires money and banks are the only legitimate and trusted place for monetary transactions. There have been many a time where I was heartened to see poor people get small loans
to start their businesses, or others who could grow theirs, fulfil their necessary needs and livelihood etc. I think this is one sector that is truly integrated with people’s lives, helping them in their hour of need. This connection and impact are what influenced me to join the Banking sector.” Akhil started from a long stint in a Public Sector Bank. After which he moved to a Small Finance Bank, where he witnessed the MFI culture. “Having worked with Oriental Bank of Commerce, Canara Bank, Jana Small Finance Bank, and Fincare Small Finance Bank, I realized that the only thing left out in the Indian Banking industry was a Payment Bank. So, when I got an opportunity at Airtel Payment Bank, there was no looking back,” Akhil states. With more than a decade and half years’ worth of experience in the field of Information and Cyber Security, Security Operations, Security Policy Implementation, SLA Management, Information System Audit, Risk Management & Compliance and Software development, Akhil Verma joined Airtel Payments Bank in 2018. He says that the company has created a niche for itself, thanks to
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
27
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION • Top 100 CISO for 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 by CISO platform • Bold CISO award from Dynamic CISO forum for 2019-20 • Top 100 CISO for 2017-18 and 2018-19 by InfoSec Maestros • Top 50 CISO of India for 2017 by the Big Cyber Security Show Group
the core values of the founders, vision of top management, and a strong distribution network to the remotest corner of the country. “Being one of the first payment banks of the country, we do not take digital innovation lightly. Digital is not just a ‘tech’ thing anymore; established players are redefining themselves for the digital age and financial services companies are more likely to stress AI, Machine Learning and Blockchain”. He continues to add that Airtel Payments Bank does not follow the usual Brick and Mortar type Banking services rather runs all its services and entire customer transactions on digital platforms. “We ensure to provide our customers the latest and safest technologies,” he adds. Addressing the elephant in the room, he remarks that the pandemic has hit the world hard, with the
First Magazine 28 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
impact visible across all sectors. However, he says that it has significantly impacted the banking and financial services sector and threatened to devastate economies. “The impact on Corporate loan book of Banks and other financial institutions would depend on the cash flows of the companies they have lent to. With the current economic halt, there is a significant risk of increased defaults on loan books exposed to the SME & MSME segment and unsecured loans. From a cybersecurity perspective, there is an increased number of attacks in the Financial sectors. This is the place where the money lies, making an attractive target for bad actors. The entire world has experienced a large number of phishing attacks across the industry during this pandemic. The financial industry has to take care of operational issues as well as these rising cyber threats.”
Akhil comments that financial companies must continuously focus and monitor their entire ecosystem. As against to earlier threat landscape where there was a need to protect network and crown jewels in the data centre, now boundary has increased due to current situation of work from home. Now, the focus of security has been shifted from organizationbased security to user-based security. A threat can be from anywhere, from the end-user system, network from where a user is connected, outdated OS, patch etc., which sometimes is not possible to address due to a user not available in organization network and leaving such vulnerabilities open. As per a study, 95% of breaches are due to human errors. Various phishing/vishing/ SMSishing are on the rise too. User awareness is a critical factor to combat cybersecurity threats. Education, Awareness and Caution Speaking of financial literacy, he is of the opinion that even though it might seem that the level of financial literacy varies according to education and income levels, evidence shows that highly educated consumers with high incomes can be just as ignorant about financial issues as lesseducated, lower-income consumers. “Individuals need to put a conscious effort into improving financial knowledge. The government should also take initiatives to make financial education compulsory in schools and colleges. Government bodies, banks, insurance companies and financial institutions should take necessary measures to educate people about various financial concepts and investment opportunities so that people can live a financially stable life”. Akhil further states that those BFSI companies still hesitant on
going all-digital will be left behind as digital banking will look very different from what it looks like today. “Functioning completely in digital is not going to be an extra facility or a luxury, rather a mandatory requirement to sustain in business and competition. The role of technologies has grown from part of the strategic framework of companies to driving, shaping and redefining business model. At Airtel Payments Bank, for instance, the leaders believe that success lies in data points. Therefore, Airtel Payments Bank has a dedicated inhouse team handling data analysis in various dimensions, thus enabling top management to make appropriate decisions for the positive growth of the organization.” According to Akhil, some of the most important tech trends and development that are changing the industry are digital platforms like mobile banking, wallets, payments apps etc., that are now an embedded part of the financial industry to engage with customers. Digital banking has become a key pillar of the strategic evolution of the finance industry; Blockchain, which will have a transformational impact on Banking and financial sectors. With several financial institutions already exploring various possibilities, such as fraud detection, inter-bank transfer, prevention of money laundering, loan processing and many more; and Artificial Intelligence, whereby the most visible form of AI tech is adopted by Banks and other financial institutions are Chatbots. “The exponential growth of data, innovative technologies such as Machine Learning, Cloud Computing and increased regulatory requirements have further created the perfects setting for the expended use of AI in the financial sector,” he concludes.
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
29
IN MY
VIEW
Top 10 SaaS Technology Trends in 2020 Rupesh Kumar, Microsoft Practice Head at JK Technosoft With 17+ years of experience in software development, Architecture, Cloud computing, DevOps, R&D, bespoke solution designing, have worked in the various domain including Logistics, Insurance, PBM, and Debt collection. Rupesh Kumar is a Multidisciplinary techno-managerial professional working with abilities to accelerate the pace of innovation and revenue growth of an organization. He is presently chaired as Microsoft Practice Head at JK Technosoft and responsible for building a practice and teams with various skills in Microsoft technology stack and domain experiences, mentor them and keep them motivated to deliver value to customers. He is also Responsible for hiring, training, grooming resources provision by the sales team, maintain the growth and profitability of the competency/practice. Engage with delivery engagements with multiple customers with a good client relationship. He has extensive experience working on Enterprise Application Engineering using Agile, Cloud development across the geography including Domestic, USA, UK/Europe.
First Magazine 30 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
‘S
APIs have a titanic impact on SaaS development, as they can ensure high extensibility as well as seamless integration
oftware as a Service’ or SaaS is nowadays one of the most thriving business solutions. It is increasingly becoming a trusted choice for businesses that are looking for accessibility, versatility and data security that comes with software solutions and data analysis tools, without the heavy reliance on installation and running of applications that need to be done on computer systems and data centers personally. The overarching impact that SaaS now has on the Cloud computing market, can be easily estimated by the fact that Gartner predicts that the service-based cloud application industry, by the year 2022 is going to be worth $143.7 billion. Owing to the agility and cost-effectiveness that the software distribution model can provide for businesses, it has increasingly become a reliable option across industries. Hence, we are going to explore 10 trends in SaaS Technology in 2020 that are going to shape the sector in the near future: • Security Enhancement via AI Algorithms: The fight against cyberattacks has been ongoing since the advent of the internet. AI technologies now jumping on the bandwagon, can help in the detection as well as the projection of common patterns of threats. By implementation of AI technology, it is now possible for businesses to identify malware and ransom attacks much before they enter a software system. Apart from this, another advantage that the technology presents for the strengthening of data security for SaaS is automation – that can help in enhancing the speed of threat detection. • Remote Work: With the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe, work from home has become the new normal. Owing to this, there are now a lot of SaaS tools that can assist in remote work, be it organizing a webinar, a conference to ensure that everything is on track, to critical information sharing, for example, sharing communication plans across partners and internal employees. Since SaaS solutions are innately able to be deployed and implemented remotely, they have been placed in a unique position to be able to help your businesses in adjusting to this new shift to maximum remote work. • White Labelling: Products or services that are produced by one company and then purchased by another one to sell it under their brand, are known as white labels. When it comes to SaaS,
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
31
white labeling would imply that the client can buy your highly customizable products, and then can adjust it according to their business needs be it anything ranging from a URL, website domain, to email, etc. White labeling in SaaS helps businesses in enhancing their branding about the added extra costs of infrastructure or development. • Low-Code Platforms: Low-code platform market, is going to continue its evolution into the future so much, that by the year 2022, its total market is projected to be about $21.2 billion, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 40 percent, according to Forrester. Local platforms are important as they are beneficial for developers in creating a drag-and-drop interface is and allowing perfect integration. Amongst the numerous benefits that are offered by these platforms, higher productivity and faster iteration are just naming a few. • Vertical SaaS: Focusing on the specific needs of a particular industry as opposed to an encompassing one, vertical SaaS model can help you in attracting more clients and grow your profits. Realizing the importance of being able to position their business as an industry leader, more and more entrepreneurs today are shifting to a vertical SaaS model that is much more industryoriented when you compare it to a horizontal one. Established partners like Salesforce, SAP, Oracle, etc. which started as horizontal SaaS models, have also now changed their marketing approach and are looking into implementing the vertical SaaS model. • Micro SaaS: Generally recognized as a small section that is developed by a person or group to improve the existing functionalities of SaaS products, which would mean things like add on, extensions, etc. Micro SaaS can help businesses in outpacing key competitors and be able to come out with a unique niche for themselves in the market. Apart from this, another benefit of Micro SaaS products is that they eliminate the need for additional overhead from the outside investment companies. • Growing Need for API connections: Every business seeks to cater well-integrated solutions to its services without having to create a novel IT ecosystem. This is the reason why SaaS products need to have more APIs in order to ensure that data can be seamlessly integrated but whatever existing IT infrastructure is present instead of having to migrate to another cloud computing environment. APIs hence, have a titanic impact on SaaS development, as they can ensure high extensibility as well as seamless integration.
