December 26, 2024, A Conversation with Mr. Adhir Mane, CHRO, Lifestyle Business, Raymond Ltd. About the speaker: Mr. Adhir Mane has over 28 years of experience working in leading companies like Cisco, Mahindra & Mahindra, Piramal Healthcare, Reliance Industries, Warner-Lambert, which is now Pfizer, VSF, and the Landmark Group. A certified HR analytics professional, he specializes in HR strategy and has handled HR across geographies in the UK, Canada, and the Middle East. Q. Change is the only constant Ans: The prevalent law of nature I think is this thing that we have often heard but I think it is more important for us in the time that we are living today. To know that change is the only constant. If as colleagues, if as HR professionals, or if as business professionals we look at a thing. If you edge on the top of your mind, on the mindset that permanence or impermanence is only going to be the impermanence, that I think impermanence is going to be the only permanence if you edge that in there, top of the mind I think things will be easier for us. And that's the other meaning of change, the only constant. Moving forward, here is a case where probably some of the organisations like Blockbuster. The hubris of managers played against these people. I think the head of the organisation didn't think that Netflix was any challenge for this video rental company 2000 and you don't even hear the name of this organisation any longer. So, Netflix took over and it's like history as they say. Nokia was one such example of how transformation and technology disrupted these organisations and this is where we look at how Samsung has done exceedingly differently in the organisational market space and how they are knocked-on the daylights of even the bigger organisations as well. Closer home, you also look at organisations like Vodafone or Airtel. They were caught, not by surprise, they were knowing but I think what Jio did to the entire telecom sector is very phenomenal and very noteworthy. I think Jio is no longer a telecom company. Whenever we talked of Jio, we always spoke of that organisation as a digital organisation as opposed to a telecom. So, I think that's the kind of landscape that has changed and that's how organisations and business are changing for the better and what we held back with something which was there for yesterday is no longer to anything. The pace of change for the last 10-15 years has been so dramatic that newer organisations are on the horizon. They have taken over the other organisations which do not even survive for 10-15 years. The average lifespan of organisations is trunked out to 25 years. So that's the kind of landscape that I just want to share. There is a change that is happening, both in technology and business model. That's why I think the market forces are putting pressure on organisations to change for the better and change for the good, so to speak. Q. Conventional mechanism to scalable efficiency Ans: As the changes are happening, I think gone will be the days where you know the traditional logic of building efficiency. Scalable efficiency would be the order of the day. I think when I mean scalable efficiency like if you are marketing in one particular zone add another two particular zone and another three particular zones and look at actually looking at a linear development that is something as a passe now I think that will no longer hold to, for an organisation if they want to achieve the and mitigated phenomenal changes that are happening in our environment, I think the organisation, the future we'll have to look at scalable learning and how do I embed that learning, and our culture and as for. And it's a combination of both the traditional logic and emerging mindset of building scalable learning as part of the DNA of an organisation which help organisations grow to the next level and help mitigate the kind of technology onslaught or the disruption onslaught that is happening. Here is another example which I am looking at: Xiaomi as a company where you know, they have also the traditional line of business which dishes out the mobile phone but they also have something different. The global community project that they have where they dish out 75% of the mobiles which are done up, and then they use a customer lens to look at what different things can come in, and probably how they can reshape the product, etc so that's where, how these organisations are remodeling from and scalable learning to incorporate in their culture and the DNA. Another example, of course, Uber is very-very classical which is now becoming more of scalable efficiency, but I think the Uber air project we are looking at teleporting, etc. is something new so I think they have moved to the next level to look at teleporting of customers through airship or air travel, etc at a very local destination so that's something which probably will happen very quickly as we think, more quickly as we think. The other part is also the conventional staffing mechanisms in an organisation will go up phenomenal change, and the ‘gig’ is in here for us to stay and live with. In fact, in our parlance and Raymond, we have looked at designing as a category where we have started looking at needs to be brought on board. And how can gigs help us to design functions, etc? So, we are looking in a big way too, we have launched this app for freelance, which is reimagining the work, and we may not have a designer so we are not restricted to