CXO Outlook – March 2021 – India Edition – influential business leaders

INSIGHTS. IDEAS. INSPIRATIONS

Shilpa Bhandari, Senior Vice President & Global Head, Banking, Financial Services and Insurance, Birlasoft Vimal Venkatram, Country Manager -India, Snowflake Rajagopal G, Co-Founder & CEO, KITES Ashish Aggarwal, CEO & Founder, Indo Innovations

Akhilesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, DRU GOLD Aparna Gorrepati, Founder, ZUCI Chocolates Nehaa Juneja, Founder, SkinWorks Pooja Shukla, Co-Founder & COO, LearnKartS

SREEDHAR BEVARA CEO OF BMR INNOVATIONS AND AUTHOR OF MOMENT OF SIGNAL & THE ROARING LAMBS

CXO OUTLOOK March March 2021

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CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

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CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

March 2021

Vol - 2 Issue - 3

Most Influential Business Leaders Special (Indian Edition) Editor in Chief

Dr. Manoj Varghese

Managing Editor Sarath Shyam

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Ajay K Das Manjunath R Rohith Poojary

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Sales Enquiry: admin@cxooutlook.com CXO Outlook is a digital magazine published by Connecta Innovation Private Limited. All rights reserved. The opinions expressed in the content and pictures provided 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 and we do not assume any responsibility. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for the advertisements, its content, pictures, and all representation of warranties made in such advertisements are those of the advertisers and not of the publisher. CXO Outlook is a Free Subscription digital magazine strictly not for sale and has to be strictly for internal private use only. Publisher does not assume any responsibility arising out of anyone printing copy of this digital magazine in any format and in any country and all matters related to that.

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CXO OUTLOOK March May 2020 2021

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

The India Inc. and Its Great Leaders

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s there a set of predefined methods to create great leaders? No. Great leaders in the world do not have much in common. They are of different sexes, races, and ages. All of them follow unique methods of leadership and focus on various goals. However, regardless of their differences, great leaders share one thing in common; they break all the rules of conventional wisdom. However, there are some differences in how Indian leaders go about their business compared to Western leaders. Experts opine that Indian are often prepared for the unforeseen and ready to deal with ambiguities and navigate through changes. When something breaks down, our leaders are quick to get back up and running.

For instance, during the COVID-19 crisis, many Indian business leaders demonstrated high levels of emotional intelligence and expressed sincere empathy and compassion for their employees and customers alike. At the same time, they equally protected their companies’ financial performance amid high uncertainties. Despite facing a myriad of urgent matters, our business leaders were quick to identify priority

areas and focus their energy on the most pressing issues. They set the example by making greater use of digital technologies and staying regularly engaged with customers and employees.

In this issue, we have come up with 10 Most Influential Business Leaders – 2021, who have been instrumental in inspiring their organisations to get through the crisis, raising their brand to a better position, and preparing to respond effectively to future developments. On the cover, we feature Sreedhar Bevara, CEO of BMR Innovations and author of Moment of Signal & The Roaring Lambs.

Bevara’s journey is a quintessential rag to riches tale, and knowing it will help us identify and embrace the right signals to realise our full leadership potential.

Enjoy Reading.

Sarath Shyam

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

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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.

Dr. Varughese K.John, PhD, MBA, MPhil, MCom, LLB. Program Director, MS in Management Program, GSATM - AU

Mamta Thakur Former CEO (ASEAN), Arc Skills

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Mr. Amulya Sah, PGD PM & IR, PG Diploma in PM&IR (XISS Ranchi)

Chief Human Resources Officer, Former Head HR group Samsung R&D Institute India,Transformative HR Leader, Change agent, Digitization facilitator, Engagement architect, Trainer and Diversity champion.

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

Dr. Ajay Shukla, Ph.D, MBA, BE. Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Higher Education UAE

Mr. Sreedhar Bevara, MBA, B.Com Former Senior General Manager: Panasonic Middle East & Africa, Thought Leader, Speaker & Author of ‘Moment of Signal’ (Amazon’s International Bestseller)

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CXO OUTLOOK January March 2021

Contents

COVER STORY

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SREEDHAR BEVARA CEO OF BMR INNOVATIONS AND AUTHOR OF MOMENT OF SIGNAL & THE ROARING LAMBS

STARTUP SPOTLIGHT

28 Introducing Smart Parking Technology in India

Chirag Jain Co-Founder, Get My Parking

MOST INFLUENTIAL

BUSINESS LEADERS 2021

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With Empathy and Trust from Gold Assessment to Gold Encashment

Redefining the Confectionery & Bakery Landscape

Akhilesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, DRU GOLD

Aparna Gorrepati, Founder, ZUCI Chocolates

A Homemade Brand that Adds Care to Skin Care

Globalizing the Indian EdTech Industry

Nehaa Juneja, Founder, SkinWorks

Pooja Shukla, Co-Founder & COO, LearnKartS

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LEADER’S INSIGHTS

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Imperatives of Digital Adoption in the Construction and Real Estate Industries

How to Harness Artificial Intelligence to Drive Surge in Lending Growth

CIOs in India will Need to Spend More on Business continuity, Remote Working, and Workforce Collaboration

Sripad Nandiraj, Founder, Hocomoco

Shilpa Bhandari, Senior Vice President & Global Head, Banking, Financial Services and Insurance, Birlasoft

Vimal Venkatram, Country Manager -India, Snowflake

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How Fintech Acceleration can Help in an ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’

Eldercare Reforms, Still in the Backstage!

How Prepared are the Offices for Another Lockdown?

Rohit Garg, Co-Founder & CEO, Smartcoin Financials

Rajagopal G, Co-Founder & CEO, KITES

Ashish Aggarwal, CEO & Founder, Indo Innovations

Contents

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IN MY VIEW 48 Benefits of Automation in Digital Transformation

Geeman Yip, CEO, BitTitan

EXPERT OPINION

12 Opportunities for Indian Nutraceutical Industry in the Post-Pandemic World

Dr R. B. Smarta, Managing Director, Interlink Marketing Consultancy

88 In a Sharing Economy, How Can Investment and Lending Super-Charge the FinTech World

Zafar Imam, CEO, Finshell

IN MY VIEW

Opportunities for Indian Nutraceutical Industry in the PostPandemic World

Dr R. B. Smarta, Managing Director, Interlink Marketing Consultancy

Dr Smarta is the Founder and Managing Director

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of Interlink, a Business performance consulting firm operating in the Pharmaceuticals, Nutraceutical and Wellness domain for over 35 years. As one of the pioneers and thought leaders in the field of Pharma, Nutra and Wellness, he has designed management agendas for profitable growth, expansion, launched new concepts, ideas and projects, helping over 300 clients with effective and sustainable solutions to improve business performance. Dr Smarta’s forte lies in his deep understanding of the domain, ability Dr R. B. Smarta

to drive innovation and deliver customized solutions be they start-ups, national or multinational clients. In a conversation with CXO Outlook, Dr Smarta shares his views on India’s nutraceutical industry scenario, trends in the nutraceutical market, and much more.

As one of the pioneers and thought leaders in Pharma, Nutra and Wellness, what are your views on the nutraceutical industry scenario in India?

The Indian Nutraceutical Industry currently accounts for 2-3 per cent of the market globally and is expected to continue to grow to reach $10

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

The demand for nutraceuticals can be gauged from the fact that the market for Nutraceutical products globally today stands at $387 billion and has been registering a CAGR of 8 percent over the last five years

billion in the next two years. The dominant segment in the industry is dietary supplements that today accounts for $3.16 billion of sales, with functional foods and beverages accounting for $1.82 billion.

Rising health consciousness, the influence of Indian Traditional Medicine (Ayurveda), increasing incidences of lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and obesity, usage of vitamins and minerals to stay healthy and high demographic dividend are key growth drivers for the industry. The pandemic has given a further fillip to the industry, with the focus of consumers now shifting to the prevention of diseases and fitness, resulting in a surge in demand for immune boosters.

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How has the pandemic generated exceptional opportunities for the Indian Nutraceutical Industry?

As mentioned earlier, the pandemic has resulted in a mindset shift amongst consumers, with the focus now on healthy living, preventive healthcare and fitness. This has resulted in a manifold increase in the consumption of nutraceutical products as well as dietary supplements. We are seeing a steady rise in demand for these products in line with the growing awareness and knowledge of consumers. Ingredients such as Vitamin D, Vitamin C and Zinc are on the top of the list. Even healthy snacks like protein bread have seen a sharp rise in demand. Several ingredients and herbs are being used today for not only their immune-boosting properties, but also for preventing the side-effects of medicines. Demand for products like Curcumin, Selenium and Probiotics have been growing along with other ingredients like Asthaxanthin, Polyphenols from pomegranate, Glutathione and extracts of Indian spices like Ginger and Garlic that are considered to be important ingredients to build immunity. Being a biodiverse country with a large agricultural base and deep understanding of traditional medicine (Ayurveda) usage, India is today one of the leading exporters of herbs and medicinal plants to other countries.

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

Tell us about the global trends in nutraceutical market? What are their key drivers? How is India poised to strengthen and increase the foothold in the global nutraceutical market?

The demand for nutraceuticals can be gauged from the fact that the market for Nutraceutical products globally today stands at $387 billion and has been registering a CAGR of 8 percent over the last five years.

USA, Japan and Europe together account for more than 90 percent of the market with the USA alone constituting 60 percent of it.

A preference for organics, growing awareness and perceived risk of lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, obesity; a rapidly aging population and healthier lifestyle changes have been key drivers of the market.

Developed countries such as the USA have been consuming India pharma generics for years now, earning the country the sobriquet of being the pharmacy to the world and the trust factor strong as ever.

With Indian nutraceuticals making an entry into those developed markets and that too at prices equivalent to USA products, we are likely to see a strong acceptance and traction for Indian Nutraceutical products and dietary supplements. India can similarly gain a strong foothold in other international markets through the diseasebased nutraceutical products route/clinical nutrition products route.

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What are the unique advantages that India has in the nutraceutical segment? What are the challenges hampering its growth?

I believe India’s rich heritage of herbal, Ayurvedic medicines and spices is its biggest advantage that holds the country’s nutraceutical industry in good stead and in a unique position for expansion and growth.

The herbal segment is expected to constitute 30 percent of the dietary supplements market in India and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 20 percent from 2015 to 2023.

The second element is its rich biodiversity, robust agricultural research infrastructure and abundant availability of nutraceutical

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

ingredients that has seen it become a preferred supplier to the world for ingredients such as highly bioavailable curcumin, Ashwagandha, fibers like Fenugreek, natural Astaxanthin, black garlic, etc. It also presents a fantastic opportunity in the area of phytopharmaceuticals that has been recognized for its role in preventive as well as curative effects for lifestyle diseases.

The third element is its manufacturing forte. India has already emerged as a global pharma powerhouse due to its ability to produce high-quality and low-cost

Healthcare providers will have to think in a ‘pathy-agnostic’ way and utilize modern medicines along with Dietary Supplements and even Herbal medicines to ensure wellness and complete cure

generic drugs. Nutraceutical manufacturing uses many of the same technologies as the pharma industry. Low cost, high quality manufacturing can help India emerge as a global leader in the finished Nutraceutical product space as well. As the second most populated country in the world, the country has seen a huge traction for nutraceutical products in urban areas with growing disposable income, prevalence of lifestyle diseases, greater focus on preventive healthcare, heightened awareness due to social media and lower food quality.

However, beyond the urban segment, the rural parts of

the country represent a huge untapped opportunity for nutraceutical sales. The Government focus on AYUSH (The Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy) and integrated medicine platforms whereby Nutrition, Nutraceuticals, Ayurveda and other alternative medicines have chances to flourish have been another shot in the arm for the industry.

While it is Advantage India in the nutraceuticals space, challenges exist: 1. Changing Regulatory Climate: Due to the growing nature of Nutraceutical industry, a lot of regulatory changes are being effected right from product definitions, approvals, health claims and manufacturing standards.

2. The Legal and Regulatory Framework: In the case of a legal framework, corporate law and necessary steps to create an entity in India has been elaborated in FSSA (Food Safety and Standards Act of India) Section 22, whereby compliance to operate in India is mandatory.

3. Look-alike Products: Look-alike products are a serious problem for the Indian Nutraceutical market, which confuses consumers on how to differentiate between the real and fake.

4. Cost Effective Pricing: The Indian market is a price sensitive market.

While the demand for nutraceuticals is expected to rise considerably, the high prices of Nutraceuticals limit their adoption in the Indian market. Also, for India entry, import tariffs need to be understood for managing right pricing of products.