First Magazine 32 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
• Product-led Growth: Product-led growth, is a common market approach that relies heavily on a product to be able to acquire, retain as well as engage clients. Now talking about how SaaS companies apply this approach – this is by focusing on the consumer like virality components for the features of their products and also making sure that they have sign-up options that are hassle-free and do not require a credit card for setting up accounts. If you are wondering whether this method is going to be popular in the SaaS market, then the answer is yes! Some companies are applying this trend and have increased their business evaluation based on it, hence this movement is soon going to gather much steam. • PaaS: Owing to the cutthroat competition that exists in the market today, businesses are continuously on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve their products. PaaS or Platform-as-a-Service, appeals to companies, to this end, since it can help in product development in customer retention. Owing to the various benefits that PaaS has to offer, that include characteristics such as being a highly scalable, agile and quick alternative for SaaS, when it comes to businesses, the service makes it extremely easy for businesses to build custom applications as well as add-ons for the core software that makes them maintain their flexibility. • Mobile-First Approach: According to reports, globally, more than 5.19 billion people now use mobile phones, with user numbers up by 124 million (2.4 percent) over the past year, and the number of people around the world using the internet has grown to 4.54 billion, an increase of 7 percent (298 million new users) compared to January 2019 (Source: DataReportal). As the proliferation of mobile users continues to increase, SaaS companies are now compelled to adopt the services for mobile devices. Companies such as Dropbox, Skype, etc.were some of the first ones to implement the mobile-first approach for the business models, and now other businesses are trying to follow suit. As we have already entered an accelerated pace of digital transformation, and companies are transiting towards a world that is digitally dependent, SaaS can be a convenient and affordable option to opt for the same. Now that we are aware of the top 10 trends in SaaS, we should seek to employ them to help in boosting the business and also making it more efficient and agile. Therefore, leveraging these trends enables us to outpace our competitors, boost your client acquisition, and also enhance the revenue generation.
!ncredible
No matter where you decide to go in India, you’ll find something incredible. And right next to that, you’ll find us. Safe and sanitised stays, waiting to host you. So pack up your bags, dust those boots, come to an OYO near you.
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
33
Ashish Bajaj
Chief Technology Officer, DSP Mutual Funds
Changing the FinTech Gear from Digital Transformation to Digital Intelligence
T
he BSFI industry is undergoing a transformation from being based in physical branches to using information technology (IT) and big data, together with highly specialised human capital. Even before this transformation began, banks and markets had become intertwined, with a higher proportion of intermediary activities becoming market based. Setting the stage for an incredible transaction throughput scalability, Cognitive Automation, a union of RPA, Artificial Intelligence (AI)/ Machine Learning (ML), API, Blockchain, and Analytics, is upsetting the change in the financial industry. Tackling many financial issues like fraud and risk evaluation, AI and ML are analysing masses of information and data to discover correlations between events happening and their effect on asset price. Natural Language Processing is starting to revolutionize complex searches and data reporting.
First Magazine 34 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
Digital transformation is less about revolutionary technology than it is about changing the way we work. It’s a mindset shift that hinges not on digital capabilities but the adoption of those digital capabilities
As this technological sector grows, so does the need for up-to-date cybersecurity. With the number of connected devices continues to skyrocket, financial technology becomes cheaper and easier to use, and processes and services which were once monopolized by banks are now much more accessible to companies and the wider public. Cyber attacks have surged multiple times, ranging from phishing attempts that play on people’s concerns and desire for information, to more sophisticated attacks on networks and information flows. Cybersecurity is also a key part of this pandemic crisis management because there can be additional vulnerabilities in the middle of a storm. “This is because of significantly higher levels of remote access to data and core systems, and because employees and management could be more susceptible to social engineering efforts in the midst of a crisis. We are shoring up cyber defenses and educating employees, at all levels, to the emerging risks”, says Ashish Bajaj, CTO, DSP Mutual Funds.
Ashish opines that one of the biggest cybersecurity risks in FinTech today is due to inexperienced users. FinTech has allowed for a cheap expansion of access to banking institutions in previously underserved comments worldwide. Encompassing almost every part of an individual’s life, financial literacy is of grave importance. The vast majority of people don’t know that there are four broader ways of making money— employment, self-employment, business, and investing. Furthermore, it is sort of like a ladder; you can work your way up to being an investor. “Conversing to an experienced advisor can help people understand how to budget and save. An advisor can likewise see how to handle credit and debt and make suggestions on the most proficient method to pay off, and manage finances with a plan for achieving a goal”, says Ashish. As the demand for Advance Analytics and AI increase, quick POC’s are being carried out using digital tools and new technologies to derive instantaneous insights. Use cases and preferably opensource
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
35
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION • IDC Insight Award 2019 & 2018 • CIO Power List 2020 & 2019 • IT Genius Awards 2019 • Dynamic CIO Innovation Heroes 2020 • Innovative CIO Award 2019 • Express Computers 2020 & 2019 • Economic Times Innovation Awards 2019
First Magazine 36 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
technologies are selected from a probabilistic perspective rather than a deterministic way to produce results. “Also keeping the ever-evolving workplace, technologies like fog computing, better-known Cloud computing, has helped evolve as quickly as new opportunities crop up to meet growing business demands”, opines Ashish. COVID-19 has certainly affected the financial industry forcing to rethink the future of the workplace and what this means for operating models. Revisions to the operating model, given the impact and lessons learned from this crisis, e.g., acceleration of digital transformation, organizational agility, future of work, and increased focus on cybersecurity are being carried out. “Impact of continued reduction of interest rates, reduced business activity, and largescale non-performing loans may lead towards recession. Possible regulatory changes along with enhanced and new requirements may be faced by the financial industry”, remarks Ashish. Revolutionizing Digital Transformation As the velocity of innovation has increased across technologies such as mobile, internet & computing, demand for continuous innovation has heightened. Changing customer expectations, increasing regulatory complexity, the pressure to optimize operations are driving the push for reinvention, and innovation. “We drive continuous innovation by utilizing the latest technologies to remain current with the processes and experiences that customers and employees demand”, he says. Digital transformation is less about revolutionary technology than it is about changing the way we work.
It’s a mindset shift that hinges not on digital capabilities but the adoption of those digital capabilities by the endusers—employees and customers— and business enablement. “Our digital transformation is driven with a very clear objective to impact top line or bottom-line. Keeping a holistic view of interoperability and reusability, the app modernization journey modeling into building a ‘microservices farm’ enhanced the pace of deliverables along with standardization”, says Ashish. Ashish points out that the biggest concern when it comes to the implementation of microservices is the right segregation of data and a clearly defined data ownership. Abstracting data is critical to ensure that the external world has access only through predefined integration touchpoints. As a proposed solution, data is being replicated across all dependent microservices, keeping in sync with the golden source of data. The custodian of the microservices broadcast is backed by a messaging queue that helps maintain consistency. “We built a strategy for cultivating this shift to inspire organizational behavioral change, bundling it with the pace of technology innovation and now moving from digital transformation to digital intelligence”. With intuitive technology, and self-learning software, that will allow banking offerings to be enhanced and added in response to customer needs, new technologies are bringing new value and entirely new customer experience. With digital banking embedding customers’ everyday needs, lifestyles and life-stages, Ashish concludes, “I believe that Cloud, explainable AI, and Open Banking APIs together will drive the customer’s digital banking needs”.
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
37
LEADER’S INSIGHTS
How to Overcome Financial Challenges in Businesses during the Pandemic Outbreak Dr Vivek Bindra, Founder & CEO, Bada Business Pvt Ltd
A human performance improvement pioneer, Dr. Vivek Bindra helps in driving business results through performance effectiveness. Dr. Vivek Bindra is the Founder & CEO of one of the largest and most progressive organizations – Bada Business Pvt. Ltd. (formerly known as Global ACT).
First Magazine 38 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
C
The idea is to reinvent yourself quickly and not to allow the ‘downing of shutters’ altogether
ovid 19 combined with the lockdown has hit nearly most businesses – from micro and small to medium to even the bigger enterprises – with varying degrees of severity. While it has been more damaging for some particular sectors than others, most small businesses across sectors have dealt a body blow. The double whammy of supply chain uncertainties and fall in demand has even led many to fold. And those somehow managing to stay afloat are faced with dire financial challenges. Stemming from all-round supply chain breakdown, a disruption in cash flow, and lack of ready-to-use liquidity has been the biggest financial challenge for small businesses in the times of Covid-19. As a result, while they have been finding it difficult to settle their accounts smoothly vis-à-vis their vendors and partners, the delays in payments from customers, particularly bigger businesses including public sector players have spelled a financial paralysis of sorts for their own businesses. In an estimate, more than Rs 10,000 crore was pending towards micro and small enterprises until April this year with about Rs 2,040 crore pending in central ministries, departments, and PSUs until mid-June. This has also come to impact their working capital flows without which running any business is nearly impossible. To make matters worse, the drying up of credit in Coviddictated lean times has completely thrown their businesses out of gear. Even for the loans which have been sanctioned by the government on account of Covid-19, there has been a wide gap between sanctioning and actual disbursal. Notably, most of them are already outside the formal credit system due to high-interest rates and excessive collateral requirements. What are the ways in which small businesses can meet these Covid-dictated financial challenges? Reworking variable cost structures The first step is to rework your cost structures. This involves revisiting your variable costs with an eye on instantly reducing cash outflows. This could range from cutting back on non-essential administrative costs as well as discretionary spendings such as unnecessary travel, meetings, and functions to smartly tackling your non-
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
39
permanent labor costs. You could reduce the nonpermanent headcount either by redistributing work within a curtailed pool of contractual employees or by way of allocating and redistributing relevant tasks to in-house permanent employees. Managing fixed costs through creative HR strategies & rescheduling current liabilities At the same time, you have to give attention to your fixed costs through a mix of imaginative HR policy tools and rescheduling of fixed cost liabilities. Come up with HR strategies to rationalize compensation structures such as reducing salaries of higher grade employees in order to protect the lower-salaried employees. Besides freezing fresh hiring and salary hikes while holding up bonuses and overtimes, you could reorganize office time flows by devising a four-day a week work or even a 15-day month. Also, encourage unpaid leaves and early voluntary retirement if possible. At the same time, you must negotiate with all relevant partners with a view to rescheduling/postpone your fixed cost liabilities such as loans, rent, utility payments, etc. which would give you a breathing space in the short term. Timely communication is the key in this respect. Also, you should delay your capital investment and long-term acquisition plans. Finding alternative revenue streams If the nature of your present product and services has been the reason behind Covid-dictated struggles and even failures, don’t wait for the virus to go away. Pivot towards similar or new product and service offerings with new pricing strategies. We have seen how many companies have successfully shifted to making of masks, ventilators, and PPE kits spurred by Covid-19. The idea is to reinvent yourself quickly and not to allow the ‘downing of shutters’ altogether. Creating additional routes for securing due payments If your business has reached a do-or-die stage while your customer is not being able to meet their payment obligations immediately due to their own financial pressures and are looking for an extension or rescheduling of some kind, you could ponder dynamic discounting to them for early payments. Although this may cost a bit in the short term, it would allow you to remain in business
First Magazine 40 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
with the possibility of making a comeback. At the same time, you could also consider options such as Trade Receivables Electronic Discounting System (TREDS) by uploading your invoice on the portal. Addressing working capital flow in a balanced manner Typically in ordinary times, there is an overriding focus on inventory as compared to payables and receivables. In other words, topline and sales is focused upon more prominently. However, during challenging times when working capital is hard to come by, businesses must employ a balanced approach with a focus on all the three elements of the working capital supply chain. Collectivising & sharing a few operational costs with peer businesses Like you, there would be several businesses facing similar financing and cost issues as a result of Covid-19. Especially if your businesses operate in physical proximity to one another, you could think of sharing certain logistical, transportation, and utility infrastructure and services which would relieve the cost pressures for both the parties. Exploring alternative modes of credit/ finance If you are really hard-pressed for cash and traditional sources of credit and finance are not forthcoming, there are alternative sources available these days. But to avail of these sources of funds, you have to go digital. While peer-to-peer (P2P) mode allows an interface between borrowers and lenders online, crowdfunding is another popular tech-enabled online source of financing which entails rewards based, donation-based, and equitybased financing models allowing you to choose as you please. Although the government has put in place a number of measures including making priority sector lending to SMEs mandatory, instituting a bankruptcy law empowering small creditors, the introduction of long-term repo operations (LTRO) by RBI, these high-sounding measures have not translated into real benefits on the ground for small businesses. As such, besides sanctioning additional working capital, granting a moratorium on loans, and mandating early payment of dues, the government must ensure that there is no time lag between sanctioning and disbursal of loans.