the designer, but we will have a participation of global designers who could come on our platform and help us develop market-ready designs and customer ready so to speak. Q. Future of Jobs is in Technology Ans: I think, the revolution of I think over the last 5-10 years, we started hearing of Social Media Manager, Data Scientists, Employer Brand Manager and from an HR perspective, Mobile App Developers and Virtual Assistants have come in play cloud architects the whole thing is moved to the cloud, telemedicine solutions. I think the whole landscape of jobs, therefore, which probably didn't even exist 5-10 years back, or have come on the scene and completely disrupted the work process work systems. So, some insights from Singularity, I think Singularity University based on the US well I think funding from Google, Facebook has happened with them and there is leading. It’s not a University in a traditional sense it is a University that develops projects which are very cutting edge and futuristic. And they have predicted a few other things which probably, which have been part of the entire futuristic outlook that they have. I think they looked at the 3D coming in a big way by 20-22 in printing clothes in fact in Raymond also we did automated 3D printing of accessories. So, availability to the customer of the product, which are accessories like lapel pins, the cufflinks so and so we started with building 3D printed items around this, so they are looking at a very, very different world. They're looking at by 34 it will be a world, ruled by drones for logistics and delivery of your sample your foods. Electric cars will be half of our vehicle sales. And as we go further, I think it's becoming a lot clearer that the advent of technology and the advent of disruption is so heavy that by 2020 we will have clean, efficient energy as one of the viable sources and a hundred percent will be on electricity generation, I mean some of these viable sources of energy will be in hundred percent generation of electricity. Robots are as we predicted that they will be part and parcel of the working environment, and it's also predicted that robots will have a relationship with people. I don't know how that would happen but that's one of the predictions. And I think the other thing which is probably one of the things which they have predicted is problems like cancer and poverty will be solved. I think it's not far away 34, but I think because of the abundance of things that will happen solar will be, there is the fossil fuels will be put down. I think the whole geopolitics of the world will actually completely change, so to speak, and I think some of the issues that they are talking about connections of human cortices with the cloud, are some of the things that they are working on. Singularity has a very futuristic prediction on the DNA sequencing and how the Price Performance Equation comes down as technology overtakes. And that's a very interesting study which they have undertaken and it's a very insightful study that they have on their portals and in the programs that dish out to the whole global community. So, these are some of the large trends some of these large organisations have looked at, and I thought it's important for us to have a peek into the future so that we are prepared, as a community, we are prepared for what is coming our way. Also, the other thing that I just wanted to understand is that, if you look at this matrix, from the y axis, if you look at the value addition and the x-axis expansion, these are the kind of rows which are more value-adding and highly exponential will be the future, so exponential growth will happen in some of these, we are professionals, leisure trainers. Another thing genomics is something that we'll look at so exponential services that will be on offer, so jobs or work that is value adding, which will be more experiential nature will be one that will be taking center stage for the future. The success mantra, therefore, will be high tech, at the same time to be high touch and experiential is what I think of as jobs of the future or the work that will happen the future will be moving or wearing towards. Q. Flexibility in the work environment Ans: So, let's reflect on what we need to do to build our futuristic organisations. I just speak into what happened with COVID. As a human race, we were never looking at working from home. Now, working from home has become the order of the day. I think we have started as a human race I believe that we have taken to working from home and some of the disruptions that happen in its stride very-very impactful and effective I think we already impacted, we already actually embedded a lot of flexibility within our systems processes. As a human race, we cope well with the disruption that has happened in the environment. Newer business opportunities that companies are taking off have been large and who thought that a Swiggy will start delivering something like a home staple food, etc. to their services. So, I think that's what the agility of some of the organisers was pushed to the shore and they came out as winners in some of these things. A shift in the mindset has happened in this period from jobs to one of the tasks needs to be done to survive and thrive in this environment which was very, which was not very assertive I think which is still kind of uncertain around it. Contactless offerings did come as one of the ways of delivering products and