5. Negligible Government Health Security: In India, the government-funded healthcare is very limited and major expenditure is incurred by individuals through out-of-pocket expenses. Hence, the scope of insurance is huge.

6. Tailoring Products to Domestic Tastes and Preferences: India is a country where there a Unity in Diversity.

The preferences include vegetarianism, Halal or Hindu dietary practices and traditional remedies reflecting social and cultural diversity. Hence, the demand for product may vary state wise and even religion wise.

You have written five books on Nutraceuticals.

Tell us, how can we utilize nutraceuticals better in the continuum of care? What are the gaps that needs to be mitigated?

Continuum of care starts with health issues and complete care is usually given by keeping wellness of the patient in mind. Mitigating or managing a

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

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Look-alike products are a serious problem for the Indian Nutraceutical market, which confuses consumers on how to differentiate between the real and fake

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specific disease is essential but not sufficient criteria to provide wellness. As a result, it is essential to combine the benefits of modern medicine treatment with Nutraceutical or dietary supplements to simultaneously boost immunity and create a complete care package for the patient.

The concept I would like to see take centerstage here is ‘Pharma-Nutrition’. This concept is likely to come into its own soon as it encompasses the entire spectrum from prevention to cure to rehabilitation and wellness of each individual. Healthcare providers will have to think in a ‘pathy-agnostic’ way and utilize modern medicines along with Dietary Supplements and even Herbal medicines to ensure wellness and complete cure.

What is the role of technology in this segment? How can technology accelerate productivity and improve quality?

Advancements in technology have been a boon to this segment. One of the roles played by technology is to ensure safety, efficacy and effectiveness of products.

For example, in manufacturing and R&D the use of nanotechnology has accelerated the bioavailability of active ingredients. Nanocurcumin would be the best case in point of this. Nanocurcumin acts as a base for many ingredients for faster delivery in the body as well for absorption. If we look at the supply chain, then block-chain technology has been a milestone where each of the ingredients and products can be tracked and traced by the consumers. New forms of Nutraceutical products such as gummies, sachets, effervescent etc. are showing consumer acceptance for the innovation.

Similarly, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning used at multiples levels of

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

clinical trials have improved outcomes and reduced production time.

What are the biggest lessons that India’s nutraceutical players can learn from the pharma sector?

Two of the key lessons would be: a) Availability of clinically proven safety and efficacy data of products to ensure life of consumer is protected: To keep consumers healthy, an ethical approach should be adopted in managing the entire value chain to maintain the health of consumers.

Each section of value chain starting from sourcing of ingredients, manufacturing as well as marketing and communication should be backed with evidence of safety and efficacy b) State-of-the-art R&D as well as accreditation by relevant authorities to ensure due process is followed and adherence to systems of manufacturing What will be the imperatives for both stakeholders and the regulators to optimize the nutraceuticals industry’s growth potential?

Responsible nutrition is essential for the Nutraceutical industry. Hence, every stakeholder in the value chain - from manufacturers to marketing, needs to be responsible for the safety, quality and efficacy of the product.

The health claims as well as labeling need to be monitored strictly as per guidelines and awareness needs to be created amongst consumers which will ensure their safety. Responsible nutrition is essential as there are no knowledgeable mediators like Health Care Professionals in the case of pharma products for Nutraceuticals sold Over the Counter (OTC) or via e-commerce websites.

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CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

COVER STORY

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CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

SREEDHAR BEVARA CEO OF BMR INNOVATIONS AND AUTHOR OF MOMENT OF SIGNAL & THE ROARING LAMBS

Born in South India, Sreedhar Bevara has done many jobs; a street vendor, a waiter, a delivery boy, a door-to-door salesman, and eventually leading corporate boards. He is now the CEO of BMR Innovations, a global management and technology consulting firm with offices in Dubai (UAE), India and the USA. Bevara’s journey is a quintessential rag to riches tale. Knowing it will help us identify and embrace the right signals to realise our full leadership potential. His debut book, Moment of Signal, talks about how anyone can use this concept to rise to the top. His latest book, The Roaring Lambs: A Fable About Finding the Leader in You, throws light on how true leaders rise from nowhere and produce extraordinary results when challenged by circumstances. In a conversation with CXO Outlook, Bevara talks about his books, the most important values he demonstrates as a leader, his journey so far in the corporate world, people who had a significant influence on him and much more.

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Being a bestselling author, motivational speaker, strategic advisor and senior corporate leader, what are the most important values you demonstrate as a leader?

The common point for good leadership is how do we do things in a way that can have a sustained impact on the lives of the people we either work with or work for. That being an ultimate consequence, everything else depends on the meticulous process to get there. Hence the job of being a leader to your own little or massive world itself is a journey that needs good company. Company for more than few vital reasons; without company, we won’t be able to do things on our own; without company, we won’t be able to do big things.

Without a good company, who values our vision, the leader won’t be progressing. Hence it is important to keep in the good company of people, and leaders must constantly work on this area. A great company of people can deliver great results—the greater the people around us, the greater the impact we could create. Here an employee or coworker or any role in the designated task becomes great when he/she understands the collective objective and strives equally with you.

The nature of the journey remains unchanged, but the destinations keep changing. Scope, scale, schedules keep changing. Hence it needs different people of expertise to travel. What is in it for them? Are they helping you grow alone or being helped mutually?

Is the leader’s vision a common vision where everyone else is part of it in the end result or the leader alone? This works, in fact, the other way round as such approach actually defines who becomes successful in the end no matter whichever is the walk of life.

From a street vendor to a waiter, a delivery boy to a door-to-door salesman, and eventually leading corporate boards, you have come a long way to become CEO of BMR Innovations. Tell us a bit about your journey so far in the corporate world?

Long way means one was willingly putting in efforts to stay in there. Success in corporate life comes ‘shape in or ship out’ basis, and the formula is highly relevant to sustain or expand. Having come from a humble background and

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

a family that struggled to meet ends can be a testing situation to either break or make. Poverty can play hard by destructing lives, separating families and ruining people in the most unpredictable manner. Our family wasn’t an exception either, with each of our siblings got scattered to find shelter under the custody of some benevolent cousins.

Having failed in the college exams repeatedly and with the circumstances turning tighter, I had to find alternatives to survive. Street vending, waiting at tables, working as a helper in a poultry shop or even joining as a waiter in Taj group of hotels for a salary of $10 a month – everything that happened is to survive the ordeal of the day that went on for a good number of years before making it to college again.

Not that each of the efforts was successful, but the relentless pursuit to survive has helped knock the doors of opportunities, one after the other. That was when my teacher, guru, mentor, and father-figure Murali (BMR) guided me to walk out of these random things to pursue higher studies to walk into finding the purpose of leading the life became the driving force. If you ever see a wall of success, remember the wall was built by a group of passionate people of common objectives and with relentless efforts. People support people irrespective of positions when they either sense common objectives or common ideologies. We don’t need to know them always.

What lessons have you learned in your childhood or IIM days that helped you become the leader you are today?

There are no bigger learnings than from failures and hardships. Real situations of life can teach greater lessons.

That was my fortune, having gone through much in the early life. However, learning about others’ mistakes and good decisions is possible through reading history, by education and watching seniors from the industry. A good blend of these two approaches can makes us good leaders.

Tell us about BMR Innovations. What are the services that BMR Innovations offer today, which makes it unique?

BMR Innovations is an Indo-Dubai based firm with global exposure in Management and Tech consulting, founded in

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2017 by reputed corporate finance professional and lawyer, Muralidhara Rao Bevara (BMR). BMR offers strategic management consultancy to corporations, governments, and other organisations to help achieve and maximise their business potential.

Experience makes a person wise. Expertise makes a person enhanced. Sharing them both to empower others makes the person a true consultant. BMR Innovations is bringing together passionate and specialised experts who strive to help companies and individuals to reach their inherent potential.

The core offering of BMR Innovations is in relevant alignment with the marketplace, in addressing three major factors to help companies and individuals achieve growth-oriented sustainability. 1. Unlocking the human potential 2. Converting opportunities and mitigating the challenges & 3. Right blend with digital and data solutions.

Your debut book, Moment of Signal, explores the importance of identifying signals that can change our lives and eventually make us better leaders. What inspired you to write the book “Moment of Signal”?

The best way to excel is to find the right signal, and you have to find that signal for yourself to manifest it into what you desire.

This approach has helped millions of successful people to change their lives from nowhere. Many times, you cannot connect

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

the dots upwards. But it is possible to do so backwards. But when you keep connecting with them, you will know what has been working for you and what’s not.

Life precisely is all about the two main factors; Choice and Action. Choice one takes and Action one implements. And then to stay consistent with making the choice work. Well, this approach will not assure you success but is designed to minimise the failure chances as every choice comes with built-in unpredictable results. To comprehend, if I could make it to here from absolutely nothing, anyone else can too. That secret I thought must be shared with everyone – both who aspire and those who don’t celebrate enough, the leadership within and around.

What was the most challenging part while writing a book? What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning Moment of Signal?

The biggest challenge in writing is to write.

Translate ideas into meaningful and impactful words on paper. Collating ideas that have clarity, flow and structure for readers to follow effortlessly.

Researching part, as I said earlier, the first approach was to understand and decipher the challenges thrown by life. The second being what we read, study and watch helps us learn what we shouldn’t or what we should.

Moment of Signal took me some four years to write, and the final product took another 2 to 3 years before hitting the bookstores.

What was one of the most surprising things you learned during the writing process of Moment of Signal? How has been the response from readers so far?

A book isn’t possible without a tremendous deal of collaborations with different expertises. It is laborious to write and to keep things together. The biggest learning, while I was penning this book, remains unlocking the secret of how to inspire people to help us grow, how one can realise their full leadership potential and help creating an ecosystem around our vision to flourish.

Book has been successful, receiving praise from great personalities. Even after two and half years, it is still finding a place in the top charts of Amazon India. Great names like Chris Gardner (Pursuit of Happiness fame), Dr Kiran Bedi & Shiv Khera, along with national media

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ToI, The Hindu, Indian Express & Sunday Guardian and many more have praised it extensively. And the young leader from world-class names like IIMs, IITs have been looking up at this book with generous interest.

What is it all about your new book, The Roaring Lambs and who’s it for?

The Roaring Lambs: A Fable About Finding the Leader in You, published by Harper Collins, the latest book, throws light on how true leaders rise from nowhere and produce extraordinary results when challenged by circumstances.

Released globally on 15th March 2021, the book is set in the Mau Forest of East Africa and a telltale of how a herd lambs stop the carnage by lion king Kaizaar – a real dive into leaders born Vs leaders made. It has received praise from Times of India, Yahoo Finance, Zee5, Mallence Bart-Williams, Jeffrey Hayzlett, Mark

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

Victor Hansen, co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series and Deepak Chopra, MD. If you look at the jungle, the lion is one of the most influential animals, and the sheep are among the weakest. It is unimaginable to think that the sheep can muster the courage to take on the mighty lions. But when their survival is at stake, true leaders rise from nowhere and produce extraordinary results. The Roaring Lambs is not your usual ‘David vs Goliath’ story. It takes you on a unique journey of self-realisation. By the time you’ll finish reading it, you’ll be surprised that this story applies to all settings in life.

The Roaring Lambs is a truly exceptional tale of leadership. The story is set in Africa, but the lessons are universal and will help a reader identify the leader within. If you’re a fan of books like Who Moved My Cheese or The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, this book will make a deeper connection with you.

What has been significant milestones during these years of your journey as a business leader? Why? The journey so far has been riveting, and learning so far has been fulfilling. Milestones being a handful; organisations today are looking for sources of inspiration along with value addition to their daily routines.

I am able to contribute my bit at their request – something that keeps me as a challenger to strive further.

What does your typical working day look like?

How do you handle pressure and stay calm all day? How do you unplug from work?

Writing is the main task I do while reading helps me write better. Reading and writing are the main wind down areas, and especially writing relieves me from the stress. The pain is only while producing work but once produced is a dopamine effect until the next piece. Pressure is part of life, and we must learn to find ways to keep it in check. Physical exercise is another wind-down activity that helps me release endorphins to give the body a refreshing appeal. Boring it may sound but to keep fit is not

mainly for a physical appeal. Rather, it is to sustain the house for all the great aspirations one has in life.

Without a proper house (or body as in this case), no great ambition can ever take shape. No body means no nothing, and one has to keep it adequately nurtured.

Who would you consider to be a significant influence on you professionally, and can you explain why?

