The banking sector has been at the forefront of cloud adoption due to advantages like scalability, lower capital costs, ease of operations and resilience. Cloud computing has undoubtedly added new dimensions to the way businesses go about their daily chores, says Diwakar Nigam, Managing Director, Newgen Software in conversation with Anupama Suresh Mehra of Elets News Network (ENN).
- Do you agree, that digital transformation is challenging the whole BFSI sector?
BFSI sector has always been an early adopter of technology however digital transformation presents an entirely different challenge. Changing customer expectations, diminishing boundaries of operations and ever-changing regulatory compliances are significant digital hurdles that financial institutions need to deal with today. To overcome these hurdles, organizations need to leverage an application platform with low-code capabilities that enables process automation and delivers contextual customer engagements. Organizations also need to move away from legacy systems and leverage technologies like AI/ML, RPA, blockchain, analytics, etc in order to build a competitively robust, digital business model.
2. How do you ensure to meet customer expectations with changing technology?
Customers today expect a positive experience and keeping customers first is part of our culture. We annually invest 7-8% of our revenue in R&D and are building a skilled R&D team of 370+ people with deep domain expertise. We keep releasing new features for our product stack. Our solutions, built on a low code application platform, are powered by new-age technologies to provide enterprises with the flexibility needed to adapt to change. The solutions have also evolved, keeping in focus the digital needs of customers.
3. What sectors are you catering your services to and which one is the most challenging?
We have a strong presence in the industry segments of Banking, Insurance, Government/PSU, Healthcare, and Shared Services/BPO. However, through our low-code application platform, we also cater to 12 other segments. The banking vertical currently contributes more than half of our revenue followed by healthcare and insurance verticals which contributed 18% collectively in H1 FY’20. While the pace of implementation in the Government/PSU sector is a bit slow, we see a huge potential for the adoption of innovative solutions and new technologies in that segment. Looking at the present market situation we are very excited about the prospects especially as there is a huge requirement of digital transformation in both government and private sectors.
4. How cloud computing is changing the banking sector and why it is important?
The banking sector has been at the forefront of cloud adoption due to advantages like scalability, lower capital costs, ease of operations and resilience. Cloud computing has undoubtedly added new dimensions to the way businesses go about their daily chores. Organizations need to harness the power of a low-code platform through a flexible and scalable and agile model. Cloud deployment has addressed these requirements by creating new avenues for cost-effective software delivery and development. Our cloud-ready products are available on private and public clouds and extend support for hybrid models. The Cloud/SaaS business continues to be Newgen’s fastest-growing revenue component at a 5 yr CAGR of 127%.
5. What innovations are you planning to implement by next year?
We are expanding our product portfolio and are developing new delivery models. We continue to focus on product innovation and have filed 44 patents across India and the US, out of which 13 have already been granted. We are also focused on developing agile; low-code, purpose-made solution accelerators for Banking, Insurance, Government/PSU, Healthcare, and Shared Services/BPO industries. Our innovation pipeline includes intelligent content services, low code application development platform, collaborative work management, digital Sensing, blockchain and RPA.