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
41
Biswabrata Chakravorty Chief Information Officer, IndusInd Bank
Leading the Digital Revolution from the Helm of an Industry Pioneer
T
he Indus Valley Civilization is an important landmark in the history of mankind. At its peak, the Indus people had developed, and perfected, global trading, modern city planning, and a thriving economy. Driving inspiration from the Indus, IndusInd Bank has strived to build a culture of innovation, care, and growth. A pioneer in digital innovations, IndusInd prides in Alexa Voice Banking—an industry first. It is also the first bank to launch a Video Branch and the first to allow customers to choose their account number and their choice of currency in ATMs. If these do not prove the bank’s acumen, then maybe this will—IndusInd is the first bank to introduce the Duo card that combines a debit and a credit card. It also introduced NEXXT Card, India’s first interactive credit card with buttons. The bank’s proficiency is further amplified by the fact that
First Magazine 42 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
IndusInd Bank is using the right data and the right analytics to make the difference between customer growth and customer attrition
these innovative schemes have stood the test of time and has an ever-growing customer base. What makes IndusInd stand out from its peers is the visionary skills of its top management. These resourceful team of experts have ensured the launch of a slew of innovative and best-in-class solutions that consistently strives to improve the experience of its customers through safe, convenient and reliable digital platforms. Presiding as the bank’s Chief Information Officer is Biswabrata Chakravorty. Entering by Chance, Staying by Choice Biswabrata has quite the experience working in the financial service sector, bringing to the table more than 2 decades worth of knowledge and skill in the Banking and Insurance (both life and general/health) sectors. “I did not mean to end up in the BFSI field. I wanted to join a firm in Mumbai, but as I look back now, I am only happy that I stumbled upon the BFSI domain.
The financial services sector has been instrumental in shaping my career and practically taught me the basics of project management, product management, supplier management to enterprise technology stacks like CRM, core banking, and switching. Over the last several years I have been able to leverage mobility, Cloud and analytics through various initiatives aimed at bringing in digital transformation and improving client experience. My association with IndusInd Bank started in 2018 as a CTO, moving on to be the CIO, and has continued to evolve most progressively, wherein I have been able to work closely to weave the business strategy with an underpinning of modern tech stack.” IndusInd Bank, which commenced operations in 1994, caters to the needs of both consumer and corporate customers and has an avant-garde technology platform that supports multi-channel delivery capabilities. “With the rise in Fintech, Bigtech and the Neo Banks, all incumbent banks are facing disruptions in their retail
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
43
account, account-to-account lending, digital payment, and remittance processes. Hence incumbents need to understand the market segment and define their digital strategy. IndusInd Bank stands tall today as one of the reputed banking brands in the country. As the Bank’s CIO, I am responsible for architecting the solutions for clients using digital capabilities like automated onboarding, KYC, STP for account management, Omni-channel client experience using CRM,” Biswabrata informs. Addressing the pandemic situation, Biswabrata says that the Financial services, being the fulcrum of the economy through which investments and consumption flows, has been affected, as evidenced by India’s GDP numbers. With health and safety being the primary concern in the absence of a vaccine, there has been a decline in contact heavy services, including brick and mortar retail, banking via branches and urban transportation. More transactions are now online, with people opting for virtual ways of engagement and working. “For 26 years, IndusInd Bank Limited has been staying true to its mantra of ‘Customer Responsiveness’. Over the years, the bank has been a forerunner in digital innovations that has truly helped the customers enjoy a smooth transition to the online banking environment. However, we also know that while going completely digital, it is also imperative to keep different client segments in mind. As a bank, we have identified paperless/straight-through digital processes with segments of customers who are not financially savvy – in an assisted model. This helps us have an efficient, yet simple, convenient and trusted model of operation. It is reassuring to see that all our efforts are making the desired change, as just the previous year, IDC FIIA 2019 Financial Insights Innovation Awards, named IndusInd Bank Limited as Asia’s Leading Partner Bank. We were also awarded the Times Now India Digital
First Magazine 44 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
Awards 2019 for their Most Innovative Money Transfer Product/ Service,” he comments. Digital Brilliance in Action So how does IndusInd do it? Biswabrata explains that to meet the massive growth demands of the bank (in business and data), it was proposed to build a platform which will support the growing demands. To achieve this aim, an enterprise data warehouse was built on Cloud (Azure) that integrates more than 50 banking systems, generates business dashboards and reports in a matter of few hours while dealing with terabytes of data. Furthermore, the “ondemand” infrastructure ensures cost regulation. “IndusInd Bank is using the right data and the right analytics to make the difference between customer growth and customer attrition. IndusInd is using various data analytics solutions and analysing aspects such as customer spending patterns, customer segmentation and profiling, product crossselling, fraud management and prevention, risk assessment, compliance and reporting, customer feedback analysis and application, and automated dashboards release, where the data processing and reports generation is fully automated. Hence, the reports are released in a very fast fashion before business hours with little human intervention.” As an ending note, Biswabrata opines that banking will go on to be more conversational, connected, convenient and contactless. He expects to see more of digital onboarding using Aadhaar-based, centralized and unique identity management, which enables a contactless, virtual identity authentication. “With changing client behaviour, there has been a steady spike in digital payments-increasing at 100% plus CAGR YOY, big tech companies will keep further expanding, influencing digital transactions on apps through integration with the UPI open ecosystem of payments on the India stack.”
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
45
EXPERT’S
OPINION
Social Media Listening: Why brands should use it before, during and after a crisis Ranjit Nair, CEO, Germin8
Ranjit has a PhD in Computer Science with a specialization in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Southern California. Post his doctorate, he worked as Senior Research Scientist with Honeywell Labs in Minneapolis, where he continued his work in developing algorithms for planning and decision making in the face of imprecise and incomplete information. He returned to India at the end of 2006 to be a tech entrepreneur and to fulfil a desire to see India become known as not just as an exporter of IT services but also for world-class software products and innovation. Thus, he founded Germin8 along with his father, Raj Nair. Germin8 is a digital intelligence company focused on using data analytics and AI to help companies become more customer centric. Ranjit also serves on the India Advisory Board of the University of Southern California and also serves as visiting faculty at several institutes like MICA and NMIMS.
First Magazine 46 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
I
t could be a side effect of a lot of us living online, but brand crises appear to be arriving at a faster clip than ever before. Although some brands have a tough time coming up for air, others, seemingly poised for an accident, shoot in the nick of time and continue moving along as if nothing happened. What differentiates these brands is frequently their prep before a crisis strikes and their social networking savviness. This is the reason why social network monitoring may be one of the best tools.
Social media network might help alert you of the fact that a crisis is brewing before it spirals out of control
Crisis The term strikes fear into the hearts of communicators everywhere. Brands that range from Carnival Cruise Lines to Starbucks to Facebook were hit by crises thus far from 2018. The fact is that any brand can find itself in crisis – at any time. As opposed to fear crisis, organizations must prepare emergency plans before they want them so they are ready when they find themselves in the thick of a PR disaster. Social media listening and monitoring play a role in any emergency communications plan. While social media channels could fuel the spread of information, it also gives a fantastic means to reach out to fans and followers that can provide support in times of catastrophe. It also serves as the ideal channel to monitor for opinion and observe for signs of risk. Ronn Torossian, Founder and CEO of 5WPR says that Experts usually concentrate more on the speaking aspect of social media management. However, many brands do not realize it’s important to concentrate on listening and monitoring on your social networking accounts. Let us look at just how social networking monitoring may be used through every period of a crisis. Pre Crisis Your brand is sailing along, hassle-free, when, suddenly, you notice signs of problems. Customers are suddenly complaining on social media channels. There is a trickle, and then a steady stream, of critique coming your way. Social media network might help alert you of the fact that a crisis is brewing before it spirals out of control. Once you’re conscious that calamity is afoot, you can evaluate the seriousness and take suitable action. Consistently monitor all social channels as to whenever criticisms and crises emerge, you’re well prepared to respond instantly to this particular person, or individuals.
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
47
Usually, a one-to-one strategy with the complainant is a much better option to prevent the issue from getting out of hands. This way, your organization may remain in control of the story and may ensure the issue stays small. Note that before the first hint of a crisis, using social media to build your reputation as well as your community is critical on the health of your brand. Social media listening tools enable you to constantly monitor the social network for mentions of your brand so you may always know where it stands.