There have been several names from different walks of life that I’ve learnt a lot from, and I feel few are significantly influential. However, whenever I tried connecting dots of my own journey, the fabric of it is incomplete without taking strong mention of my elder brother, mentor, guru and father-like figure, Shri Muralidhar Rao. Murali’s acts of selflessness, affection and his titanic efforts for his own kit and kin may not be a special consideration for an outsider, but his grand vision to include everyone around him towards a better world certainly is.

He surprises everyone with his innate ability to make even a stranger feel at home and instantly becoming a credible option to depend on or seek guidance from.

Muralidhara Rao Bevara

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His every word would be so very thoughtful and has depth to invoke flowing inspiration towards life, and I was only fortunate to be his full-time apprentice until his great soul departed in 2017 in a valiant battle against cancer for six long years at a young age of 49. His leadership, in fact, has excelled greatly both on personal and professional fronts during such an intensely painful battle is what makes him all the more a remarkable leader. Besides a great family and an ecosystem of good friends, Murali remains a tremendous influence for the kind of leadership I always have looked up to.

What projects or goals are you working on or leading currently?

BMR Innovations is currently working with few governments to drive investments, industries and technologies to help them create a sustainable future and also working with few world-class names to help their leadership issues and challenges. The overall goal is to empower the leadership to help make great choices.

What advice can you give to someone who wants to become an expert in their chosen field?

Your Will is Your Fate, and Your Effort is Your Success. Your efforts are your winners. Your arrangement of shredding the task into small units and rolling along the way until the big day is one way of approaching the target. The struggle is

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inevitable. No preparation can be sufficient when facing the unknown, and a small act of denial can lead to the end of great leadership stories. It is the leader’s mindset with a stronger will that can decide the fate and define the renewed emergence.

Know what you can control: We cannot control everything. It is important to define clearly what is in our control and what’s not in a given environment.

Because there are many external elements in our environment, balanced decision making is directly linked to our ability to analyse our surroundings and move in the right direction.

Design your day: We can set up our day with exactly what we want to do and what we expect from it. Sit for a few moments in the first hour in the morning to allocate time—it will give you an enormous sense of power when you organise the day and free yourself from anything that makes you waste energy, effort or resource. Review this at the end of the day and plan better for the next.

Collaborate to face the impossible and win big: There’s nothing that can be achieved on one’s own. Forging alliances and collaborating with forces around will remain the key to win big and stay ahead of the curve. Only great leaders know the value of collaborating both inside and outside.

They also know when to collaborate with lesser forces and when to with a major force. There’s no story in the world so far is without collaboration and alliance. This is one of the biggest rules to sustain.

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CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

STARTUP

SPOTLIGHT

T Introducing Smart Parking Technology in India

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Co-Founded by Chirag Jain, Get My Parking is an award-winning provider of Interoperable Digital Parking Platform that integrates any parking equipment and connects it to mobile and cloud for a standardized seamless experience.

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

he COVID-19 pandemic has led to quarantine and shelter-at-home orders, decreasing parking activity and resulting in shutdowns and closures of parking facilities nationwide. From empty garages to micro-mobility service disruptions and lay-offs, now more than ever, parking departments must respond to the community's needs and help to ensure the safety of their staff. During the lockdown peak, there was a fall of nearly 50% to 70% in commuters who used monthly parking facilities. In contrast, the transient parking facilities saw a reduction of 95% compared to what it was last year. Educational and work establishments like universities, schools, and offices have shifted to virtual learning and working arrangement. Therefore, parking, transit, and other mobility services have been hit hard.

But after the unlock began and people started moving again, safety and hygiene became the number-one priority in all public places.

People started expecting touchless services even when it came to parking.

Any parking owner like municipal corporations, housing societies, corporate campuses, and real estate owners can save thousands of dollars per entry lane if they want to upgrade their access mechanism to go touchless.

In post-COVID-19 times, we want to make sure that all public parking lots are touchless and cashless. Our IoT solution has made the transition seamless for parking owners. In the last 3 months, our sales team has seen more interest and action globally than ever before. “As people in India and around the world stay put in their homes, the parking industry has invariably taken a hit. We also had witnessed a temporary decline in transactions on our platform”, says Chirag Jain, Co-Founder & CEO, Get My Parking.

Ch i

ra g

Ja i

n

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Today, we process roughly 2 million parking transactions every month

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

An Urban Planning Enthusiast Considering Steve Jobs as the innovator of the century, Chirag co-founded the smart parking startup with Rasik Pansare in 2015. A keen interest in urban planning and a strong desire to contribute to society in some meaningful way motivated them to start their entrepreneurial journey. Chirag was working in the automotive technology startup when he saw that a lot was being done in the connected car space and other related services, parking was practically an untouched area. "This led me to think of a way to solve the digitization puzzle of unorganized parking. I teamed up with Rasik, and we started working on this as an experiment.

By July 2015, we were convinced with the early results to plunge into this business full time and started to Get My Parking officially”, says Chirag.

Digitizing and upgrading the parking infrastructure using IoT software to become intelligent mobility hubs, Get My Parking is a SaaS business model with easy customizations

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CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

to accelerate the adoption. This helps parking operators, landlords, and smart city governments to quickly and effectively modernize their parking services without the need for replacing what they have. As a result, they can offer value-added services like EV charging, car servicing, washing, insurance and many more for user convenience and integrate with new mobility models like shared mobility, last-mile mobility, deliveries, and logistics. Envisioning to make every parking transaction a sub-conscious experience, Chirag says, "With a strong foundation of the team, technology, and partnerships, we are creating a future-proof parking platform to connect the parking industry internally as well as with urban mobility players”.

A Businessman by Blood Born and brought up in a business family, Chirag graduated from IIT Madras in 2013 and worked for two years in a leading automotive tech portal,

Chirag Jain (CEO) and Rasik Pansare (CMO), Co-Founders of Get My Parking

learning the ins-and-outs of the mobility industry.

“This is where my desire for solving urban issues was strengthened and nurtured. Throughout my experience, I spent over 6 months in South Korea, 3 months in Malaysia and other South-East Asian countries that gave me a global perspective about how severe the parking problem is”, says Chirag.

Most people pursue the path of entrepreneurship either because they want a lifestyle that isn’t bound by nine-to-five or because their creativity doesn't fit the narrow box of the existing world. While these are great and genuine reasons, Chirag's decision to become an entrepreneur was mainly guided by his desire to solve urban mobility issues, primarily the aspect of parking, which lay completely overlooked by most mobility players. "I knew that if I wanted to bring about a change in this area, there was no way I could do it by taking the well-trodden path", points out Chirag.

Each year brings new learnings, new milestones, and new challenges, but the journey to digitize every parking globally is just getting started. Being the product pioneer, Get My Parking has grown exponentially in all terms.

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

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Having performed extensive deployments in Europe and Asia for some of the largest parking operators that operate across thousands of locations, Get My Parking has been expanding its footprints focusing on the American market and Middle East Asia

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“Our revenues have grown about 100x since the first year while the number of parking lots digitized is over 2200 globally.

Today, we process roughly 2 million parking transactions every month”, adds Chirag.

In India, Get My Parking is present in 11 cities, including Delhi NCR, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Mumbai in terms of active deployments. Get My Parking is the largest aggregator and distributor of parking information in terms of static parking data, with comprehensive data of over 9000 parking lots located in 50 cities in India. Globally, Get My Parking has over 2200 active smart parking deployments with work orders in 17 countries.

Their single IoT platform has launched 7 different white label parking apps worldwide in different languages and markets.

Expanding with a Strong Team Having a strong team since the beginning, Chirag and Rasik have been particular about the people they brought into the core team. A closeknit family with complementary skills, the team comes from stellar backgrounds and has been

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

critical in forming the organization. Being a fast-growing company, the biggest challenge for Chirag is always hiring the right people, training and upskilling the current team members, and maintaining the right culture. He adds, "Being the market creator and pioneer, it takes a lot of convincing to influence the entire industry from scratch. We also faced funding issues several times during our fledgeling stages but have mastered the financial equation over the last couple of years with a good inflow of revenues”.

Having performed extensive deployments in Europe and Asia for some of the largest parking operators that operate across thousands of locations, Get My Parking has been expanding its footprints focusing on the American market and Middle East Asia. "This latest expansion move is supported by our partnership with ParkTrans, an American smart city solution provider that brings the latest global technology to its American clients. We are also creating a global sales network with freelance consultants as well as sales enterprise partners”, concludes Chirag.

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CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

EXPERT OPINION

Imperatives of Digital Adoption in the Construction and Real Estate Industries

Sripad Nandiraj, Founder, Hocomoco

Sripad Nandiraj is the founder of Hocomoco.

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He has been instrumental in conceptualizing and scaling Hocomoco up to 3,50,000 sft in a short span and aims to reach 25,00,000 sft by 2021.

He plays the role of CEO at Hocomoco, and is mainly responsible for Customers, Website, Management and Marketing. In a conversation with CXO Outlook, Sripad talks about digital adoption in the construction and real estate industries, opportunities and growth the construction industry can explore in 2021, and much more.

Sripad Nandiraj Tell us about opportunities for digital adoption in the construction and real estate industries. What makes these industries apt for digital solutions now?

As anticipated, every industry is opting for digital solutions at its own pace. But the pandemic has augmented the companies to digitize, or at least some part of their business. This adoption in digitization is primarily done to protect employees and serve customer facing mobility restrictions due to the pandemic. According to a recent report, the businesses have vaulted five years forward in consumer and business digital adoption in a matter of weeks.

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

The construction sector has been relatively slow in embracing technology to streamline business processes

Covid-19 lockdown has also accelerated the adoption of digital tools in real estate. Industry experts claim that a large part of property search process as well as shortlisting of properties will shift to online platforms. Various companies are also offering virtual walk through of projects to their clients, keeping in mind the social distancing as one the measures to deal with the virus.

As for Construction sector, we all know that this sector has historically lagged other markets in technology adoption. However, due to social distancing requirements, the sector has implemented technology tools that otherwise would not have been considered. For instance, cloudbased project management software. This software was in peak interest the start of 2020, but remained low on priority list. With the lockdown, the implementation of such software became more urgent, to maximize safety for personnel and ensure all stakeholders, and maintain visibility into project progress eliminating the need to physically visit the site. Advanced communication tools were also adopted during the pandemic by many construction companies.

Platforms like Zoom, WebEx, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, etc, are being used as an important source of communication not just between employees, but also with clients, dealers, suppliers and other critical resources. Training too have largely moved online, and simulation technology utilizing virtual, augmented and/or mixed reality found a larger place in both training and in obtaining and maintaining equipment.

At Hocomoco, we have always considered technology to be an important part of our company and construction. Some of the tools and applications we use are for Project Schedules, Project Material repots, workforce reports, Project Planning, and e-monitoring. Now, with the ongoing crisis, these seem a must for post Covid gen of clients. These digital applications offer benefits like increased transparency, ease of operations, efficient usage of workforce and elimination of human errors.

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CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

More about

Sripad Nandiraj Sripad

is

a

true

advocate

of

‘right quality for the right price’ and believes it is one of the purposes for Hocomoco’s existence. As the founder, he takes charge in spearheading the

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vision of the company and providing his customers with a seamless experience with Hocomoco.

He set out on the entrepreneurship journey armed with an MBA degree from University of California, Riverside, and a BBA degree from National Institute of Tourism & Hospitality Management. He started his career as Senior Business Analyst in Sabre Holdings, Texas, USA. Other than managing a successful business and looking into majority of the operations for the same, he is also an active volunteer in various Legal Aid Programs under the NGO SILSAR. He has participated in over 25 programs that assist a lot of underprivileged fights for justice. He also enjoys sports and DJ jockeying in his leisure time.

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

We also use a variety of integrated software solutions to connect the office, team, and field using the cloud, to enable easy estimating and bidding, streamline processes, and improve communication.

In terms of embracing latest technologies, what are some of the most common barriers you have observed in the construction Industry?

The construction sector has been relatively slow in embracing technology to streamline business processes.

However, with new age startups like Hocomoco, companies are putting in immense effort in adopting technology for the construction work and are also slowly habituating the usage of technology amongst its workforce.

The construction industry always had an assumption that involving technology to the construction process will only add additional cost to the existing one. This has exempted the usage of any such cost adding functionalities to their business. Hence, there is an urgent need for change in the mindset, as technology has to be treated as

a long-term investment rather than an additional cost. In fact, as technology infiltrates more aspects of life, it’s a natural progression that it can be used to improve onsite safety. According to a study, 69% of companies that use BIM (building information modelling), has a positive impact on project safety because of its ability to identify potential site hazards before construction begins.