services, and this is what really, I'm talking about, the contactless delivery of the speakers probably which Amity is doing so very well. So, I think that is also taken and I think the whole learning space has shifted gears from a very physical to e-learning, and the whole school curriculum and the college curriculum has moved completely online. So, I think that's a big shift, which organisations and the learning institutes have adapted quite well. And digital in products and services has become very-very pronounced because of the advent of the emerging situation of COVID. I think you want to take a peek into the future long, from a medium-term to long-term perspective as to what will be the shape of things to come for the future. So, organisations will have to build on the emerging reality of technology, disruptions. It will need a new mindset for a new normal and the role of analytics and digitisation will be a key differentiator for organisations of the future with a lot of IoT in place a lot of sensors in place the kind of data that you could have from machines and kind of data that you could have from people working will be of the next sort. And I think we as professionals in business, we'll have to probably look at how I can make use of this data to be a good use of the organisation to predict the future very effectively and efficiently. Q. Working with the Gen-Z Ans: We also need to have mechanisms for managing the interplay of machines and the human interface. I just spoke about that you know you need to have something like a humanoid, which will be working in the future so how do I look at humanoids as being part of that process and how do I build cultures to look at the interplay with the machines and humanoids? I think organisations look to drive the emerging economy or emerging reality, I think the GIG will be a large part of our, the way we are organising workforce rescaling the workforce to embrace automation. The kind of automation that's happening is probably in a world that I'm envisaging to say your cars already started being 3D printed but your textiles, start printing, what happens to deliver for that we have what happens to actually, the whole supply chain is disruption. If you don't need large manufacturing set up what is the kind of disruption that will happen in the manufacturing as well as the supply chains of these allied manufacturing environments so that's one thing that will have to have welcoming Gen Z? So, typically, five generations are operating currently as we speak on the organisation. So, welcoming the younger population, and then, therefore, how do they co-exist with the seniors and how do we have culture and process systems in an organisation to have these millennials, and the Gen Z's to work side by side, probably, how do I build systems to make them part of the structures? The other trend that I see probably will happen is no longer now organisations will be hierarchies, it will be network teams that will happen, a network of networks maybe they will be called that will be coming which will be projected, which will be handled as by this network does that work gets done through this network teams. And of course, overall, the organisation has to hear both the technology, the human skills, etc. to embrace this digital upgrade. So, I think there are a lot of trends that I see personally which will be not maybe 10 years down the number maybe five-six years that we will start speaking or start experiencing some of these changes that I foresee. Q. Reinventing organisations with self-management Ans: A new mindset as I spoke it's slightly, slightly more different, I think, self-management should be the order of the day it is a lovely book written by Frederick Laloux who writes about this concept of Self-Management wholeness and Evolutionary purpose in his book called Reinventing Organisations. Self-management actually will help us to reduce hierarchies and there's a lot of empowerment that is built as part of this so there'll be no hierarchies as presented here. It will team which will be self-directed and self-management that actually will be helping organisations in the kind VUCA of that we're looking to be nimble and focused and to be agile in their approach. There'll be no large corporate hierarchy which should exist with self-management as a thing that we're looking at. The other part which is very philosophical also the fact that there's a new thing that we may look at is how do I bring the whole human being to work, not just a mass of a corporate entity that I work with, but help people in the organisation to build or bring whole of their big their personal, as well as the professional side to work and how you will allow helping them to be creative at workplaces. What is that you will help them to develop, which is very different not necessarily mandated by your performance program but is there something that we can do to make them more empowered to take projects which are not necessarily part of the business of the company. How do you allow them to bring themselves as individuals to the organisation so therefore a lot of culture change there's a lot of orientation that organisations might have to do to bring this concept to life? And of course, organisations of today, and also future need to develop evolutionary purpose so that they can attract retain talent and grow, because, research has shown very-very vividly that the purpose-driven organisations will have a lot