Although complaints can spread like wildfire on social networks, it can be utilized to work in your favour and help you recover faster from the crisis
During a crisis The crisis has begun in earnest. Your team is in full crisis mode. One-way social media can be essential in those times is in reaching out to your followers and also to influencers who will provide support and helps you turn the wave of sentiment back in your favour. When you have built strong relationships with Influencers and brand loyalists, they might speak on your behalf – often without you having to ask. This is why it is so important to build that community before you require it. If you’ve followers and fans, they’ll speak up on your behalf, says Martin Waxman, President, Martin Waxman Communications. If a brand tries to go on the defensive, it can occasionally have the opposite effect, however, if the brand community defends it, it is much more plausible. You should use a media intelligence tool for social media monitoring to see who’s coming to your defence and also evaluate the sentiment. Post crisis Now the crisis has died down. You are attempting to reconstruct your status in the minds and hearts of your customers. Use social websites to keep track of how things are going during this process. By leveraging a tool to monitor sentiment, you can see where you are making strides, and in which you could have more work to do. It might take some time, but as you move forward, social websites may help you know where you stand as you get back on track. Make sure to use media monitoring and social listening. Although complaints can spread like wildfire on social networks, it can be utilized to work in your favour and help you recover faster from the crisis. A successful monitoring tool can show you where your brand stands. Leverage it to know your status in any respect times, be it before, during or following a crisis. As the old saying goes, ‘better prepared than sorry’.
First Magazine 48 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
Wi-Fi powered digital learning. Build an ultramodern classroom that boosts student and teacher success. LEARN MORE: www.arubanetworks.com
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
49
IN MY
VIEW
Coping with the Crisis Arvind Thakur, Former Managing Director, NIIT Technologies Ltd. Arvind Thakur has been the CEO, Vice Chairman & Managing Director at NIIT Technologies Ltd, a global IT solutions organization, which was spun off from NIIT Ltd in 2004. He led the company since inception for 15 years to be among the top IT Services provider from the country. In 2012 he has conferred the prestigious global Gold Stevie award as “Executive of the Year� in the Computer Services category. Through his career Arvind has served on the boards of many companies including the innovative Holein-the-wall Education Ltd which leveraged technology to educate the underprivileged. He has been the Chairman of specialized tech companies like Esri India Technologies Ltd and Incessant Technologies Ltd. Currently, he serves as Member, Board of Management at NIIT University, a leading not-for-profit institution. He was also an elected member of the Executive Council at NASSCOM for 3 consecutive terms. He is also the Chairman of the National Committee on IPR at the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII). He served as a member of the Indo Spanish CEO Forum supported by FICCI. Arvind graduated in engineering from IIT, Kharagpur where he received the Institute Silver medal. Thereafter he pursued postgraduation in Industrial Engineering from NITIE, Mumbai, and started his work career with BHEL as an Industrial Engineer. He teamed up with the founders of NIIT in 1985 and has since been part of the promoter group at NIIT Ltd.
First Magazine 50 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
I
In a global crisis only with compassion can you get a complete perspective of the problem to initiate recovery
t is clear that the Coronavirus has created an unprecedented situation at a scale that we have never experienced before. In my nearly four decades with the tech industry we have encountered many an external crisis but none which has been so unpredictable impacting both the demand side and supply side of the business. Never the less having been through external headwinds in the past let me share with you some learnings to cope with the crisis. I go back to the early eighties when NIIT began its operations in India. The formal education system in the country was not producing adequate software engineers to keep up with the proliferation of computers and NIIT quickly establish itself as a pioneer in computer education by addressing this need. It was natural for Corporates to seek solutions from those who imparted knowledge which lead the company to provide consulting and software services. However unlike IT education which was a business pioneered by NIIT when it came to software we were followers. While the competition was developing solutions using third-generation languages (3GL) like COBOL & Basic, we began to focus on end-user computing using new 4GL tools to create a differentiation. NIIT introduced 4GL technology in the country and such cutting edge tools became so popular that we undertook their distribution by tying up with leading principals to pioneer software product distribution in the country. All this contributed to healthy growth through the ’80s and then we hit our first major crisis; the 1991 Foreign Exchange crisis. In 1991 the country’s balance of payment situation became alarming as imports swelled and the oil pool deficit was crippling. Foreign exchange reserves could barely finance 3 weeks of imports. This leads to the country airlift gold reserves as a pledge to secure conditional loans from the IMF and World Bank. Quite clearly any business causing a foreign exchange outflow, like our software distribution business, was untenable. It became evident that in order to survive the business had to ‘export or perish’. We, therefore,
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
51
joined the band of corporates who decided to explore international markets and tried to figure out what to export. We had two competencies, one was training and the other software development. Combining these capabilities lead to the creation of educational software or Computer Based Training (CBT) and that was the product we took internationally to save the business. The learning from this experience was that a crisis gets you to act in ways that you would not have thought of before. Our entry into international markets and also the new product line of CBT was triggered by the foreign exchange crisis. A crisis creates opportunities. The ’90s saw a domestic training major metamorphose into a global training and software services player. We borrowed concepts from the manufacturing industry and pioneered setting up offshore development factories. NIIT’s education software development facility was the first in the country to be certified at ISO 9000. In 1995 we embraced a model more relevant for the software industry which was SEI CMM attaining the highest level of maturity (CMM Level 5) in 1999. In doing so we were able to convert the art form of programing into an engineering discipline, so less experienced programmers could create high-quality software by following a mature process. This was also a time when the internet was born and the company was quick to embrace eCommerce to grow at a scorching rate of 30-40% per annum. The dream run of the ’90s was cut short by the next big crisis; the Dot Com meltdown of 2001 Excessive speculation in internet-related companies created a bubble in stock markets causing the index to rise over 400% between 1995 and 2000 only to fall from its peak by 78% in Oct 2002. Many online companies failed and shut down. Others engaged in eCommerce lost enormous value. All in all this had a severe impact on our business as a lot of such organizations were our clients. For the first time in the history of the company, operating profits turned negative in the April-June quarter of 2001. This was a painful period for the company. Recovery meant cutting costs and most of the costs in a services company are people costs. One of the things that we did at that time was to be absolutely transparent with our people on the problems being experienced and rather than taking the route of laying off people we were able to get the support of the workforce to take voluntary cuts in compensation.
First Magazine 52 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
We hit our first major crisis in 1991, the Foreign Exchange crisis. The country’s balance of payment situation became alarming as imports swelled and the oil pool deficit was crippling
The leadership which took the maximum cuts followed by supervisors and the front line staff taking the least cuts. Transparent communication removed anxieties in the minds of staff about their jobs and motivated them to rally together to overcome the crisis. Another great lesson in crisis management. Recovery was gradual as the company had to reinvent itself. The software business expanded its portfolio to include legacy and build an annuity revenue stream moving away from eCommerce where customer spending had become discretionary. The company brought in sharp focus on specific domains and verticals to build specialization and put in place an inorganic program for growth. Staff was encouraged to acquire new skills relevant to these changes and the software business was demerged into a separate listed entity ie NIIT Technologies Ltd. With these changes, NIIT Technologies doubled its revenues between 2004 to 2008 and improved its operating margins by 100 bps each year. The company was once again cruising at a good pace when it encountered yet another external crisis. This was the subprime crisis of 2009 which was triggered by a decline in home prices in the US as the housing bubble burst leading to the collapse in the financial services industry and the US entered into depression causing a global slowdown in the economy. The slowdown caused customers to cut back on spend and business began to decline. Our response was to empathize with our customers’ problems by creating innovative solutions to address their pain even at a loss in our revenues. The motto was to deliver more for less with focus on strengthening relationships so that when recovery happened the client would value our partnership to grow together. We looked for discontinuities to find new opportunities and in the process were able to identify new segments to focus on and shed segments where we were unable to differentiate. We empathized with our people as well. Instead of resorting to cuts in salaries payments were deferred into a pool which
staff could earn back when we hit the desired financial goals. The beaten-down stock due to the slow down presented an opportunity to compensate for a wider section of supervisors with stock options so they would be more than compensated for when business recovered. This aligned the entire organization to the financial goals of recovery. These empathetic measures enabled the company to come out strong from the slow down growing at a CAGR of over 20% over the next 5 years. The key lesson from this experience was that in a crisis it is important to demonstrate empathy towards all stakeholders. The discontinuity created by the Covid 19 crisis presents opportunities for Tech Services as across industries organizations will need technology partners to transform digitally. In the short term however there would be a pain as clients struggle to deal with current headwinds. From experiences of past external shocks my advise for the Tech Services industry would be to keep an eye on recovery by: 1. Empathizing with all stakeholders during the crisis 2. Be transparent about the plan and communicate effectively 3. Pivot the business around opportunities presented by the crisis The key to success would lie in demonstrating “compassion� towards all stakeholders during the crisis. Compassion with customers to understand their pain and improvising to alleviate it. Compassion with employees to address their anxieties. Compassion with vendors to understand their difficulties. Compassion with investors to address uncertainties. Compassion with society to engage as a good corporate citizen. In a global crisis only with compassion can you get a complete perspective of the problem to initiate recovery. This crisis too will pass and the opportunity in the crisis is to build rock-solid relationships with all stakeholders that would not only accelerate recovery but ensure sustained success for the organization.
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
53
Madhusudan Warrier
Chief Information Officer, NIIF Infrastructure Finance Ltd.
Catalyzing Digital Disruption in the BSFI Sector
I
ndia’s banking sector has undergone a paradigm shift in the past two decades. The role of technology has grown from being a mere cog in the strategic framework of companies to driving, shaping, and redefining business models and revenue streams. While the digital interface in FinTech has grown by leaps and bounds, cash remains an equal catalyst in bridging the conventional vs. digital gap. With Hybrid Cloud, Information Security through advanced analytics, real-time monitoring to detect potential threats before any possible attack, and API platforms that can be used by third parties to build and integrate, automation of processes has started to become an integral part of the financial industry, with minimum to almost no manual intervention. Technological innovations in banking continue to transform all financial sectors, and this will explosively grow in the next five years.
First Magazine 54 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
Madhusudan designed the first fact sheet in the mutual fund industry that has turned out to be one of the most important tools used by fund houses to explain fund performance and outlook
Emerging technologies have transformed the way the banking operations were carried a decade ago. With more customer-focused products making value-added services a necessity, technologies like voice recognition and predictive analysis are aiding in offering personalized products. “Mobile First seems to be the trend with physical outlets designed to support the mobility channel. For instance, millennials increasingly using their mobile phones for their banking requirements and payments— bank in a box”, points out Madhusudan Warrier, CIO, NIIF Infrastructure Finance Ltd. A highly regulated industry, the banking, finance, and insurance industry are well set with business continuity plans. With checks and controls envisaged enabled operations, one gets to learn new things in this process. “It all depends on how quickly the business is responding to change in crises situations that differentiates an organization”, says Madhusudan.