Apart from this, proper tools that focuses on Onsite Workforce Literacy and Usage of Gadgets, needs to be developed to make it easier for the stakeholders to adapt to any newer technologies. Since most stakeholders are habitual to a working pattern, adopting a new way of working without any proper manual, would seem riskier while considering the large scale of industry.

What demonstrable steps can companies take today to foster innovation and support the adoption of new technology?

Companies these days have to devise their own strategies to make their workforce use technology to carry out their work. Rather than using coercion, it is important that

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CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

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companies train their workforce and explain to them the benefits of using a certain technology. One way of making technology workforce-friendly is by allowing them to use the beta/trial versions and taking their feedback on the user interface. Once the workforce is familiar with a specific tool, making it a daily habit for them should be the next task on the list. Companies should also consider adoption strategies for every devices and applications, as most of the work is on field, the platforms/devices should be easily usable.

What are the opportunities and growth the construction industry can explore in 2021?

Despite the pandemic, India is one of those countries that has been able to recover faster in terms of businesses being conducted. The independent home construction space stands at a market size of $15 billion. A market this large will need startups like Hocomoco to streamline and make the construction process easier for the aspiring home builders.

Overall, the value of construction industry is estimated at a CAGR of 15.7% and is expected to reach $738.5 bn by 2022, which is of an immense opportunity. We also envision a greater demand from the Tier II cities in the coming year as we have been receiving leads from these markets. All in all, we are hopeful that 2021 will be a great year for the construction sector.

Being a tech-based construction start-up, what are the expectations of Hocomoco in the coming year in terms of growth and budget?

This year, Hocomoco is looking forward to achieving 25,00,000 sq ft of built-up space, in both tier I and II

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

regions. We are also planning to expand to other cities in India, like Bangalore, Vizag, Vijayawada and other key tier two cities.

As a building construction company, we are happy that the Union budget 2021 has provided GST tax incentive on projects, which was under progress last year due to the lockdown. We are also optimistic that the government will provide policies, incentives, or general tax relief to boost public spending on housing and infrastructure.

What advice do you have for CEOs just beginning this digital innovation journey?

The new generation of CEOs’ are very proactive these days in terms of business plan execution. Also, majority of start-ups today are using innovative technologies to foster their business and at the same time involve multiple mobile applications. It will not be wrong to say that the usage of technology has become absolutely inevitable in every business decree. Be it websites or a tech application, or just a mobile app, everything involves technology.

When it comes to the success of a technology product, offering should be all about efficiency and the seamless usage of that solution. Major focus should be on the interests of the audience and modifying the business approach on that ground rather than improving the business model or product based on generalized levels. Would also advise CEOs to have regular start-up impact meet with the teams, as it gives immense satisfaction in knowing and understanding the impact the business creates in the society.

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CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

40

MOST INFLUENTIAL

BUSINESS LEADERS 2021

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

T

he resilience and determination of employees in today’s time help companies keep their people performing at their best while work processes shift. While everyone was working from home, employees learnt the art of multitasking and balancing work-life and household chores. However, with offices resuming work and employees returning to work, there is an essential need for leadership evolution. Business leaders worldwide are trying to find the best-suited solutions for their companies, people, and ecosystems.

Just like our history’s empires, businesses rise and fall as the times change. Likewise, some remain at the top for ages, while others fizzle out within a couple of years. The key to long-term sustained success is through great leadership. A great business leader can motivate others, have a clear vision others can believe in and can lead innovation within an organization. When companies have great leaders taking the reins, investors, consumers, and employees are all going to want to buy in.

To be a great manager, you also need to be a great leader, and many of the world’s most well-known companies have some seriously smart people at the helm. As the ongoing pandemic continues to make global news headlines, business leaders who want to stay ahead and remain successful are looking for stable footholds in this time of uncertainty.

With that in mind, CXO Outlook presents “10 Most Influential Business Leaders - 2021”, celebrating leaders who are doing their best to innovate and technologically evolve the industry.

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

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MOST INFLUENTIAL

BUSINESS LEADERS 2021

Key Person

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Designation

Company

Akhilesh Agarwal

Founder & CEO

DRU GOLD

Aparna Gorrepat

Founder

ZUCI Chocolates

Meghna Agarwal

Co-Founder

IndiQube

Nehaa Juneja

Founder

SkinWorks

Nitin Chavan

CEO

Aquapay Payment Technologies

Palash Nandy

CEO

Numeric

Pooja Shukla

Co-Founder & COO

LearnKartS

Raj Gaur

Co- Founder & CMO

Tattvam Media

Founder

Aachho

CEO

BMR Innovations

Rimjhim Hada

Sreedhar Bevara

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

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CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

MOST INFLUENTIAL

BUSINESS LEADERS 2021

Akhilesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, DRU GOLD

With Empathy and Trust from Gold Assessment to Gold Encashment

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T

he journey to becoming the CEO and Founder of DRU GOLD for Akhilesh Agarwal started with his family-run business, Sri Krishna Jewellers. He began as a sales executive and worked his way up to head the operations over the years. After receiving the 'Times Jewellery Retailer of the year 2016' award, he decided to start DRU GOLD. The decade's worth of experience in this industry helped him pick valuable on-ground consumer insights that paved the way for solving gaps faced by people through DRU GOLD. Established in 2020, DRU GOLD is in the business of 'Cash against Gold' and 'Releasing pledged Gold'. The

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

revenue model is buying gold at a lower price and selling it at a market rate. "My vision behind starting DRU GOLD is to tackle the challenges consumers face with the gold recycling industry. We intend to bring in more transparency to the industry and operate with innovative offerings and higher moral standards to benefit the customers," says Akhilesh. The company aims to ensure transparency in the market and support the Make in India initiative to curb the imports by helping the industry reduce dependency on imports. "We firmly believe in providing an empathetic experience with transparent and scientific methodology from gold assessment to gold encashment,” adds Akhilesh.

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Akhilesh Agarwal

We firmly believe in providing an empathetic experience with transparent and scientific methodology from gold assessment to gold encashment

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

With around a decade’s experience in the gold and jewellery industry, Akhilesh decided to pursue the opportunity to meet customers' demands with a company that strives for commitment to excellence and adheres to the most robust moral and ethical principles both internally & externally. Akhilesh believes that about 65% of the market is controlled by the unorganised sector, which values gold at a meagre rate (as low as 60% of the actual worth), and they charge very highinterest rates which range from 15-40%.

Understanding that the Gold recycling industry is a very unorganised market, he believes there is a vast scope for bringing transparency and better procedures to benefit customers. And to tackle these challenges, DRU GOLD provides an empathetic experience with transparent and scientific methodology from gold assessment to gold encashment. "I believe that gold is the best asset class. We have seen many retail investors changing their preferred asset class over the past few years. Many more investors have taken to gold as their preferred asset class. This is due to the stability and reliability of gold.

It is movable, transferrable and it can be liquidated very quickly in times of need,” he adds.

When DRU GOLD was started in January 2020, Akhilesh’s plans and projections were designed keeping in mind the risks of the industry, but never in his wildest dreams did he anticipate a pandemic leading to the entire company’s operations on halt. “When the doomsday hit the entire world, due to COVID, we could not function. I couldn’t plan well like some Fortune 500 companies who could make the best of the situation.

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CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

With around a decade’s experience in the gold and jewellery industry, Akhilesh decided to pursue the opportunity to meet customers' demands with a company that strives for commitment to excellence and adheres to the most robust moral and ethical principles both internally & externally

Since then, I have decided to make best and fast decisions, keeping the worst of the worst circumstances in mind, to stand tall in the market," says Akhilesh. Although COVID-19 did impact DRU GOLD's functioning for a bit, they did stand tall and expanded its reach to 15 stores, making it the first start-up company in India to open 15 stores in 2020. To date, the company has served 2600+ customers, even amidst the pandemic.

Shedding light on some of the ethics that keep him motivated to do more, Akhilesh said that discipline is the key to success. Adding to the same, he said "one must always stay put, and never deviate from their goals and visions.

Unexpected situations come in everyone's lives. My sincere advice to everyone is "never give up." Most importantly, when you are ethically right and principally strong, you will win one day and achieve everything you are working towards." Akhilesh completed

Business Administration from Amity Global business school, Hyderabad and did a specialisation in Mergers & Acquisitions from Wharton Business School (Pennsylvania). His day starts around 6am, followed by an hour of exercise. He reaches the office around 9:30 am and likes to be calm in the office. “I try to listen and understand everyone’s opinions and suggestions. I analyse all the suggestions and make decisions which I feel is right for the company and its people,” says Akhilesh.

As far as DRU GOLD's future is concerned, Akhilesh hopes to take DRU GOLD globally and drive investors who see it as an eminent investment. Currently operating out of 15 stores in Hyderabad, the plan is to open 15 more stores by year-end. "With our fast-paced growth approach & excellence across, we plan to go global soon in the coming years with Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka and China as potential markets for us,” concludes Akhilesh.

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

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LEADER’S INSIGHTS

Benefits of Automation in Digital Transformation

Geeman Yip, CEO, BitTitan

COVID-19 has made organizations rethink their

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online strategies and adopt approaches that are cost-efficient, productive, and securely delivering a digital experience. Today, the need for automation in enterprises has grown substantially and they are realizing that automation is the way ahead. “It is exciting to see both the public and private sectors in India creating growth opportunities through digital transformation. Initiatives, such as Digital India and the Smart Cities Mission, are contributing to modernization in the healthcare, communication, Geeman Yip

energy, banking, and technology sectors,” opines Geeman Yip, CEO of BitTitan, a modern IT toolbox designed to centralize and automate IT tasks for more effective management of resources, security, and data governance. In a conversation with CXO Outlook, Geeman Yip talks about benefits of automation in digital transformation, best practices that an IT manager can adopt to streamline the IT process and much more.

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

Automating business processes and disparate systems helps organizations streamline operations, which saves time and enhances productivity

How important is digital transformation for business? Which sectors have been most successful with digital transformation projects?

Digital transformation is critical for helping businesses keep up in a constantly changing market and focus on their core business. It is also essential for businesses that are seeking to use their data to expand revenue opportunities. There isn't a designated path that businesses must take to transform.

IT leaders should instead drive transformation in areas that will have the most impact on how the business operates.

The risk of not evolving fast enough is great.

It is exciting to see both the public and private sectors in India creating growth opportunities through digital transformation. Initiatives, such as Digital India and the Smart Cities Mission, are contributing to modernization in the healthcare, communication, energy, banking, and technology sectors.

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Do you think India is the most aggressive country in terms of deploying digital transformation? Why? In the past year, many organisations accelerated digital transformation by adopting and upgrading technology to maintain business continuity company-wide. India is among the leaders driving the transformation to a digital economy

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

More about

Geeman Yip

Geeman Yip is the founder and CEO of BitTitan, a SaaSbased cloud enablement provider based in Bellevue, Washington.

Geeman founded BitTitan in 2007 to help IT service providers and businesses assess, deploy and manage technology solutions in a rapidly changing cloud world. Prior to BitTitan, Geeman was a Program Manager for Microsoft Exchange, architecting what would become the foundation for today’s Office 365 suite. He has over two decades’ worth of experience in the software and IT spaces.

Geeman holds a bachelor’s degree in information and computer science from the University of California, Irvine.

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with support from the country's rapid cloud migration. With digital spending increasing India has been on a digital-first path, urged on by its aim of becoming a trillion-dollar digital economy by 2025.

Gartner anticipates public cloud spending to increase 29% between 2020 and 2021. Businesses have also benefited from government support and enhancements in internet connectivity, reach and affordability. This benefits India’s highly innovative tech community, which has put India among the leaders in digital transformation.

What is the impact on competition and innovations introduced in the market?

Introducing more competition to the market will drive the acceleration of innovation in addition

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

to driving costs lower. Competition is great for adoption as organizations need to constantly innovate in order to maintain competitive advantage. The acceleration of digital transformation will enhance competition and pave the way for businesses to introduce more innovative products and services. It is changing how businesses gain an edge in the market as well as radically transforming business models, methods of production and distribution.

What are the key benefits of automation in digital transformation?

Automating business processes and disparate systems helps organizations streamline operations, which saves time and enhances productivity. As digital transformation efforts

There are several areas where IT processes can be automated, and this allows IT professionals to concentrate on more intensive tasks

mature, the number of IT systems grows, and the management of these assets becomes increasingly complex. Automation simplifies these systems and allows manual processes to happen faster. Companies can also ensure that security and governance protocols are followed consistently.