of attraction of newer talent. And that is where I think probably organisations will have to set or reset on the mindset that probably is currently operating to the mindset of self-management wholeness and evolutionary purpose. Q. Moving from predictive to prescriptive analytics Ans: I spoke earlier as well about the role of analytics that is also going to be very critical. I'm not talking about the descriptive and diagnostic levels but typically talking about predictive and then taking that to a prescriptive level where you start prescribe what is possible what is not possible from analytic damage. We need to go very quickly I think the system in organisations currently are not necessarily geared to go to the predictive and descriptive level but typically, we need to get ourselves to move to that dimensions in a very short time so that the risk in the management and the risk within the environment are analysed and we develop better solutions, which we can address. So typically, an example that comes to my mind is if you have a prediction of what the talent attrition, etc is going to be there, you can build programs to rephrase that talent. From a customer standpoint you know exactly which product which services I want to help you get to the next level. With predictive analytics will help you to predict what is the pattern that consumers are having which will help to grow my businesses, what is the area, what are the demography, which does happen when I think if you look at from a prediction standpoint, it will be pinpoint I can see that marketing people can use predictive analytics to predict what's going to be probably there as a part of the future or game plan from a strategic sales or marketing process. Q. Amalgamation of manpower and humanoids in organisations Ans: This is another hot trend that I see personal humanoid will be becoming part of the entire workforce and we have got to learn to live with humanoids and the interactive robotic assistance. HDFC has already been launched this robotic assistance called IRA. And ISRO is looking at humanoids to replace humans in space so I think more and more technology sessions with robotic assistance will be part of the workplace. And the routine work definitely will get taken over by these humanoids and robots. I think there will be more complimentary but also organisations will have to build processes systems to be welcoming these technological changes for the future. So, it's some, what we have in the future it will not any longer, we look at talent fit and the nine-box grid that we look at, we look at how we can start rescaling and automating systems. Measurement will be a value rather than input-output and an outcome basis so I think what is the value addition that people are bringing, is more valuable to organisations of today and tomorrow. That's how the measurement shift will happen. Technology, of course, it will be high touch where there'll be issues around culture empathy will be critical. And how do I then have this High Tech and High Touch at the same time working in the machine together and that's the big challenge for organisations to bring technology at the same time having high touch from a culture and empathy standpoint and make sure that employees or colleagues who are working with feel wanted and they're just not a part of, they're not just cogs in the wheel, so to speak when these disruptions happen but future. The transformation will be all purpose-driven. I think the organisation will have to get deeper into themselves and actually recast maybe their purpose why they are existing in the first place and drive the entire organisation and redefine our purpose, rather than just business goals and so forth. So that is a big shift I will say the purpose-driven organisation will be the organisations, which will be having a long-lasting tenure in the future, and both from talent acquisition and retention it actually will help the organisation in which you are crafting a buffer and looking at driving systems-based. Partner processes on HR, finance, etc., will move from just a partner to being the leader of that particular function and drive some of these functions very differently. Q. VUCA- A technology of vision and values Ans: I just wanted to sum up that the changes which will happen later. One more thing which I just wanted to help your very interesting understanding and I thought I should make a mention of that and as we have always heard of this terminology called “VUCA”. I think I looked at “VUCA” in a very-very different sense. I think “VUCA” of volatility should we change to vision and values. The leaders have to set visions for the organisation and look at “VUCA” not just words but there's an opportunity for us to set visions and values or direction, and take them forward. But leaders are not to take just this thing that you invoke our standard stood for something else but to get the new according to me will start for understanding so leaders to connect dots and make meaning of such, the situation and get clarity to the organisations. So, I think, turn that complexity bit into a clarity process or a clarity, offering. And the last one is the “VUCA” the ambiguity stands for agility and adaptability. If you the leaders in organisations and the senior leadership and across the board, and all the people across the board embrace “VUCA” as vision and values, understanding clarity and agility, I think we probably wouldn't be able to turn