Venturing into Banking and Finance After completing his basic education in the early 1990s, when the economy was opening up, Madhusudan was intrigued by the way government policies were planned to shape the country. When private sectors were allowed to set up mutual funds, he got an opportunity to be associated with the leading mutual funds’ provider at that time, which gave him exposure to how money was being managed. “The opportunity helped me to structure, design, and implement solutions. Some of such initiatives in which I was part of is the development of integrated front, mid, and back office systems and Customer Relations interfaces.”, he says. In fact, Madhusudan designed the first fact sheet in the mutual fund industry that has turned out to be one of the most important tools used by fund houses to explain fund performance and outlook. While working as the Technology Lead for IDFC, Madhusudan got a chance to see how various
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
55
businesses like Infra NBFC, Mutual Funds, Institutional Broking, Infrastructure Debt Fund, Private Equity, Project Equity, and CSR initiatives operated. “I was offered the role in the Technology team when the IDFC management stake in IDFC Infrastructure Finance was changing hands to NIIF, and that’s how I became a part of NIIF Infrastructure Finance Ltd.”, says Madhusudan. Making banks more efficient and stimulating financial innovation by opening up of new markets, the dynamic changes within the Indian banking system in the last two decades has aided the developments in the markets on the competitive behavior of Indian commercial banks. Madhusudan feels that the systems and interfaces
First Magazine 56 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
deployed and used in NIIF IFL are tailormade for the business requirements as it helps to enable business and make technology an important business partner. Adapting to Digital Technologies Along with saving time by making processes more efficient and improving information and cybersecurity, adopting digital technology has improved customer interactions and helped businesses stay relevant and survive technology obsolescence. “We have joined the digital revolution by deploying applications on the cloud, securing information and using secure modes of communication for digital meeting”, says Madhusudan.
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
• Awardee in FinTec India Awards 2017 for projects implementation. • Recognition from the 6th Edition Big BFSI Future Tech Show and Awards 2018 as ‘BFSI LEADERS’ in BFSI sector. • Recognition as Top 20 IT leaders in BFSI sector at the BFSI Innovation and Technology Summit, September 2018 • Recognition for implementing Cyber Security initiatives at the BIG Cyber Security Show and Awards – September 2018. • Recognition as one of the best CIOs in the Economic Times CIO Annual awards 2019. • Recognition for Best Technology implementation of the year 2020 in CIO Conclave organized by UBS Forums.
Financial literacy is important as it gives the basic knowledge and skills on how to manage our own money effectively. If we are aware of the basic concepts it acts as a guide for budgeting, emergency planning and handling any debt. “One can increase their knowledge by investing some time in reading personal finance articles and get in touch with IFAs and gather knowledge on the sources of investments”, remarks Madhusudan. The rise in the adoption of cloud-based security solutions, stringent government
regulations, and increased use of mobile devices propel the growth of the BSFI market. Many organizations in this sector have adopted cybersecurity solutions to protect important information about their clients and consumer. Providing digital security to the clients, Madhusudan concludes, “With the BSFI being an industry that is highly regulated, it is mandatory to have cybersecurity checks and controls in place as cybersecurity standards keep evolving based on business needs and regulatory mandates”.
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
57
EXPERT’S
OPINION
Steps Companies can take to keep their Employee’s Mental Health in place Swati Sawhney, Founder, Center of Healing Swati Sawhney, a social worker and currently the head of a startup Center of Healing started her journey to enlighten lives a decade ago. Belonging to a business class family and seeking education from Delhi University, she always had an urge to enhance other people’s lives in every manner she could. As a social worker, she actively worked with various NGOs, took free parenting classes in schools, took seminars on girl’s education in Delhi Council for Child Welfare, and also took classes on good touch and bad touch in schools like Adarsh Play School and many such social events. After being a social activist, she was still looking for a platform that could help people fight their problems, so she established the Center of Healing which helped people enhance their inner soul and body and recognize their strengths which could apprise and brighten their future. She also runs her NGO named The Center of Healing which works in the upliftment of underprivileged women and kids. The basic motive of Swati Sawhney to establish this NGO was to provide life skills to poor women so that they could become financially independent and attain a respected position in society. This NGO also works in the field of improving the al health of people. Swati Sawhney has recently won The Game Changers Business Awards, 2019 as she has changed the game in the field of mental health and made people live a mentally healthy life.
First Magazine 58 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
T
A message, an e-mail or a quick phone call would make the employees feel more connected. Managers must daily check in with their team about things other than work
he Coronavirus poses new challenges that are different for everyone. With this virus we enter the unexplored territory, making it necessary to find new ways of functioning and communicating, while still taking care of our mental health and well-being. The global pandemic has not only impacted the physical health of many individuals but it has taken a toll on their mental health as well. For the first time, many are teleworking for full time, detached from colleagues, friends, and relatives. Our everyday life routines are disrupted that is causing major anxiety, stress, and strain – physically, mentally, and financially. This disruption and ambiguity are normal to lead to anxiety and stress. Now more than ever we all need to look after our mental health and wellbeing. As we protect ourselves from potential coronavirus exposure, we also need to keep in mind that social distancing doesn’t mean social isolation. The importance of mental health is appreciated more than ever today. Mental health affects every aspect of our lives, including our working lives. It makes sense for employers to think about their mental wellbeing and to take appropriate steps to help them to make sure that their mental health is doing fine. Good mental health also positively impacts the physical health of a person. Happy and healthy employees are the backbone of a great organization. Biological and environmental factors affect the mental health of a person. An employer has no control over the biological factors but he or she can influence the work environment. Employers should ensure that they take good care of their employees during COVID, but also otherwise. Employers should make sure that their employees are fit and happy, at home, and work. There are a lot of things an employer can do both at a big and small level to positively impact an employee’s mental health. Here are some of the ways an employer can help: • Stay in touch: Some colleagues may be feeling isolated and anxious during this period because of social distancing. Employers
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
59
should check-in and ensure the employees that there is help available. A message, an e-mail or a quick phone call would make the employees feel more connected. Extra steps should be taken by the managers during this time to check in with their team daily about things other than work. Hosting video calls regularly would be a good idea to stay more connected. • Create a comfortable physical environment: A comfortable physical environment helps create a more optimistic atmosphere which in effect leads to better motivation and a greater desire to deliver good results. High levels of natural light at the workplace gives you good exposure to vitamin D that helps to boost the mood. A clean, clutterfree environment helps remove distractions and improve levels of concentration. • Taking Breaks: Employers should make sure that their employees are taking breaks in between. Taking breaks improves the decision-making ability of the employees. Taking breaks also helps to restore their motivation, increases productivity as well as efficiency. Working for long hours can lead to stress and exhaustion. Taking breaks in between long working hours helps to refresh and replenish the mental resources. • Keeping plants at the workplace: Plants help reduce stress. The presence of plants mitigates stress-related conditions such as anxiety, fatigue, and depression. This could be because of the possibility that plants make the workplace appear more calm and serene. Plants also help to increase the productivity of the employees. • Avoid employee burnout: A high level of productivity is a positive objective which most workplaces are striving to achieve. But it can be a big mistake to obsess about profitability to the degree that you ignore the mental health of your employees. The impact of employee burnout reaches to other employees as well. You extract the highest-quality, most consistent work from people who are in a good place in terms of physical and mental health, and who feel that their needs are being met. • Recognizing employees’ hard work: Appreciation is a basic human necessity. Employees respond to appreciation expressed by acknowledging their good work because it validates that others value their work. When employees and their work are valued, it boosts
First Magazine 60 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
their productivity and gives them satisfaction and they are motivated to maintain or improve their good work. • Ensure Healthy work-life balance: Worklife balance is a state of equilibrium in which the demands of one’s career and the demands of one’s personal life are equally prioritized. A good work-life balance has numerous positive effects. Employers who are committed to ensuring worklife balance environments for their employees can save on expenses, experience fewer cases of absenteeism, and enjoy a fairer and more efficient workforce. • Employee Assistance Program (EAP): It is necessary to provide an EAP benefit that gives workers free access to a variety of therapy sessions. But, many corporations don’t spend enough time reminding employees to have access to these services. Whether an employee is going through something as serious as a marital problem or something less serious as insomnia, EAPs can help employees address the issues that distract their performance. But they need reassurance that it’s completely confidential and free of charge. • Grant Employees Autonomy: Independence should be given to employees in whenever and however they feel like working within the bounds. It encourages the employees to share their valuable feedback and opinions. To have a positive atmosphere that the employers should not interfere in the small matters of the employees. • Be more vocal about mental health: Mental health does not have to be an uncomfortable and awkward topic to talk about in the office. It deserves the same amount of importance as any other health-related issue. All mental health problems should get addressed regardless of the cause. There should be an environment in the office where the employees feel comfortable enough in asking for health and support. • Celebrate: Last but not least it is important to celebrate. Even if it is the small wins, it should be celebrated. Employees get to know that they are progressing at work in some way, even the slightest bit and they will in turn feel more motivated to work harder. Also, birthdays and anniversaries hold a very important place in a person’s life so it should not go unnoticed and should be celebrated.
NOVAK DJOKOVIC #CROCODILEINSIDE
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
61
Mani Mulki
Chief Information Officer, Tata Capital Ltd.