At Voleer we help businesses focus on strategic tasks, manage outcomes, and solve problems proactively with a growing library of automation in categories which include productivity, security, governance, cost and adoption. We are currently integrated with Microsoft 365, Microsoft Azure, Zendesk and more, with additional integrations being built and these platforms are integral to the service that we provide to our clients.

How important is leadership? What are the best practices that an IT manager can adopt to streamline the IT process?

Strong leadership contributes to employee productivity and encourages teams to accomplish business objectives. It is also a key factor in the success of digital transformation plans. The leadership of IT managers will either help companies pave the way for benefits realized by digital adoption or take organizations backward with archaic technology and processes. IT managers should help other leaders understand that IT doesn’t just manage laptops and servers anymore. A strong, innovative IT team and leader can help propel digital transformation efforts forward.

This can lead to growth from new revenue streams, improved customer experience, optimized internal processes and much more.

IT managers should look towards automation which can support the entire IT lifecycle. There are several areas where IT processes can be automated, and this allows IT professionals to concentrate on more intensive tasks. With Voleer’s no-code library of cloudbased, ready-to-launch automation, anyone can get started automating the systems they already use with just a few clicks.

What would be your word of advice to CIOs and IT executives who finally are ready to make this step and are just about to embark on the digital transformation journey?

My advice to CIOs and IT decision-makers is to not approach digital transformation as a onetime project of moving legacy applications to the cloud. Digital transformation is a mindset of leveraging technology to transform all aspects of their business.

Automation will be the reality for businesses. As new technologies emerge, IT leaders will need to be able to keep up with what is available on the market and quickly evaluate how it can add value, improve work processes, and serve as a competitive asset.

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

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MOST INFLUENTIAL

BUSINESS LEADERS 2021

Aparna Gorrepati, Founder, ZUCI Chocolates

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Redefining the Confectionery & Bakery Landscape F

or Aparna Gorrepati, who has over 13 years of handson experience in the confectionery landscape - both in industrial and retail chocolate - setting up her Chocolate Studio named ZUCI Chocolates has been a dream come true. A first-generation woman entrepreneur with a deep-rooted passion for culinary arts since an early age, she inculcated deep domain knowledge and training in chocolate while learning and experimenting with diverse cuisines. Aparna now takes utmost pride in working with Master Chefs, completing her formal training at the Chocolate Academy, Belgium and the Ecole Nationale Superieure de Patisserie (ENSP), France. No wonder she outclasses as one of the leading chocolate experts in the country and the finest in her craft!

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

A True Fighter!

Establishing ZUCI wasn’t a piece of cake for Aparna! She faced a fair share of challenges and stumbles in the journey of becoming who she is today. ZUCI was established just a month before lockdown last year, and the pandemic hit it brutally in all forms. Despite being extremely disappointed with the happenings around, Aparna and her team of experts soared ahead with confidence vested in their products, skills, and opportunities laid ahead. They ensured that they focused on retaining the staff that they carefully handpicked and trained to meet their wavelengths on thoughts and skills, redrawing their business model from a walk-in driven to D2C model, and watching their costs and driving a frugal operation. Besides, Aparna’s pleasant

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Aparna Gorrepati

We believe in ‘Many emotions, One expression – Chocolate’ – that every occasion demands chocolate and we are the chosen one

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

personality and determination to never give up made her and her team create exclusive ZUCI experiences that invite customers to constantly visit, taste, enjoy, and come back for more. In short, she has stood-out in the confectionery landscape by developing a palette for chocolate!

Despite some considering her works as an expensive hobby, Aparna worked extremely hard to lay the foundation for a stunning commercial establishment that brings Hyderabad the most unique, worldclass gourmet chocolate experience, thereby relishing a fulfilling experience. On a more critical note, she believes that the COVID-19 pandemic has turned down businesses’ welllaid plans. She adds, “As much as one could have done a risk profiling with mitigating plans, this was completely unexpected in its impact. It has pushed leaders to think differently, question the assumptions, consumption patterns, and in many cases, the fundamental business models itself.”

Synonymous with Pure Coming to the name – ZUCI, it is derived from the Sanskrit word ‘Shuchi’, which means ‘PURE’. Synonymous with Pure, Aparna’s brainchild – ZUCI has been offering the purest products to its customers. The firm adheres to a strict policy of deploying the best ingredients sourced from across the world. ZUCI also strives to make as many ingredients as possible (pastes, dips, sauces & more) - in-house and free of preservatives. Besides, the produce is always ensured to be in small batches to offer the freshest of the products and nothing less to customers. At the backend of these products lies the usage of the best technology and equipment and world-class trained experts who assure to deliver premium quality and consistency in each product.

The portfolio of ZUCI includes the broadest range of truffles, bonbons, dragées, and many chocolate products, thereby outstanding as an Artisanal Chocolate Studio. The firm also extends its bracket to offering Artisanal bread with speciality and healthy bread, including sourdough, focaccia, and flavour infused bread, and one of the most extensive spread of desserts in Hyderabad, pleasing every palate and sweet tooth. To further ensure a wholesome

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CXO OUTLOOK March 2021 2021

experience, Aparna incorporated a flagship studio and café in Hyderabad, which holds the best food and beverages menu and ZUCI’s chocolates, desserts, and bread. Being recognised as the Best Restaurant of the Year and the Restauranteur of the Year 2021 by the Times of India Food and Nightlife Awards 2021 is a massive testament to ZUCI, which is undoubtedly the go-to chocolate and gifting place in Hyderabad and across for most people!

Aparna is currently focused on expanding ZUCI’s product portfolio to entail a much wider range of chocolate and healthy options by heavily investing in R&D and marketing

Life Lessons Learning is a continuous process of life! On a similar note, Aparna holds her share of important learnings in her journey. She learnt not to try to do everything by herself without adequately delegating. She says, “As a perfectionist in what I did, my bar of performance is very high. But over a period, I realised that doing things by myself did not allow me to focus on what is a priority, but often end up in crisis managing things”.

Hence, she learnt the importance of building a good

and trustworthy team that she can rely upon. The other lesson she learnt was to stop tolerating mediocre performance, which significantly impacted the quality of services or products at ZUCI. She realised that it is crucial to be compassionate and hold the team’s highest standards and expectations and not mix emotions with business.

Many times in the attempt to please the customers, Aparna understood that she and her team tried to be the best at everything but at times, lost sight of the core. It is critical to have that clear vision about the core of your business while you attempt to be the best at it – This was her biggest learning in the positioning brand ZUCI. On the other hand, she and her team wondered why not many customers were visiting them in the initial days, despite having the best products. Eventually, they figured out that they must chase the customer in terms of marketing, awareness, delivery, experience, and other factors and not expect the customers to chase them!

The Wall of Fame Breathing in various lessons like these, Aparna grew into a successful leader over the years with significant accolades, patronage and success with ZUCI Chocolates. Some of her noteworthy milestones entail bagging multiple recognitions for ZUCI across many categories within a year of establishment, being a first-generation entrepreneur, overcoming the risks of starting ZUCI, and dabbling into unknown territories such as finance, marketing, business development, sales and others. She adds, “Making a mark as Hyderabad’s first and exclusive chocolatier, building the resilience to see through the tough first year, ability to retain our core talent, and building brand ZUCI to reflect our core values of Purity, Quality and Trustworthiness within a short period, are what I would consider as my achievements”.

Yet, Aparna considers the smiles of customers showing their satisfaction towards ZUCI’s products, testimonials on why they have liked those products, and being an integral part of their celebrations are some of the most satisfying moments in her journey so far.

Behind the Hard Work Aparna’s working day usually starts with team huddles, product tasting, strategy discussions, reviewing the production schedules, and discussing and reviewing any special orders. Considering her multiple roles, the day transitions into more extended

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56 discussions on product innovation, R&D, talking to her stakeholders, and most importantly, ensuring to spend adequate time in customer interactions.

Overall, she takes up the curator’s role of the ZUCI experience for every customer by overseeing every aspect of business – setting the menu, finalising the recipes, presentation of the products, and packaging.

Pressure is indeed a part of the responsibilities she has signed up for. Interacting with customers has always been a big stress reliever for Aparna.

As she builds relationships with the customers, conversations go beyond the product, and she ends up knowing them better or learning something new.

Additionally, she takes small breaks, even if it’s for a couple of hours when possible, and ensures spending quality time with her family. In a nutshell, she realised that it is best to internalise stress or pressure and find activities that can take her mind off to strike the worklife balance instead of just complaining about it.

Vesting great belief in her team, Aparna follows very high standards in hiring her people, emphasising skills, experience, potential, and most importantly, their attitude. Some of her key practices

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include ensuring every staff member is on the same wavelength of their values and objectives, infusing adequate autonomy in them to deliver their individual targets, building a culture of transparency and ability to give each other candid feedback, and above all, listening to each one of their ideas.

Chocolate – The Best of All Expressions!

Aparna is currently focused on expanding ZUCI’s product portfolio to entail a much wider range of chocolate and healthy options by heavily investing in R&D and marketing. She asserts, “Our objective is to be the destination chocolate place in all the markets that we operate in (in & beyond Hyderabad) and the gifting partner of choice – being able to customise, curate and being a part of everyone’s special occasions and celebrations. We believe in ‘Many emotions, One expression – Chocolate’ – that every occasion demands chocolate and we are the chosen one”. Moreover, she is also focused on educating Indian customers on the diverse variants and the USP of ZUCI’s products by breathing the motto – “Think Chocolate, Think ZUCI”.

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EXPERT OPINION

How Fintech Acceleration can Help in an ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’

Rohit Garg, Co-Founder & CEO, Smartcoin Financials

Rohit Garg is the Co-Founder and CEO at

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SmartCoin Financials, India’s first fully-automated next-gen Fintech company focused on providing financial access to the millions of innumerous selfemployed micro-entrepreneurs, micro-merchants and middle/lower-income salaried individuals using alternative credit assessment aided by data science and machine learning. In his leadership capacity, he is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day management and executive processes at the company. He also spearheads the overall strategy Rohit Garg

and conceptualization, product design, business development, capital/resource management, and other crucial aspects for the firm.

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ndia’s journey towards nationwide fintech adoption and financial inclusion is no walk in the park and contains its own set of obstacles.

The major challenges faced by the fintech industry delivering its products and services in such areas are the lack of banking credentials and financial literacy amongst a major part of the population. Fintech companies exhibit a well-established operational framework that can help them expand their permeation scale by generating greater

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With about 20% of the rural and almost 65% of the urban Indian population having access to internet-based services, the need for greater digitization through diversification of essential infrastructure and digital awareness at a pan-India scale is penultimate

awareness about financial products and services.

This is a critical aspect of increasing financial literacy in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. It not only assists finance companies to witness higher revenue levels but also accelerates India’s march towards financial inclusion and visible economic growth at a global stage.

The ensuing pandemic has fast- tracked the digital transformation, compelling the microfinance Industry to capitalize on the fintech boom. In wake of this rampant digitization, an in-depth reexamination of conventional processes is required. Novel waves of techpowered fintech that are reliant on digital processes for fast-paced loan dispersal are witnessing a greater upsurge in financial operations. The rising cover of API solutions for user on-boarding through KYC authentication and instant loan disbursal is spearheading a fintech revolution for the extant underserved quarters of the country. While countless challenges impede the progress of the pan-Indian fintech movement, the collaboration of new-age financial startups and their traditional legacy equivalents are catalyzing a speedy deployment of advanced fintech solutions.

There are numerous factors that are obstructing the country’s mission towards financial inclusion and economic reliance. The most evident amongst them is the fact that a substantial segment of the Indian population does not enjoy access to basic banking and financial services. According to a report by the World Bank, over 190 million adults in our

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country are without an active bank account.

Almost 20% of the masses are devoid of essential banking services from the very onset due to multiple factors. While 80% of our population has access to banking, only a negligible 5% can avail of unsecured credit services.

Even though a plethora of banking and financial players address the needs of the top and the bottom end of the country’s economic spectrum, it is the middle segment that lies bereft of financial services. This group mainly comprises self-employed micro-business owners, Blue, and Greycollared workers, etc. who are hitherto deprived of general banking and finance on account of their income instability, lack of documentation, and absence of dependable credit history.

By addressing various hurdles that are typical to the underserved section such as major setup costs, inept manual processes, the earlier mentioned lack of credit history and a dearth of fintech innovation are preventing payment and banking companies from tapping into the magnanimous $100 billion market potential of micro-loans.

