- Data is of key focus for CIOs in the BFSI sector for capturing the customer journeys, events and related incidents to yield more customer-focused and business-driven opportunities which can be monetized.
- To improve collaborations and gain agility, Low code – No Code AI tools are potential technological solutions for this industry.
- CIOs continue to look for solutions and technology partners who can support their enterprise throughout the transformation, leveraging cloud to generate incremental business value along the journey.
Digital transactions continue to be on the rise and companies in the BFSI sector are strategizing to attract more consumers across the whole gamut of available channels. CIOs here are working on models that bridge the tech silos and deliver enhanced customer experience.
At the recent edition of “Digital Leaders Club”, curated by CORE Media and powered by Google Cloud India, CIOs from BFSI organisations and Google India executives, discussed their digital journeys, potential opportunities and solutions.
Anoop Mathur, Founder & President, CORE Media, facilitated the discussions and opened the sessions for the CIOs by emphasizing on the need for customer-centric approach for organizations. He said, “In the current business landscape, the consumer behaviour and expectations are continually evolving and ever changing. Businesses are re-evaluating their processes and service with more adaptability and flexibility. Technology has evolved alongside to aid this growth and BFSI companies are not shying away from exploring and implementing digital technologies and leveraging the cloud.
Acknowledging the technological advancements to support customer-centricity, Anantharaman Balakrishnan, Sales Director – Google Cloud India mentioned, “Customers expect seamless interaction, personalised experience, and faster service, Technology is the key driver for BFSI companies to create the capabilities to reimagine customer centricity.”
Hybrid Multi-Cloud is the way forward
New competitors and rising consumer expectations are impacting the BFSI industry faster than ever before. While the companies gear up with strategies for digital technologies, Cloud becomes the driver for accelerating growth. Speaking on this, Chief Manager – IT of the largest insurance corporation said “Adoption of technology has evolved from being product-focused to now being customer-focused. To achieve this, organisations need to access customer data and insights and gain a deeper visibility into consumer behaviour. Cloud has enabled faster turnaround time, and digitizing customer acquisition and onboarding. This generates better insights and accelerates product development and innovation. Hybrid Multi-Cloud is the way forward to accelerate customer-centricity.”
To this the Vice-President IT of a leading stock broking firm added, “Customer-centricity is not just knowing what the customer wants and delivering that. It is identifying what interests them, what generates more value and what can help the organisation build meaningful relationships with their customers. Cloud plays a bigger role building this relationship.
As the lines between traditional and digital processes seem to be blurring, technology is leveraged to create more personalized products and services for the customers.”
Although cloud-based computing has numerous tangible benefits for banking and financial institutions, CIOs in the sector cited challenges in migrating their systems and activities from on-premises to the cloud.
Data driven customer-centricity
Financial institutions churn out volumes of day on a daily basis. Customer-centricity requires companies to re-evaluate and continuously update what they know about their customers, who their customers are, what interests them, what they value, and how they seek services. Data lies at the heart of this type of relationship.
While companies collect massive quantities of data from their core-processes, they are now leveraging technology to gather meaningful data from other applications that interact with the customers throughout their journey.
Speaking on need for such tools, Head-IT for a leading general insurance firm said, “Data is of no use unless applied to use-cases. AI cannot be everywhere. We, as CIOs, are aware of the huge gamut of technology that has evolved, along with Cloud. However, we are keen to explore Low-Code, No-Code AI applications that enable faster deployment and help us meet the changing customer demands.”
Speaking on the technology front, Vaibhav Gawde, Head of Customer Engineering, Financial Services - Google, added “As Contact centres progressively evolve to deliver enhanced customer experience, Google’s Contact Centre AI offers a cost-effective way to improve caller experience & operational efficiency. It empowers the customer facing teams with continuous support with real-time assistance. This tool leverages NLP to deepen data insights and helps organisations generate value from the data.”
Risks and Compliance – A key concern
The BFSI industry is highly regulated and although technology offers support in scalability and growth, managing compliance and data-related risks is a major concern for CIOs.
Speaking on this, Deputy Chief General Manager of a leading urban co-operative banking institution said, “Operational resilience and managing internal and external threats is a priority. Although we are open to adopting new technologies, the risks arising from the adoption of innovative activities are proactively and appropriately managed. We seek technology partners and solution providers that can support us in managing risks and governance while we steer our organisation in the strategic direction.”
Addressing the concerns of the CIOs, Vaibhav Gawde added, “Google Cloud is committed to streamline regulatory reporting and provide smart analytics with modern cloud-based architecture. With a footprint in 24 regions and 73 zones allowing us to serve customers in over 200 countries, with a globally distributed support function so we can support customers even in adverse circumstances.”
CIOs emphasized on the fact that adoption of Cloud is inevitable and most of the companies have begun their digital journey on cloud. However, amidst the numerous technology tools and platforms that get a bit overwhelming, CIOs seek specific solutions and partners that help them accelerate their digital priorities.