The Tech Savvy Genius Spearheading Digital Change
B
y now, we have seen several instances that prove how Artificial Intelligence can ease our daily tasks. From “Alexa, what’s the news?” to “Alexa, beatbox for me”, AI has revolutionized how we interact with technology. As integrating AI into our everyday life is scaling unimaginable heights, the pressure to assimilate next-generation tech is only mounting, and the BFSI segment is no different. However, owing to the industry’s delicate and sensitive nature, technology is heavily praised yet seldom adopted. While everyone waits for someone else to take the first step, Tata Capital Limited has no qualms in embracing technology. For instance, Tata Capital introduced TIA, an exclusive mobile app-based voice bot for disbursing personal loans. Using speech recognition technology, natural language understanding and text-to-speech technology, TIA is equipped with intelligent features and
First Magazine 62 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
Hyper personalization at the lowest cost possible is the need of the hour and it can only be achieved with the existence of a strong and robust technology platform
options, which can answer customer queries, assist in simplifying the loan process, help customers choose the right offering, and help the customer avail a loan sanction within the Tata Capital app. Then earlier this year, TIA partnered with WhatsApp, Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant, further proving its vast technological gumption. Leading Tata Capital Ltd from the forefront with dexterity is Mani Mulki, Chief Information Officer. “Technology is a crucial component in reimagining customer journeys, simplifying processes, and creating new platforms and channels for customers to engage. Over the last couple of years, we have launched a plethora of apps and digitised many service components to ensure that the experience of the customer is seamless and frictionless. The results have been incredible! We have always kept the ‘Customer’ at the centre of our every strategy and plan of action. We have also been nothing less than aggressive and widespread in the adoption of technology.”
Mani agrees that these are certainly difficult and challenging times with the most unsettling aspect being the swiftness and pace of how things changed. Social distancing and the whole lockdown, in general, has forced most organisations to seriously re-look at governance and business continuity and focus much more sharply on technology and digital. “I strongly believe that there is no better time than now to remodel business structures and processes. From a financial industry perspective, while there has certainly been a dent in the business volumes, we have seen a sharp uptick in the revenues accruing from the digital channels. The industry is responding quickly and looking to automate even those segments of processes which required a physical presence of the sales office and make it contactless and digital,” he says. While everyone does seem like jumping on the ‘Digital Transformation’ bandwagon, Mani also stresses on the threat that it encapsulates. “It is fantastic to see financial services players embracing
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
63
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION • Hall of Fame Award - CTO Forum (2009) • Part of Innovation Council in ICICI Bank • Financial services Icon – CIO Choice 2020
technologies such as AI, chatbots, real-time data analytics, and biometrics for customer identification and service management. At the same time, we must also be vigilant as cybercriminals are always on the lookout to exploit and manipulate security weaknesses. Traditional security and protection mechanisms may not be sufficient to deal with AI and advanced technology-enabled attacks. It is therefore imperative to have a robust cybersecurity risk management at the heart of any digital agenda of any financial institution,” he comments. Having joined Tata Capital in 2018, Mani remarks that Technology is a very critical function in any financial services organisations and its strategic objectives like increase in revenue or reducing cost to income ratio or increase in ROE can only be achieved with the existence of robust and agile technology and digital framework. The advent of technologies like Blockchain, Robotics, AI, Open banking etc. has, no doubt, the potential to dramatically disrupt the financial industry. “Hyper personalization at the lowest cost possible is the need of the hour and it can only be achieved with the existence of a strong and robust technology platform. I believe that blockchain will help in the elimination of intermediaries and in making the process much more frictionless. While Robotics can drive costs up, it can also automate routine repetitive operational processes and significantly improve turn-around-time. Meanwhile, Bots driven by AI can make smart agile decisions and offer many superior conversational interfaces to customers and Open Banking will make the flow of data between banks much more reliable and in realtime, again to the benefit of customers.” He further adds that while strategic objectives in a financial institution cannot be achieved without a strong and robust digital and technology framework, it is not the technology itself but how we leverage it that differentiates an organization. At Tata Capital, Mani has ensured a digital strategy that focuses on whether the customer is being served directly or
First Magazine 64 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
through a Field Force, Distributors or Distributor-Managed Agents. “Over the past two years, digital engagement with the customer base has increased significantly. We have also migrated a lot of branch walk-ins and voice calls to self-service on the portal itself. These service requests are addressed digitally ex. SOA / Amortization of schedule / updating contact information etc. We have also kept ourselves abreast with the customer’s current preference of channels and experience; for instance, Instant servicing through WhatsApp (statements, overdue payment, loan application). This was very well received by the customers and we had over 1 lakh SR’s within four months of its launch. We are also undertaking service fulfilment through Amazon Alexa and Google Assist to get SOA / Certificates. This was an India-first for an NBFC (Non-Banking Financial Company). Plus, Tata Capital’s TIA, which is a voicebot/ chatbot services customers and is currently available across various platforms,” adds Mani. Mani continues to add that analytics is at the core of the business strategy at Tata Capital. Every operating decision that is taken is backed by a robust Data Engine. Recently, the Tata Capital team went live with a massive Data Lake, which is a repository of customer data across various applications. This repository helped the team achieve a comprehensive view of customers across LOBs. Tata Capital also leverages analytics for credit decisions, testing risk-based models for pricing; pre-approved loan offers; customer propensity models; customer acquisition; and driving efficiency in the collection process. “I firmly hold that the future of banking is only digital and hyper-personalisation. Customers will want and choose ‘banking services’ not ‘banks’. Speed, convenience and agility will be pillars of digital banking from a customer perspective. The sooner financial service institutions realize this and work towards it, the Indian BFSI domain can set headlines!” he concludes.
Want to Sell or find Investor for your Business?
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
65
IN MY
VIEW
Is COVID19 a Good Opportunity for the Sales Industry? Chitranjan Kesari, CIO/CTO/CDO & CEO, Tech 4 Logic Pvt. Ltd.
Alumni of BIT Mesra (Ranchi), and SOM (IITMumbai), Chitranjan is also a Harvard Manage Mentor from Harvard Business Publishing with over 21 years of rich experience in Information Technology. Versatile in grasping the bigger picture and well experienced in partnering with CXO’s on Business Analysis and IT Strategy and play an active role in organizations. Chitranjan belongs to a highly educated family of teachers, that values education and integrity. During his 21 years of career, Chitranjan understood the importance of learning and core values in leadership roles. An abide writer, marathon runner, and winner of several awards on strategy and innovation, Chitranjan is also a deep follower of Seva, Sadhana, and Satsang.
First Magazine 66 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
E
Sales organizations that are embracing the idea that “how you sell” is as important as “what you sell” are beginning to dominate their competition
ither way, the current situation with COVID-19 is serious, and we all need to take it that way. Sure, relaxing and distracting yourself with a little bingewatching isn’t a bad idea, especially if what is going on is making you anxious or stressed. But you can also spend this extra time at home focusing on more productive things, like Yoga, Exercise, Gardening, Book reading, cooking, etc. In the age of Covid-19 and social distancing, many of us are renegotiating our daily interactions with other people. In a professional context, that might mean foregoing a handshake and accepted Indian Pranam, make a distance of 1 meter. How do you navigate this potentially awkward situation? First, accept that it’s going to be uncomfortable. You may worry that you are making a bad impression or sending an unfriendly message. Decide ahead of time what you are comfortable doing, so you don’t end up following the other person’s lead. You might try giving a quick wave before returning your hand to your pocket or simply putting your hand on your chest, and then saying something like. During our recent involvement with the sales team during this lockdown, what we feel that the salespeople are now thinking like scientists, a lot has changed, when I involved myself from 2013 in sales CRM software implementation. Feels sales peoples think like a scientist. Sales peoples are no more sales peoples, they talk about technology, sell technology, and dreaming technology. During our recent interaction with SAP and HCI (Hyper-Converged Infrastructure) team, both of the salespersons are quite conversant in technology and they are using also. They are even able to show some demo on their respective technology online. Now with the technology to back them up, the best salespeople are putting data first, details of clients, their requirement, technology availability, etc. In our business of technology, our sales team is also talking about technology. when they are selling our business, cloud, backup, etc. Even they are talking like a “data scientist”. Totally a data-driven approach. When I joined this company, our sales team is working on some data points manually. After the implementation of some CRM tool and BI tool they are ready with their data requirement automatic and we appreciate that our sales team is doing their work on data points only. The MD of my previous company believed only on data and they created a team for data analysis, data strategy team, and believed in data points. The importance of data has never been so clear. The digital age has given birth to
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
67
both opportunities and challenges, and if you are in sales, you are probably in the midst of this transformation. The internet has transformed the world into an interconnected entity, with trade largely defying borders and politics. Somebody sitting in Delhi/London calling thru zoom, Microsoft Team for some projects, webinars, etc.
With timely access to the right kind of metrics, businesses can shape their strategies based on a careful analysis of market trends
First Magazine 68 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
Major Benefits if you know sales technology The gap between early adopters of sales technology and those that still haven’t fully dove in is widening fast. I am already starting to see organizations get left behind. Sales organizations that are embracing the idea that “how you sell” is as important as “what you sell” are beginning to dominate their competition. For example, a few organizations I spoke with are still finding contact information manually, some companies have all data online and they are using their digital platform. If contact not available online, they are tracking their social media, etc. They are using a mixture of sales engagement platforms and lines of code that crawl the web and embedded screenshots into a sequence of fully automated email campaigns. Sellers are only notified when a prospect shows some intent to purchase, called full automation of leads. Yet data still matters, particularly in Sales and Marketing. These functions are at the core of every business. The typical business concern is geared towards reaching out to new customers, generating leads, and converting them. Big data serve as the starting point in this regard. With timely access to the right kind of metrics, businesses can shape their strategies based on a careful analysis of market trends. Digital sales channels have been gaining in prominence over the past
few years. Such data allow businesses to make far-reaching strategic choices. In the example above, it is obvious that with the world moving towards the overwhelming adoption of online shopping, the internet is where all brands wishing to make it in today’s cut-throat market need to be. In the current work from home scenario, we are doing sales campaigns digitally either through WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Facebook and as usual email campaign, and in our business, we get some business out of these campaigns. Ongoing market research in your product or service category helps to identify threats as well as opportunities to tap. During this lockdown as almost 60 days is over, here is no doubt that the sales technology landscape is crowded. Large organizations might work with 3 to 4 different sales technology vendors all serving different functions of their sales process. For years, it has been difficult to bring data from all these systems together and make sense of it all. Despite feeling like I was walking through the future of sales, those who were quick to begin using new AI, ML, robotics and BOT, intent data, clever integrations, and focusing on the selling process to maximize efficiency are already on to the next best action. Overall, we can say that during this lockdown, major breakthrough for sale peoples are technology and cloud is one of the best to adopt and bring new things to work from home environment. Also, call your family, grandparents, friends. Or your mom and dad, or anyone you know who is especially at risk of complications from this coronavirus. Check-in on elderly neighbors, while keeping your distance. If they need supplies and feel unsafe going to the store, offer to go for them. Help in these days and where you can, and disinfect everything.