But thanks to the rapid rise in finance technology, new-age payment companies and out-of-the-box financial players have the potential to tilt this situation over its head. By delivering specialized and fastspeed loans for short durations with almost zero paperwork and legal formalities, these entities are breaking pre-laid financial conventions and resolving a vast surfeit of underserved consumer requirements.

Serving the underserved is one of the most central challenges that mark India’s quest for economic and financial inclusion.

The Indian hinterland as opposed to the government’s nationwide digital India campaign is particularly notorious for its heavy dependency on cash-based transactions. With about 20% of the rural and

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almost 65% of the urban Indian population having access to internet-based services, the need for greater digitization through diversification of essential infrastructure and digital awareness at a pan-India scale is penultimate.

As per a report released by KPMG, cashless digital transactions are witnessing a steady rise at an annual CAGR of 12.7%.

The report further reveals that the number of merchants compliant with digital cashless payments has risen from 1.5 million in 201617 to over 10 million in about two years' time. Similarly, nationwide fintech adoption and permeation have risen from 52% in 2017 to about 87% in 2019 as per the EY Global Fintech Adoption Index 2019. Moreover, the adoption rate between the sexes slightly differed with about 88% of men utilizing fintech apps in contrast to 84% of female users. The highest consumer demographic that has adopted the digital fintech model belonged to the 25-44 age-group with 94% of them using it for their daily financial transactions and payment needs.

The biggest driver leading this largescale fintech adoption is the seamless money transfers and easy payments. About 94% swear by the fintech model owing to the streamlined transactions. This is followed by insurance at 76%, savings and investments at 67%, financial planning at 63%, and borrowings that account for about 61%.

The fintech industry has been further transformed with the advancement of hitech innovations such as Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. By optimising these cutting-edge technologies in data sciences and machine language, fintech companies can collate enormous amounts of user-generated data. These alternate data reserves can be then used by the various payment companies for credit monitoring before authorising micro and small-ticket loans to the underserved population.

With such overarching growth in technology and infrastructure, tech-powered fintech players are witnessing stupendous growth across all quarters. Interestingly, about 60-70% of this growth has been

As the journey towards financial inclusion at a pan-India scale speeds up with 80% of Indians gaining financial access, its multiplier effect can definitely rejuvenate the ailing economy

attributed to tier 2/3/4 cities on account of greater internet connectivity and increasing digital awareness. This is one of the most crucial steps in India’s race towards financial literacy and an ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’.

As the journey towards financial inclusion at a pan-India scale speeds up with 80% of Indians gaining financial access, its

multiplier effect can definitely rejuvenate the ailing economy. By accomplishing its various pre-laid sustainable development goals, India as a fast-developing economy can not only foster economic growth but also engage in the eradication of poverty amongst the underprivileged sections of our society. A vast surfeit of fintech corporations are driving the country’s campaign for an ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ by focusing on uplifting the current levels of employment and productivity. They are doing so through digital technological innovation and financial engineering of personalised loan products that can effectively address the financial needs of an aspiring Bharat.

Financial inclusion doesn’t just mean people having access to a bank account. It can only be achieved when every citizen of this country has complete and unbridled access to inexpensive and hi-utility financial products and service suites with regard to their payments, transactions, and wealth management. The government can host various incentives and initiatives to empower the fintech industry. These range from regulating fintech activities with flexibility, augmenting awareness levels to further financial literacy using popular media pathways, and including financial literacy as full-fledged courses in the curriculum of academic institutions.

The rapid development in various aspects of financial technology is paving India’s road to financial inclusion and an ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’. As fintech platforms are not deterred by traditional legacy processes and systems that are characteristic to other financial institutions such as banks and NBFCs, they can address the immense market potential more smoothly and easily. Having already established their diversified range of products and services in tier-1 cities, they are now gradually penetrating the rural as well as the remote regions.

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MOST INFLUENTIAL

BUSINESS LEADERS 2021

Nehaa Juneja, Founder, SkinWorks

A Homemade Brand that Adds Care to Skin Care

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ndian mothers and grandmothers know of homely remedies, and Indian kitchens are their treasure trove. From using turmeric for wounds to using neem for anti-bacterial, their arsenal of natural care is impressive and elaborative.

The story of Gurugram based SkinWorks too starts on similar lines, with a little girl growing up using orange and almond scrub, which her mother made in the kitchen. That simple routine gave birth to one of the most successful homegrown beauty brands in India.

Founder Nehaa Juneja started Skinworks during the plunge of the pandemic with the sole aim to create

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

natural, high-performing, and affordable beauty products that are safe for the users as well as the environment.

The Homespun Story Nehaa has always believed in the power of nature and was always an advocate of using organic products. However, the idea turned into a business proposition when she gave her childhood orange and almond scrub to her friends and received positive reviews. Sensing the potential of her natural beauty products, she realized that it is the secret that is meant to be shared with the world.

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Nehaa Juneja

My focus remains on what makes the customer happy and satisfied with our range of products, and we let that guide us on our future path

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SkinWorks is not only about scrubs and also offers a range of products, including face masks, makeup removers, and toners. These products are non-toxic and free from any preservative. The SkinWorks team ensures that their customers know that via mere lip-service telling them the ingredients and the procedure that entails manufacturing the products.

Nehaa believes that the skincare industry is about the product and how the brand engages with its customers and has cracked the code to build a loyal audience.

As a homegrown brand, most contacts with clients are on a one-on-one basis, which helps the SkinWorks team understand the product journey and the customer sentiment that goes into purchasing the product. This personal interaction adds a unique touch to the SkinWorks line of products and services.

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The team made its first sale on Instagram, which paved the way for future orders. While there were days when business was scarce, the team did not abandon its social media efforts. It continued to reach out to its audience, reminding them of their personal touch and the familiarity of their homegrown brand.

"The consumer is aware, educated, and curious today and he is going to decide our future journey. That is why I put a lot of emphasis on customer feedback on my products. My focus remains on what makes the customer happy and satisfied with our range of products, and we let that guide us on our future path," states Nehaa.

The Hurdles on the Way One can call SkinWorks a pandemic baby - having incepted during the pandemic, the journey of the brand is inspirational.

SkinWorks was incepted during the pandemic and didn't affect the business negatively; however, with everything shut, sourcing the ingredients/ raw material was quite challenging.

Initially, there weren't many orders, but soon the word spread, and SkinWorks started

One can call SkinWorks a pandemic baby having incepted during the pandemic, the journey of the brand is inspirational

getting recognized as a brand. However, the good news was short-lived as many outstation orders had to be cancelled due to the lack of courier services. Moreover, for a small brand, changing customer perceptions is an uphill climb, especially in the skincare sector, where many brands hold the roost for decades.

But that did not stop the wheel, and for the first few months, the team maintained a three-product range and tried to stay connected with customers through their social media page. Their personal interactions, feedback, and client analysis

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helped improve the product's quality, which further enabled SkinWorks to slowly but steadily carve their niche in the beauty market as one of the most value-enriched brands.

As the tough gets going, the going gets tough and Nehaa tides through the challenges by staying true to her vision and abiding by her father's words, who an entrepreneur himself told her to 'Never let success to your head and failures to your heart.'

The Future Pathway With the world opening up and people getting back on the retail and self-care bandwagon, there is no better time for SkinWorks to launch new products to their elegant line. The team also looks at adding new categories to the SkinWorks catalogue and keeping the wheels well-oiled and the momentum going. Moreover, since social media is one of their most essential engagement funnels, the team will also expand its digital footprint and increase its customer database through social media platforms, online ads, and much more!

"We have been able to increase our operations and rise up to our current position because my focus has always been on quality in terms of product and customer engagement which automatically takes care of consumer satisfaction. I think the key is always to be receptive to new ideas and viewpoints other than your own. Also, never be afraid to ask for help when needed because if you don't ask, you won't receive it. After all, the skincare industry is all about making your customers happy!" signs off Nehaa.

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LEADER’S INSIGHTS

How to Harness Artificial Intelligence to Drive Surge in Lending Growth

Shilpa Bhandari, Senior Vice President and Global Head, Banking, Financial Services and Insurance, Birlasoft

Shilpa Bhandari is Senior Vice President

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and Global Head of Banking, Financial Services and Insurance at Birlasoft. Her goal is to have relentless focus on the clients by building strong teams, creating differentiated client value resulting in business growth, customer satisfaction & high team motivation. She has over 20 years of experience in the field and has previously worked with NTT Data services, Dell and Wipro Technologies.

Shilpa Bhandari

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here do paper-based manual loan products with a 2-3 weeks processing time fit in today's increasingly digitizing economy?

The short answer: nowhere. Leading personal and commercial credit companies are redesigning their products from KYC to riskmanagement, loan decisioning, and underwriting with artificial intelligence and automation. Today's customers - whether they are looking for personal loans or commercial credit - find a week-long loan-approval time obsolete. Moreover, leaders are upping customer expectations with delightful products that are personalized and reward them for making better choices. To survive in this cutthroat industry dotted with billions of dollars of untapped opportunities, it is time for lenders to adopt digital.

Artificial intelligence holds the keys to thriving in today's cut-throat marketplace that's getting fiercer with the arrival of alternative lending platforms and fintechs

The State of Lending Business In 2019, a subprime auto-lender was grappling with record low volumes of underwriting, and concerned senior management was busy formulating strategies to boost the volume and move capital faster. Several companies dealt with the same problem during the 2020 pandemic, but with added operational constraints. Manual home loan processing typically takes about 52 days, for example - and this year, loan approval rates have dropped by 50% on an average. In today's digital economy, leading finance companies are capitalizing on vast amounts of consumer data and artificial intelligence to turn the tables around. Artificial intelligence in loan processing turns it instantaneous, cost-effective, convenient, and boost loan volumes in no time. In other words, artificial intelligence holds the keys to thriving in today's cut-throat marketplace that's getting fiercer with the arrival of alternative lending platforms and fintechs.

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The Rise of Digital-led Automated Loan Processing Traditional loan processing usually constitutes manual reviewing of documents for risk profiling, credit review, underwriting, servicing, and delinquency management. The manual nature of these operations results in significantly high costs for the lenders. It could manifest in the form of expensive employee-hours, lost time, and bad customer experience. However, in a digitally interconnected world, these processes have become obsolete and are a significant roadblock for the lenders who want to achieve high profitability in the lowest possible time.

Personal and business credit customers alike want a seamless and lightningfast loan approval and fund disbursement process. Observing this puzzle in

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Artificial intelligence in loan processing turns it instantaneous, cost-effective, convenient, and boost loan volumes in no time

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the context of increasingly massive amounts of customer data, Fintech companies took the lead and gave birth to artificial intelligence and automation-based lending.

Driving Digital Transformation in Lending with Artificial Intelligence and Automation Automated KYC Verification Automated KYC processing leverages computer vision technologies. These advanced technologies use deep learning models for processing image and biometric data, and 3rd party cloud services for cross-validating data from multiple sources. Coupled with end-to-end automation of the KYC process, lenders can now reduce the traditional 2-3 days long, manual and physical process to an instantaneous, low-touch digital process.

In addition to surging onboarding rates, automated, artificial intelligence-assisted

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KYC verification can eliminate human error and massively reduce onboarding costs.

Artificial Intelligence for Customer Data Remediation As the variety, velocity, and volume of data accumulating at lending enterprises increases, industry leaders are already looking at artificial intelligence-based models and techniques to remediate customer data according to compliance requirements. Between 2008 and 2016, banks paid USD 0.32 Tn dollars in the form of compliance-related fines. Wherever paper-based, manual data remediation processes are a money and workforce effort blackhole, AI can help enterprises attain granular visibility and pinpoint missing values, contradictions, and SLA violations. Moreover, AI-based data remediation also paves the way for zero-error classification of accounts in line with specific compliance requirements by leveraging a centralized repository of

enterprise data. It also helps the lenders improve loan application fraud detection and drastically reduce first party frauds.

Advanced Analytics for Customer Insights While customers today show readiness to share their data for exceptional services, lenders must use more than a few factors in predicting customers' eligibility for loans. Advanced analytics techniques such as multiple regression, high-dimensional classification algorithms, and predictive modeling can help lenders effectively predict the default probability of a case using hundreds of data points. Making such predictive models sharper requires highly optimized, selflearning machine learning models. The upside? By deploying such features, lenders can now offer preapproved loans to customers, boost sales volumes, and further reduce loan processing times, while improving credit decisioning from a risk perspective.

