Technology is a critical factor in improving the value provided to a customer, which is the raison d’etre for any business. Technology helps to provide product and solution choices, reduce processing time, ease of purchase and post-purchase interactions, says Gururaj Rao, CIO, Mahindra Finance, in conversation with Elets News Network (ENN).
- Technology is changing rapidly. How are you staying in sync with this change?
We have an IT strategy embedded into our overall organisational strategy and the same analyses our potential technology leverage and evaluates the resources available. We continuously scan the environment for upcoming technologies and assess their probable benefits and risks. We not only evaluate technologies for improving our current business performance, but also for transforming and /or disrupting our business models. Employee skill development, engagement, work environment are also goals for our technology deployments. We, therefore, constantly receive inputs from external sources, empower our technology members to experiment, encourage business functions to pose challenges for technology resolution etc.
- How do you assess the significance of technology projects and the value it brings to the customers?
Technology is a critical factor in improving the value provided to a customer, which is the raison d’etre for any business. It helps to provide product and solution choices, reduce processing time, ease of purchase and post-purchase interactions. Technologies enable businesses to provide superior customer service, channels of convenience, and the overall ability to enhance parameters of the customer relationship such as retention rate, satisfaction index, net promoter score etc. customer relationship such as retention rate, satisfaction index, net promoter score etc.
- What challenges did you come across in 2019 in terms of tech-deployments?
Prototyping, designing the user experience and user interface, testing the application on different devices, organizing and running field trials, figuring out how to deploy the application in legacy systems, how to integrate app with the existing platforms such as CRM, migrating the existing data, and how to effect data controls are critical and significant activities. Data may reside in disparate legacy repositories and may have compatibility issues with the new system. We also overcome integration challenges through APIs and micro services.
- Would you like to tell us about your vision 2020?
Our Vision 2020 is to focus on the launch of new business lines, multiple online platforms, enhanced customer relationships and advanced analytics. The organisation would have superior phygital capabilities through further leverage of the cloud, mobility, ESB and data lake platforms. There will be an emphasis on information security due to increasing technology risks.
- Which technologies, in your view, will drive NBFCs in 2020?
NBFCs would continue to leverage analytics engines and ESB-based integrations. Automation too would be a large activity. Cloud and mobility would continue to be enhanced.
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