MAKING VR & AR A REALITY IN YOUR CLASSROOM EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO IMPLEMENT AR & VR IN YOUR CLASSROOM
Classroom Headset Management
Standalone VR Headsets
Secure Storage & Charging
Curriculum Aligned Content
Installation & Training
CONTACT US TODAY FOR A FREE DEMO: SALES@CLASSVR.COM
THE MOST AWARDED VR SYSTEM FOR SCHOOLS
8
www.classvr.com
@ClassVR
@ClassVR Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
69
Rajendra Bisht
Vice President-Technology and Digital, Bajaj Finance Ltd.-Auto Finance
Bolstering the Indian BSFI Sector through Technology
A
lbeit being a heavily regulated industry with several technologies in payment, credit scoring, and emerging fintech enablers, the Indian Finance Industry still has its own set of risks. While payment technology has matured, other areas like Open API Network, and Alternative Credit Scoring Tech, are still in the neo-natal or experimental stage. Technologies are industry agnostics and one needs to find their applicability to their industry, through businesses/use cases. With technologies like RPA, Hyper Automation, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning being applicable across industries, payment technologies have aided centralized digital collections along with evaluating hyperlocal ecosystem partners for physical collections to contain the cost. “With online, offline, and online influenced offline revenue streams, where online has been the one with the best ROI, we
First Magazine 70 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
With the decreasing cost of smartphones and network services resulting in the commoditization of the mobile market, ‘Digital’ is not just a prerogative of certain classes anymore
envision to acquire most the of the customers online and fuel our digital revenue growth by evaluating reg techs and KYC services”, says Rajendra Bisht, Vice President – Technology and Digital, Bajaj Finance Ltd. - Auto Finance (BFL-AF). At BFL-AF, customers’ success is considered as their own. Molding their products, credit policies, repayment methods according to their customer’s needs, BFL-AF offers attractive schemes for their 2-wheeler customers along with creating a livelihood at the bottom of the pyramid. Taking 3 wheelers as an SME business and supporting them with the same interest as a 2-wheeler business, Rajendra states, “Our 3-wheeler customers are mostly from lower strata of the society & running a 3-wheeler is an integral part of their life since it supports in earning their daily bread & butter. During the COVID19 lockdown period, the livelihood of our customers was badly impacted, pushing us to launch many innovative schemes to continue supporting their livelihood like the Rahat Scheme, rescheduling of loans, giving moratorium
to customers, PFC option, and increasing the LTV in the cargo section, to make this segment more affordable for our customers”. With the latest technologies, BLF-AF ensures that its customers receive their services at their doorstep, helping them to get back up on their feet as soon as possible. They have also created a large network of payment points and partnered with mobile wallets and banks, to help their customers pay as they earn; although the finance option is under the EMI model, the customers are given the option of paying them as they earn. A journey that happened by chance, Rajendra fell in love with the financial industry post his education in the 1990s, when he started his career. He says, “The financial sector provides wings to the dreams of a common man, businessman, industrialist alike. We touch the lives of everyone from a commoner to a VIP. So, in a sense, we help people to uplift their lives and fulfill their dreams, indirectly helping society as a whole”. Having recently joined the Bajaj Family, Rajendra had always wanted to
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
71
be associated with the name, since like most other Indians, his father’s first 2-wheeler was also from the house of Bajaj, which he cherishes riding till today. So, when he came across the opportunity, Rajendra took it and has been enjoying the satisfying and rewarding journey so far. Coping with COVID-19 With the lockdown steeply impacting most of the organization’s KPIs on sourcing and collection, the financial services industry was impacted greatly by the current pandemic. Rajendra had read the early signs of the lockdown from the market and was prepared for it. He comments, “Work from home was never a strategy for us but even before lockdown we had embarked on a mobile-first journey (BYOD) allowing most of our employees on the field to work from their handheld devices and for the remaining majority the necessary infrastructure was already in place”. Assessing the impact and figuring the demands of the employees, adequate technology was enabled to ensure continuity of work. The entire organization of Bajaj Finance is operating and communicating on Microsoft platforms, along with using online collaboration tools across their network. Once the lockdown was official, cost-cutting measures kicked in, where the marketing budgets, special projects budgets, expansion budgets were either cut or temporarily put on hold. Organisation-wise restructuring and the reskilling drive began, with a major focus on collections and restructuring, that required thorough planning for these initiatives across business functions. Once the ‘Unlock’ was announced, the bike segment in the market spiked, courtesy to the phobia of using public transport. “In terms of mobility and value, motorcycles provide the most bang for the buck, which we are hoping to benefit from due to its increased demand because of COVID19”, adds Rajendra. Embracing Digital Disruption Digital is imperative now and the term digital transformation has become outdated. With the decreasing cost of smartphones and network services resulting in the commoditization of the mobile market, it is not just a prerogative of certain classes anymore. With the rural folks’ internet consuming habits becoming as similar as the urban folks, the digital cohort groups are on a rise and there will come a time when future generations would be highly techsavvy and tech-dependent.
First Magazine 72 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
A digital branch can replace hundreds of physical branches improving the RoI. With a vision of offering a seamless self-service real-time digital onboarding platform and making lending safer, BFL-AF has classified its digital initiatives under 3 categories – creating new technology-enabled business models/ digital business models, customer experience management, and operational excellence. Embarking a journey on completely transforming their lending processes, BFL-AF is in talks to pilot AI/ML-powered SaaS-based models with high availability, scalable and seamless experience on different platforms to their end-users including their channel partners, which is currently under the development stage. A relatively clean sector internally, the environmental burden of energy, water, and paper used in the financial institutions is less when compared to many other industries. However, the size of this sector overall is large enough to make the environmental impact significant. Also, Financial institutions are aware that their client’s mismanagement of environmental risks may affect their own business. Financial institutions have been taking into account social and environmental impacts on overall sustainability. It is an ongoing process and with lastmile transactions moving away from plastic cards to payment wallets, focus on paperless operations (unless restricted by regulatory or legal reasons), and initiatives as eMandate, e-stamping, e-agreement, Video KYC to list a few and initiatives that reduce employee travel, both financial institutions and the environment get benefited. Since the financial sector deals with financial information of customers and corporate, it becomes a leading target for cyber-attacks. With the banks and financial institutes being the place where the money is, attacking banks offers multiple avenues for profit to cybercriminals through extortion, theft, and fraud, while nation-states and hacktivists also target the financial sector for political and ideological leverage. From the corporate and customer interest point of view, it is imperative to have a solid cybersecurity strategy implemented, sustained, and continually improved. Cyber threats are ever-changing and emerging every day, hence a continual plan to identify, assess, treat, and periodically monitor cyber risks is needed to reduce an organization’s risk exposure to such threats. “Despite industry sector, size and geography of business, every organization is recommended to have a Cyber Security strategy, backed by the governance of senior executives of an organization. Key areas
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
• Innovative CIO Awards 2020 by CIOAxis • Best Technology Implementation of the year 2020 award by UBSForums • BFSI Digital Innovation Award 2020 in Enterprise Security by Express Computers • IDC Insights Award for Operational Excellence • Conferred with ‘Business Transformation Award 2020’
to look for, but not limited to, are Infrastructure, Application, Network, Cloud, IoT, etc. A continual assessment approach will assist in knowing and addressing Cyber Risks across these areas. Governance plays a key role, needless to mention”, opines Rajendra. Widening their Horizons Helping the customers identify early warning signs, financial literacy has also helped the lenders aid them in deriving a solution to come out of the crisis. Given the diverse demographics of the customers, while the sales agents are there on the field to guide the customers, the multi-lingual call centers that guide the customers throughout the process of inquiry, on-boarding, and service, etc. Rajendra adds, “Our digital channels, i.e., websites, mobile site, and mobile app, also has sufficient information available about our financial services and offerings. Many organizations have also implemented conversational bots on their platforms that can help in educating the customers in their language”. He continues to state that the global markets are highly uneven and financial institutions, at large, have been shutting down branches in significant numbers, and this is true for other industries as
well; for example, the phrase ‘the retail apocalypse’ or ‘death of retail’ has been in use for a long time. The cost of managing a physical branch is way higher than the cost of managing a digital branch and hence digital-only financial institutions would always get an edge. Unlike the 1980s, branches today are primarily used more for customer acquisition in upper-tier cities and their dependency on transactions and service management has significantly reduced. Processing digital order fulfillment that is different from branch-based fulfillment and new processes that support the digital products and services, there would be an increased focus on automation through STPs, RPA, rule engines, and then complex decision making through Machine learning. These new fulfillment chains will also require new building blocks such as eKYC, eAgreement, eMandate, etc as already highlighted which is an area that can use some regulatory relaxation post through risk evaluation. “Payment banking has and will continue undergoing a huge transformation under planned initiatives by NPCI. Next, as per the analyst community, data is the new oil. Financial institutions would be fighting data wars”, concludes Rajendra.
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
73
LEADER’S INSIGHTS
UX Psychology Principles Amolendu H., Design Specialist, Mumbai, India
Amolendu is an experienced design specialist with 18+ years of experience, he spent most of those years exclusively as a User Experience Designer (UX Designer) with major IT agencies and E-Commerce portals. He has worked on a variety of projects including financial and forex web and mobile apps, e-commerce, brand and marketing sites, financial dashboards; user-generated content, social networking, and on-demand mobile applications for various clients. Pepperfry.Com, Porsche, Walmart are some of the clients he has worked with. Hailing from Mumbai, India, he is helping SaaS and tech start-ups with user and customer experience design via his company ONYX. In his free time, Amolendu loves to work as a short and ad filmmaker and he has won several awards for his film works and his short films have been selected in multiple prestigious film festivals around the globe.