Machine Learning for Credit Risk Analysis As the diversity and volume of applicant profiles increases, traditional risk management techniques are falling short. To push a higher volume of sales and, consequently, revenue through the enterprise's pipelines, cutting-edge machine learning techniques such as Artificial Neural Networks and Random Forests can help crunch high-dimensional and varied data within seconds to assess the creditworthiness of prospective customers and fast-track the approval process. In addition to eliminating bias, usage of machine learning credit scoring models and automated loan underwriting is also empowering lenders to open up their products for more customers and fast - some lenders already see a significant improvement in default rates and consequent losses against their products.

Automated Loan Underwriting An automated underwriting system requires lenders to effectively put the pieces together - that is, a robust and lean KYC process, high level of automation,

and automated loan decisioning. Credit decisioning systems are already being reshaped by models that account for the minutiae of a customer's data - like bill payment timings and spending habits in addition to traditional factors. Such models help enterprises build a low-touch underwriting process that brings human attention to outliers, thereby increasing the speed of application to disbursement while helping boost sales and save costs simultaneously.

Banks can augment rule-based underwriting with machine learning models to improve their accuracy.

These machine learning models continuously train themselves as they evaluate customer data and creditworthiness. Through supervised learning, the bank can refine these models and better control the credit decisioning process. By applying automation to this decisioning process, underwriters can free themselves from cumbersome sub-processes like evaluating credit risk scores, reviewing all applications with the same rigor, and not utilizing the past data for quicker decision making. The underwriters can tweak the rules and models to ensure a balanced mix of man and machine intervention.

Final Words The use of artificial intelligence in loan processing is catching up fast with banks and financial institutions.

Early adopters of digital lending and lending automation processing systems witness 80% faster disbursement to customers, 30-50% reduced timespend on decisioning, better risk profiling, and greater profitability, states McKinsey. In an increasingly digital world, paper-based, traditional lending processes are already becoming obsolete. High-touch manual processes are becoming unviable for many as a result of reduced workforce availability and high competitiveness. This shift presents an opportunity to reimagine the lending process - and push the lever to drive digital-led lending growth. Leaders are already looking at building embedded and integrated credit products and a trillion-dollar micro-credit opportunity. Those that are lagging must leap today to stay in the game tomorrow.

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LEADER’S INSIGHTS

CIOs in India will Need to Spend More on Business continuity, Remote Working, and Workforce Collaboration

Vimal Venkatram, Country Manager - India, Snowflake

“Indian organisations were on a steady

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pace towards cloud adoption for the better part of the decade, but the COVID-19 pandemic that led to lockdowns this year has accelerated cloud adoption,” opines Vimal Venkatram, Country Manager -India, Snowflake. An experienced executive with over 15 years in the information technology industry, Vimal Venkatram is responsible for growing Snowflake's business in India.

Vimal specialises in data management Vimal Venkatram

solutions across all verticals such as retail, manufacturing and financial services, and has a deep regional experience, especially in India and Southeast Asia. In a conversation with CXO Outlook, Vimal Venkatram talks about India's cloud computing market, changes in cloud computing adoption rate due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Snowflake’s Data Cloud Platform, and much more.

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Indian organisations were on a steady pace towards cloud adoption for the better part of the decade, but the COVID-19 pandemic that led to lockdowns this year has accelerated cloud adoption

How much has the technology start-ups suffered due to COVID-19?

With over 9,300 tech start-ups, India continues to be the third-largest tech start-up ecosystem in the world. According to NASSCOM, 90 per cent of tech start-ups in India have registered a decline in their revenue during COVID-19.

However, investments and start-ups showed resilience, as India saw a rapid shift to digital services and payments. NASSCOM found 50 per cent of tech start-ups have pivoted to new business opportunities, focusing on emerging technologies like Cloud, IoT, and AI. Due to COVID-19, companies focusing on growth sectors like EdTech, FinTech, and HealthTech are looking to register positive growth in the future.

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Has there been an increase in cloud computing adoption due to the COVID-19 pandemic?

Indian organisations were on a steady pace towards cloud adoption for the better part of the decade, but the COVID-19 pandemic that led to lockdowns this year has accelerated cloud adoption. Since organisations have become more data-driven in their decision making, cloud technology has emerged as a front runner for the optimal harnessing of insights from data. According to IDC's COVID-19 Impact on IT spending Survey, 64 per cent of Indian organisations were expected to increase demand for cloud computing,

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More about

Vimal Venkatram

Before joining Snowflake in 2019, Vimal led the retail and manufacturing businesses for Mulesoft, a Salesforce company, across Southeast Asia. He also previously held senior positions

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with Oracle and Citrix. Vimal has a Bachelor's degree in Economics from St. Xavier's College in Mumbai and an MBA from the Welingkar Institute of Management in Mumbai. He is also a professional Tabla player who has performed on the global stage, trained under legends Ustad Alla Rakha and Pandit Arvind Mulgaonkar.

while 56 per cent anticipated a need for cloud software to support the new normal. Organisations in India have realised the benefits of moving to the cloud to acquire new customers, retain the existing customer base, and achieve above-average profitability. Sectors like education for online classes, financial services, retail, manufacturing, and media have seen rapid adoption of cloud-based solutions.

What is the size of the cloud computing market in India? How is it doing at present?

According to NASSCOM, India's Public Cloud market stood at ₹ 170 billion in FY2020 and at a growth rate of ~30 per cent CAGR, which will reach ₹ 630 billion by FY2025. To adhere to the continued government restrictions on social distancing, CIOs in India will need to spend more on business continuity, remote working, and workforce collaboration. This means a shift in spending toward technologies such as Desktop-as-a-service (DaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), virtual private networks (VPN), and security. The overall cloud adoption in India has increased significantly, resulting in an increase in spending.

This trend will continue as reliance on digital operations is on the rise.

How Snowflake is different from other players in the sector?

Snowflake’s Data Cloud enables organisations to securely share data across their business ecosystem. With its cloud-built architecture, data sharing eliminates the need to move or copy data. Those who are granted access simply reference the data in a controlled and secure manner, including across regions, cloud providers, and even

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companies. Snowflake provides the multicloud ability, data sharing capability, and easy-to-use service. The service is charged by per second billing, where the compute and storage operations are charged separately. Snowflake's Data Cloud delivers seamless data collaboration, reduces costs, reveals new business insights, and helps strengthen business relationships. This is what sets us apart from the other industry players. Besides, Snowflake's unique architecture enables customers to run multiple workloads across multiple teams without resource contention, thus maximising performance and efficiency. These include data engineering, data lake, data warehouse, data science, data applications, and data sharing. Start-ups that are already on the cloud can adopt Snowflake to manage their workloads. For traditional enterprise customers with on-premises data centres, this is a great way to move to the cloud seamlessly.

ensures that the data is safely integrated with user's federated SSO and a userfriendly interface.

• At Snowflake, we track every login, transaction, and data transfer. We also send a comprehensive report on all activities to the user's security tools.

• With our strong data security system and Role-Based Access Control feature, the user can control the data access as per their designation/role in the organisation.

• In case of accidental loss of data or any other unprecedented situation, Snowflake provides options to ensure that the data can be recovered.

Snowflake meets NIST 800-145 requirements and is also FedRAMP ready. In addition, SOC 2 Type 2, PCI DSS compliance, and support for HIPAA compliance validate the level of security for Snowflake. We believe that our customers should focus on analysing their data rather than worrying about data security.

How do you ensure data security?

Snowflake is committed to the security of our customers and their data. Security was baked into Snowflake’s platform from the very beginning. Snowflake provides industry-leading features that ensure the highest levels of security for your account and users, as well as all the data you store in Snowflake. Some of the common security features that we provide in all Snowflake editions are: • End-to-End Encryption which means users’ communications are always encrypted and integrated with cloud provider private networking.

• Fully Encrypted Storage which ensures that stored/saved data is always in encrypted form while handled by the Snowflake drivers and systems.

• We have a built-in Strong MultiFactor Authentication system which

What is your advice to start-ups looking to navigate through this challenging time?

Companies need to keep customers at the centre of the conversation. There needs to be a focus on the changes to customer behaviours and requirements, as well as adapting to new business models. It is pertinent for companies to explore avenues for new opportunities and sectors with a focus on customer relevance.

Our advice to start-ups includes: • Increase digitisation by enabling and encouraging digitisation in impacted areas, for example, supply chain, local stores, etc.

• Use cost-effective technology, such as cloud computing and data analytics.

• Avoid incurring heavy investments in technology by leveraging scalable options.

• Build partnership with technology solution providers, customers, and other stakeholders.

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EXPERT OPINION

Eldercare Reforms, Still in the Backstage!

Rajagopal G, Co-Founder & CEO, KITES Rajagopal is an experienced business leader &

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a healthcare entrepreneur who chartered a career in this sector out of his passion to be part of this growing eco-system & contribute to it meaningfully.

Prior to founding KITES, Raj served as the CEO of HCG Milann, a leader in the treatment of infertility & was also the CEO of Motherhood, a boutique birthing chain. He carries with him a rich experience in the field of management and finance across FMCG, Tech and Oil & Gas industries.

Rajagopal G

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hen I glanced through the Economic Survey 2020-21, I was disappointed that I could not find any discussion on the growing elderly population. I went deeper into the document, I realised that the DoEA (Department of Economic Affairs) has been overwhelmed with the basic healthcare issues that our country is facing and hence eldercare is still in the backstage.

Healthcare takes center stage!

The document has dwelled deep into the present healthcare status in India and the need for a relook at the design of healthcare systems.

Let us take a quick look at some of these facts.

• India was ranked 145th out of 180 countries on quality and access of healthcare (Global Burden of Disease Study 2016). Despite

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India is still low on healthcare human resources be it doctors or nurses/midwives. Around 74 per cent of outpatient care and 65 per cent of hospitalisation care is provided through the private sector in urban India

improvements in healthcare access and quality (healthcare access and quality scored at 41.2 in 2016, up from 24.7 in 1990), India continues to underperform in comparison to other Low and Lower Middle Income (LMIC) countries. Only few subSaharan countries, some pacific islands, Nepal and Pakistan were ranked below India.

• India ranks 179th out of 189 countries in prioritization accorded to health in its government budgets (consolidated union & state government). The state expenditure on healthcare is highly variable across states and is not fully explained by the income level of the state.

• India has the highest levels of “Out of Pocket” expenditures in the world. An increase in public health expenditure from the current levels to 3 per cent of GDP (as envisaged by the National Health Policy 2017) that can reduce the OOP expenditure from 60 per cent currently to about 30 per cent. This has been demonstrated by China, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan as well.

• Increase in life expectancy has a positive correlation to per-capital public health expenditure (cast a burden on the system) • 65% of deaths in India occur due to NCD (Non-Communicable Diseases) (top 3 of them being Ischemic Heart Disease, COPD & Stroke). While we have improved on MMR/IMR we still have a long way to go in improving these metrices.

• At 3-4 per cent, the hospitalisation rates in India are among the lowest in the world; the average for middle income countries is 8-9 per cent and 13-17 per cent for OECD countries (OECD Statistics). Low hospitalisation rates reflect lower access and utilisation of healthcare in India.

• India is still low on healthcare human resources be it doctors or nurses/midwives.

Around 74 per cent of outpatient care and 65 per cent of hospitalisation care is

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provided through the private sector in urban India.

There is information asymmetry which leads to failures especially in an unregulated private sector market.

• The economic survey clearly recommends an increased public spend on healthcare to improve accessibility and affordability. It also recommends a redesign of our healthcare system/approach towards it.

Good news is that PM_JAY is working!

In the short span of time since its introduction, the PMJAY in 2018 (PM Jan Arogya Yojana) has demonstrated positive outcomes in providing healthcare access to the most vulnerable sections of the public.

About 50Cr Indians are benefitting from the scheme which provides for cover of upto 5lakhs per annum for each of the family on a floater basis. About 1,500 procedures (covering 23 specialities) are covered in the scheme with general medicine, general surgery followed

by OBGYN are the major clinical specialities that have been used. Further, states that implemented PM-JAY have fared better than the ones that haven’t yet enrolled (eg West Bengal).

Elder Care Industry-A bigger challenge ahead!

Yes, I agree a lot needs to be done in the healthcare domain in general. But the rate of growth of the older population in India warrants an urgent attention from the policy makers. Initiatives such as PM-JAY which benefits the marginalised are welcome, it doesn’t still solve the larger eldercare issues that will emerge in the coming days.