First Magazine 74 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
D
esign emote in their ways, communicate and call for a reaction from the consumers. This could be a closed sale or a consumer shifting to a competitor site. User Experience is defined around various design experiences. The design platform is vast, considering creating experiences that can run beyond the scope of application. To make design a standard, relatable and definite experience, certain psychology principles are derived that designers should abide by. In the light of these design psychology principles, designs can be decoded to create experiences that can be applied and interpreted as norms. Creating in the framework of design psychology helps to connect to clients as well as consumers equally and they understand the relevance of design output. There are numerous design principles, but the more ubiquitous are listed here. Hick’s Law The more the merrier does not apply under Hick’s law. Hick’s law is about taking a conservative and decluttered approach to make design simple and hence actionable. According to the law, the more the options you present to your consumers, the more time they take to decide. Sites with minimalist designs appear promising, but how about their usability? What about sites that are heavy on content, how are those aligned and captured under Hick’s law? It is the designer’s skill to chunk and navigates the options under a smart infrastructure architecture, yet make the design appear simple and purposeful.
Sites with minimalist designs appear promising, but how about their usability?
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
75
Psychology of Persuasion Psychology of Persuasion very strongly and aptly captures the consumer responses bringing them to a call for action. The triggers introduced by persuasion are intriguingly response-oriented and therefore adapted by many designers. Reciprocity: Reciprocity is creating indebtedness such that the consumer is obliged and comes back to shop. E.g. – Offers and free vouchers. Authority: Authority is making use of authoritative figures or celebrity endorsements to capture consumer interest. Scarcity: Creating a deprived environment, which in turn triggers consumers to act fast. Timed sales, limited offers, stock clearances all work around the scarcity law. Psychology of Colours What are you looking forth to drive? What is your purpose behind the design? Who is your target audience and what are their buying behavioural patterns? As a brand what do you wish to communicate to your audience? Colours come to influence the design and inspire a call to action. The deep and interesting psychology of colours can be adapted to convey brand value or to trigger sales.
Psychology of Shapes Like Colours, our subconscious mind also reacts to different shapes by relating different qualities to different shapes. These are usually memory-based visual interpretations that we associate with certain qualities and have deep-set in our mind.
Designers make use of colour and shape to create visually compelling designs that engage and impact. Gestalt Principles of Visual Perception The Gestalt principle of perception states that elements placed together are perceived as one. The Gestalt Principle is narrowly classified under different principles:
GESTALT Principles
Colours and their psychological perception in design. Corporates bank on the blue colour symbolising professionalism and trust. Luxury and high-end products make the use of purple, while bold brands make their statement with Black. Colours are also intelligently placed to create a call for action. Different colours have different impacts on the individual mind and help trigger or curtail actions.
First Magazine 76 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
Law of Symmetry: This design aspect uses symmetry in design to capture user experience. Law of Proximity: Elements, when placed in closed proximity, gives the appearance of a design that is bold and captivating. Law of Similarity: Similar objects when placed in closed proximity offer a united feel and this enhances the design in a certain dimension. Law of Continuity: This law establishes a connection from one object in a design to another under a smooth and unaltered flow. Often represented by curved lines. Law of Closure: Law of the closure means an incomplete object that is designed to perceive as complete. Figure & Ground: This is a captivating representation of design where one image can be perceived in different forms.
This highly creative logo by www.logoworks.com is made as per the Figure & Ground law, where the butterfly wings also come to represent two human side faces. Visceral Reactions: Why do you keep coming back to a shopping website often? Is it the product range or the product display, the ease of access, the convenience of controls? These all factors add to comforting results and hence you would want to get back to these sites often as compared to others. This is the visceral reaction of the website on you. Visceral reactions are a stimulus to designs and keep consumers coming back to your designs. Visceral reactions are highly creative and impactful designs that are explicitly built across user experiences. The elaborate elements like imagery, fonts, colours and graphic are used to enhance the design. Von Restorff Effect The selective distinction is the way the Von Restorff Effect works breaking the monotony. It is also known as Isolation effect. The design stands by making a visual distinction of an object such that it stands stark in contrast to the others making a memorable experience. This effect is created by working artistically around highlighting, altering colours, size, font or effect of the object that has to be distinguished to a call-to-action.
Von Restorff effect is usually seen in the call to action buttons that sit stark contrasting to the other elements in the design. In the above image subtly, the Von Restorff effect is the Free tab as opposed to the other two paid ones. There are innumerable principles of design psychology including – Dual Coding Theory, Pareto Principle, Fitt’s Law, Mental Models, Memory Models, Memory Limitations, Selective Disregards and Change Blindness, Cognitive Load, Serial Position Effect etc. It is, after all, a choice of the designer to adapt to a principle that is befitting the consumer and stakeholder demands as well as can trigger a suitable call-for-action. While psychology principles of design help maintain a standard across the industry, it is also easy to make understand the stakeholders of the design element and expected results. These design principles are based around consumer decisions and design expectations and therefore drive towards effectively meeting the goals.
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
77
First Magazine 78 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
79
EXPERT’S
OPINION
How can businesses deal with the COVID-induced Liquidity Crisis? Rachit Chawla, CEO, Finway Besides being a SEBI registered investment advisor, Rachit Chawla is also a certified Investment Advisor from the National Institute of Securities Markets and also a holder of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) license. At Finway, Rachit’s responsibilities revolve around to envision organizational goals and create plans and strategies that help to achieve these goals. He is the inspirational force to all team members for achieving individual and group targets. He wants to establish Finway a system-driven organization rather than only person-driven by the optimum deployment of the latest technologies. In addition, Rachit has made commendable efforts in harvesting a congenial atmosphere which helps in the evolving right work culture in the organization. He plays the role of MENTOR for the organization so that overall growth could be achieved. Also, Rachit is the Co-Founder, Start-up Mentor, and Director – Finance & Technology at Risers Accelerator to nurture and empower aspiring entrepreneurs to run their business successfully. Being a finance trainer and stock advisor, he aims to provide them with mentoring and complete assistance to scale their businesses to the next level, ultimately contributing to India’s GDP.
First Magazine 80 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
I
n the world of boxing, they say the punch that knocks you out isn’t the hardest one; it’s the one that you don’t see coming. The situation that we’re faced with today is somewhat similar. The reason why Covid-19 has been so disastrous is that no one saw it coming. But let’s not forget that every crisis is an opportunity in disguise. It exposes the flaws in our systems and gives us a chance to fix them and make ourselves stronger and better. While rampaging all around the world, it has caused major upheavals in almost all the industries. While some have been hit worse than the others, no industry has been left untouched. Those organizations that have survived the lockdown are now faced with a new crisis – maintaining liquidity at a time of plummeting demand and profits. While some organizations have foreseen the oncoming crisis and have set the parts in motion to mitigate it, some common missteps are being observed. The company executives need to come up with a proper strategy, keeping in mind how unpredictable the future has become. Let us take a look at five steps that the organizations can take to avert a liquidity crisis.
Prepare two action plans; one for the bestcase scenario and the other for the worst-case scenario
Step 1: You need to establish a central cash war room If you have an existing war room, this can be an extension of it; if not, then you need to create a new one for handling all cash related issues. Having a war room can help maintain liquidity because it allows you to make decisions in real-time and focus on the most urgent liquidity needs and the actions you can take to preserve liquidity. Step 2: Conduct a thorough analysis of your current cash flow position. You need to create at least a 13-week cash-flow forecast. This will help you understand your current cash flow position much better. Having a forecast also allows you to closely monitor the cash inflows and outflows. For more accuracy, you should update the forecast weekly and compare the forecasted data with real-time data to ensure that your predictions are on point. Step 3: Don’t just think – act! Once you have an idea of what your current cash flow position is and what it could look like in the near future, you need to take some decisive actions accordingly. If you notice that a crisis is just around the corner, you need to immediately implement mandates to reduce your expenditure. While doing all this, you must keep in mind that speed is of the essence. There wouldn’t be much time between spotting a crisis and finding it at your doorstep. Even if the measures seem extreme, you must remember that they’re only temporary. For instance, you could freeze hiring until the crisis resolves to save your precious resources. You can also cut down on your marketing budget or at least send it to executives for approval. When you’re faced with a crisis of this magnitude, you must put growth on the back burner and focus on survival. Once you’ve successfully negotiated your way through dangerous waters, you can start focusing on growth and development again.
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
81
The punch that knocks you out isn’t the hardest one; it’s the one that you don’t see coming. Covid-19 knocked us off because no one saw it coming
Step 4: Control as much cash outflow as you can. If you want to prevent your organization from falling victim to a liquidity crunch, you need to start putting your expenditures – no matter how small – under the microscope. Conduct spending review sessions daily to examine all the pending requests and only approve those that are necessary. • Deny all the expenditures you can without damaging the operational capacity of the organization. • Delay whatever can be delayed. • Make investment decisions very wisely. Remember that this isn’t about growth and expansion. It’s about survival. So approach all your expenses with a survivor’s mindset. Step 5: Chart out action plans based on the best and worst-case scenarios. These are confusing times, and without a roadmap to guide you, you can easily get lost. So prepare two action plans – one for the best-case scenario and the other for the worst-case scenario. A worst-case scenario would mean that everything that could go wrong would go wrong. But in the current situation, even the best-case scenario would involve missing some targets. This type of modeling would help the executives get a clearer picture of the threats the company might be facing and they can then stress test the P&L and develop contingency plans. • Assess the headcount and extra expenditures to identify opportunities for saving cash.
First Magazine 82 Digital Aug-Sept 2020
• Study all your ongoing projects and initiatives to decide which of them could be delayed or canceled. • Get in touch with finance experts to explore your options, and if possible, try to renegotiate the credit terms. Keep the channel of communication open With your organization undergoing such drastic changes, it is necessary to reassure and reaffirm the stakeholders that you will continue to provide your services, albeit at a reduced capacity. • Keep your suppliers updated about the changes you’re making in the processes for smoother functioning. • Keep your lending institutions updated about your current financial health so that they may know in advance if you might need any sort of concessions in the future. • Stay connected with other people/organizations that have been supporting your company through this difficult period. Keep one eye on the present and other on the future While your short term goals might have suffered a setback, you can still keep working towards your mid-term and long-term goals. It’s understandable that it’s difficult to think of growth and expansion amid a mega-crisis like this, but it is worthwhile to take the time out to think about the future of your company. The leaders and executives who are looking beyond this pandemic and are planning for the post-Covid scenario would have a competitive edge over those who are simply trying to stay afloat. Once you figure out how to keep the boat afloat, you need to start rowing.
Digital First Magazine Aug-Sept 2020
83
First Magazine 84 Digital Aug-Sept 2020