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According to the earlier report, it is estimated that by 2041, the population would touch 151 crores, of which about 24 crores would be 60 and above (~16%). Healthy life expectancy at the age of 60 now stands at 12.9 years (12.5 years for males; 13.3 years for females), and it is lower than that of other major developed and emerging economies A separate ministry may be warranted to deal with this issue of magnitude. A comprehensive policy document will need to be released covering various aspects that can be dealt with by both the center and states. This should take into account both healthy and the sick of this population.

A robust public private partnership is important to make this a success. Geriatric care needs to be taken to the grass root levels starting from preventive care & robust primary care system. Social security of these elderly besides their productive engagement must form the core of policy thinking. Development & investment in appropriate infrastructure development keeping this population in mind is very important.

Conclusion While the economic survey of 2018-19 dealt with the issue of ageing in detail, we haven’t seen much in this direction thereafter.

Considering the enormity of the issue on hand, I urge the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Health & Family welfare, Finance Ministry to accelerate work in this direction on an urgent basis and involving various stake holders in this initiative.

Its time to bring Elder care to the front stage as well!

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MOST INFLUENTIAL

BUSINESS LEADERS 2021

Pooja Shukla, Co-Founder & COO, LearnKartS

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Globalizing the Indian EdTech Industry T

hough online education has seen over 15 years of meaningful existence, 2020 will be known as a milestone year for the sector, with the Covid-19 pandemic forcing students and parents to embrace e-learning as the most viable way of studying. While the world is expected to come out of the impact of the pandemic sooner than later, experts believe that e-learning is going to be part and parcel of everyone’s life co-existing with classroom or faceto-face teaching. In the pandemic, many businesses have been adversely affected, many shut down, but for the e-Learning domain, the pandemic time has been a blessing in disguise. Due to the Online Self-

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Paced Learning (OSL), e-learning content demand has accelerated multifold.

Universities and corporates have understood the importance of e-learning, and edtech platforms like LearnKartS grew exponentially during this pandemic.

“For us, the main challenge has been to manage the increased demand of e-learning content which by all means is a good problem to have. On the infrastructure side, the challenge has been to ensure the smooth functioning of the employees working from home from various locations across India. So equipping them with the required infrastructure and setting up a mutually benefitting work culture has been the focus for us in

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Pooja Shukla

I always believe that the best way to learn and grow is to learn every day from people around you, leaders around you, and situations around you

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this testing times,” says Pooja Shukla, Co-Founder & COO, LearnKartS. Partnering with B2B Customers (corporates and universities) for their end-end Training needs, LearnKartS covers the spectrum of deliverables right from curating & creating the e-Learning Training Content, Developing Capstone Projects, Demos, Assignments, and Assessments across Technical, Process, Compliance courses. Associated with a leading University like Manipal in helping them take their technical and management courses to an online platform, the company aims to partner with their B2B Clients to provide them the best-in-class e-learning artifacts. “On the product side our focus has been on providing online certification preparation course – PMP, PgMP, RMP, AWS, Security among many others to our learners,” adds Pooja.

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Providing Top-Notch Solutions Having worked for more than two decades in the IT Industry with some of the top MNCs, Pooja enjoyed driving the latest technologies and working with excellent teams across the globe, but there was something still missing. That is when she joined hands with Himanshu, Co-founder, and CEO, LearnKartS, and established this company with a common mission to improve the quality of training material and to enable self-paced learning.

“We strongly believed that in this age, content quality and on-demand training content is the need of the hour and could be a major game-changer, with that mission LearnKartS was established,” reminisces Pooja.

Initially, a rollercoaster which they overcame successfully with the help of their team, coaches, and mentors, Pooja has been fortunate right from the beginning of her career to have worked with great leaders

Partnering with B2B Customers (corporates and universities) for their end-end Training needs, LearnKartS covers the spectrum of deliverables right from curating & creating the e-Learning Training Content, Developing Capstone Projects, Demos, Assignments, and Assessments across Technical, Process, Compliance courses

and coaches. “I always believe that the best way to learn and grow is to learn every day from people around you, leaders around you, and situations around you. This enabled me to stay focused and overcome the challenges with poise,” says Pooja.

Attending client calls for the major part of the day, Pooja works on feedbacks, retrospectives, strategic planning, and business development activities. She opines, “Running a startup needs everything right from elementary to arduous, taking care of each of them with limited resources sometimes could be stressful.”

With a super team in place who are self-driven and highly committed, Pooja has created a highly trustbased environment that allows her team to be honest and dedicated. Thorough with their work, along with making mistakes, help them learn and perfect the skill they want.

A people’s manager, Pooja feels her biggest achievement to be wanted to work with by everyone.

Although revenue, numbers, growth, success is vital, she feels her team, employees, and customers are her biggest asset and the key milestone she has achieved.

Working with many established companies like Simplilearn, Skillsoft, NASSCOM, Salesforce, Manipal University, Edureka, and many other pioneers in the IT and training Industry, LearnKartS plans to expand their services vertical to global tangents. Currently focusing on Pan India Market for its B2B Customers, LearnKartS is all set to have its footprints in the UK, US, and the markets in the rest of the world. “We are also working on becoming a focused ‘Certification Preparation Company’ and launch our products in the Global Market and become the largest e-Learning Content Company Globally,” concludes Pooja.

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EXPERT OPINION

How Prepared are the Offices for Another Lockdown?

Ashish Aggarwal, CEO and Founder, Indo Innovations

Indo Office Solution’s CEO, Ashish Aggarwal,

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has more than 15 years of experience as an entrepreneur. Indo Innovations, the brainchild of Ashish, is an umbrella brand of Indo Office Solutions Pvt. Ltd. Despite having a settled business and a strong background, Ashish did not compromise on his educational goals. A BBA graduate from Bradford University, UK (IILM), he further pursued MBA in Strategic and International Business from ENPC, Paris. Following the completion of his MBA, he cracked a suitable job Ashish Aggarwal

offer in Paris, but he had his own dreams to chase.

A

s the world was completely shaken by the pandemic, a lot of people lost their jobs, such strict were the safety measures, taken by the government for the safety of people. However, then with the introduction of work from home policy came little relief to the workers, which allowed them to carry on to their office life, but just from their homes. In the beginning, even that arrangement seemed

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With the work from home furniture range, the office furniture industry has made it possible for the workers to carry on to their office lives with more productivity and ease, as they fit the lifestyle of every worker

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to fail when people were unable to bring in the same productivity from their homes due to the unavailability of the right office furniture type, which was later resolved.

According to the experts, the offices are more than ever prepared for another lockdown, which would not be possible without the furniture range designed for working from homes. In some organizations, employees are reporting more productivity while working from homes, which is an achievement in itself, due to which, many industry leaders are considering work from home policy to be permanent for most of their employees.

Various industry leaders believe that work from home is the future of offices, which came as a life saviour in the lockdown, is likely to be put in effect permanently. And it has been possible only because of the contribution of the office furniture industry, which worked day and night to design such productive furniture range, which allowed workers to carry on to their office life from homes. In the situation of another lockdown, while many other industries, from Foods & Beverage industry to the Real Estate industry are likely to suffer, the offices on the other hand might not be affected by another lockdown.

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More about

Ashish Aggarwal

Ashish was always determined to join his father's business and take it to new levels of success. Thus, after declining a golden job opportunity in Paris, he joined his father's business in 2003. The father-son duo achieved great penetration in the market, with their deep understanding of the business. In the year 2009, Ashish added a new wing to his company and introduced its own brand 'INDO'. There has been no looking back since then. In time he has collaborated with several internationally acclaimed brands from the USA, South Korea, Spain, Germany, New Zealand, etc. who are leading exporters of varied office equipment to more than 100 countries. Other than a thriving professional life, Ashish believes in living his personal life to the fullest. He loves travelling, go-karting, cricket and reading when he is not busy pursuing his professional dreams.

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From the ergonomic chairs to the mobile desks, the office furniture sector made sure to provide a huge range of office furniture to their employees. It can be assumed that work from home furniture range comes with more benefits when compared to office furniture range, as it is specially designed to provide employees with the utmost comfort while keeping it easily accessible.

Some such furniture include standing desks, ergonomic chairs, corner desks, and many more. Where standing desks are new to the industry, allowing a person to work on a desk while standing, they are designed specially keeping in mind the health benefits they can add on to the work life of any worker. On the other hand, ergonomic

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chairs are for the workers who wish to work on till long hours without having their back hurt, as ergonomic chairs come with the lumbar support.

With the work from home furniture range, the office furniture industry has made it possible for the workers to carry on to their office lives with more productivity and ease, as they fit the lifestyle of every worker. For the employees with tight space in their homes, there are corner tables and desks which can be assembled, and for employees complaining about not having comfortable chairs, there are ergonomic chairs & standing desks, making every work from home arrangement possible and effective.

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EXPERT OPINION

In a Sharing Economy, How Can Investment and Lending SuperCharge the FinTech World

Zafar Imam, CEO, Finshell

Zafar Imam is the CEO at FinShell, a

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leading financial services brand that introduced smartphone-based financial services in India powering two platforms OPPO Kash & realme PaySa. Zafar is one of the co-founders of the company and he was the Chief Business Officer and a Director in the company since April 2019.

Zafar has two decades plus of experience in consumer banking and FinTech space. He served at Axis Bank for more than 13 years and worked in different roles building the consumer Zafar Imam

finance business.

W

e are dwelling in a quite exciting phase in human history.

The global business ecosystem is undergoing rapid changes, wherein the physical boundaries are fading faster than we can think. Everything continues to be more sophisticated, evolved, and time-efficient - as technology drives a majority of these changes.

So, it is quite natural for our financial world – which forms the very basis of day-to-day human exchanges – to experience such tectonic shifts as well. A new financial order has come to the fore. It goes by the name of FinTech. Now, financial transactions rely less on

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

New FinTech startups are redefining the ecosystem from the ground level up

typical red-tapes and more on nimble algorithms.

But how can investments and lending in a sharing economy supercharge this promising segment?

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Sharing Economy: The building blocks of a hyper-efficient financial system To begin with, most financial transactions are driven by the need to conduct an exchange. It is usually an exchange of products or services amongst at least two parties, i.e. the provider and the receiver. An economic value is designated to the said product or service and the trade-off takes place. Regardless of whether you are purchasing a house, applying for a new line of credit, or booking a vacation abroad, all systems are overall comparable and fall within these guiding principles. Simply put, people (or entities) associate, they establish trust, and then they partake in some form of exchange.

In the financial world, the greater part of such exchanges takes place through representatives such as banks. However, new FinTech startups are redefining the ecosystem from the ground level up. Utilizing innovation instead of institutional gravitas, they have been making significant contributions to the ecosystem Such innovations are further being supported by an ever-increasing influx of technology. For instance, more FinTech players are incorporating blockchain technology to ensure the infallibility of their datasets. Blockchain is

CXO OUTLOOK March 2021

Open banking can unlock avenues for all stakeholders including the banks, FinTech players, and their end-customers

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known to eliminate data manipulation from the system. It also paves the way for real-time authentication of multi-party interactions, thereby eliminating third parties from the economic value chain.

So far, banks and other traditional FIs have held exclusive rights in this space.

Now, their status is getting tested by such innovative, tech-driven, and disruptive business models.

To set everything straight, we should extensively characterize how a future sharing economy would reflect in our

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financial transactions. In different business sectors, for example, ridesharing or room-leasing, sharingeconomy-based market players keep finding new uses for existing resources as in the case of Uber and Airbnb. In doing so, they redirect market interest by leveraging innovation.

In our context, synergies between banks and FinTech organizations could mark the rise of a whole new business opportunity under the sharing economy.

Open banking can unlock avenues for all stakeholders including the banks, FinTech players, and their endcustomers. The latter sets up a more extensive biological system of banks and FinTech organizations, wherein banks benefit from the technological ingenuity of startups while startups benefit from a large pool of customers and extensive banking data to backtest their algorithms.

When this ecosystem is set up, banks and fintech organizations can work together symbiotically. The following are the 5 pointers that sum up the idea of a FinTech-oriented sharing economy: • Quickly developing, time-efficient, and open market • Adjusting itself as per macroeconomic and microeconomic data points, primarily rooted in human reasons and importance • Technology increasingly eliminates obstructions to confiding in individuals or new companies • More noteworthy degrees of development, client centricity, and nimbleness to change • Diminished costs In a nutshell, the sharing economy can extend far-reaching benefits to everyone from banks and FinTech platforms to the broader market at large. So, let us eagerly wait and watch how it transforms our financial world in its all-new avatar.

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CXO OUTLOOK March 2021