the “VUCA” upside down and look at a different proposition of “VUCA” which will help you move from a very fixed mindset or growth mindset. And I think as a team or as teams will grow every inch with these new challenges. Q. I just wanted to start with an understanding which is that in your perspective the old school talked about organisations focusing on stakeholders and then came the customer we also have beaten competition; we also have embraced technology and then we finally have the people that work within the organisation. Which one of these five you think is the most important for organisations to succeed and why? Ans: I think I don't have a specific person and each of them one of them is higher or lower but I find that people from the device of the foundation, the structure on which everything else there but I don't hold a view that stakeholder and customers don't come second so I think I've rare literature on that people first customers second many of these kinds but I think I hold that it has to work in tandem for us to succeed as organisations shortly and the future probably 5- 10 years. So, I think people from their deface and then no time I'm saying that people will have a limited sphere of influence and I think that is one on the top but I think for me there are right sort of people they will drive customers they will go back to stakeholders beat the competition. They are 1 notch above but I won't say that the entire thing but if organisations have to take a balanced view of many things and typically looking at different dimensions then, therefore, having the people dimension the culture the foundation you build the structures on top of and you would be able to look at the organisational future very differently. So, these are all elements that have to come into play at an equal measure with people being the foundation that's what I would suggest. Q. Have organisations not got this right? What is your perspective on purpose, vision, and common goals? Ans: I think it’s in existence but I think what is more pronounced, what will happen is that organisations if you're reset, I think one of the core teams that is coming up as an important tenet is the what is the purpose, why does the organisation exist for, I think that if we start articulate or not it's not just the topics learns of management that it should be present. The purpose is to cascade where organisations probably make mistakes or probably not get it right is that the purpose then remains only in the boardrooms and probably it's just on their charts. I think that process needs to be completely changed and how do I should build a purpose which is much more effective and then it gets cascade in the entire organisation? This is an organisation which will help me build and, in some sense, help me identify myself with the organisation at all across levels so that is becoming very core, though it had existed probably if you look at the research on purpose, I think the organisation which drives purposes which is a core tenet of the existing organisation have exceedingly well. I think Business Research shows repeat examples of many of the successes because there were driven by a purpose and therefore that's what they are known it helps in a couple of dimensions help attract talent, retain talent and grow organisations so that look at newer generation maybe you will have a lot of people in the millions of people will get excited with the work the organisations are doing which has a purpose which is clearly defined, articulate and coming across the whole board. Mind your thoughts so easy to define and then live by it and then articulate and communicate it because many organisations do that but not all have got it right always. Q. I just wanted to get your sense of what might trigger some of that change our organisations generally lazy in embracing some of these innovations whereas they may be forthcoming in embracing obvious innovations like digital and technology or can they be triggers that are already happening that will get them to embrace the three things that you spoke about. What is your perspective on that? Ans: I will have to answer in a couple of contexts because there's a pre-COVID and COVID so I will try and break that I think it's not organisations that are lazy. Organisations have done many things like bringing ERP in the system but have they paid dividends in some yes some no because what needs to happen when you insert a large processor like ERP on excel that culture change that has to go in to make sure that everyone starts using that are, we still believe on Excel sheets and those kinds of things. They are the big tectonic shift that needs to happen when you bring these cutting-edge tools within the organisation. That's where probably most organisations don't get it right the softer part which is so important to bring technological changes. So, I think also organisations I compare large organisations which are like Titanic when they take a long time to change their culture change, change their hierarchy and if you're not going to be nimble-footed in accepting those changes I think it's only a matter of time before some of this will be wiped out in the future. So, I think the newer trends will require a mix of technological embracement also we ought to look at what is a culture that I need to have an organisation which will build the deface and help me grow as organisations because that's going to be very important. With gigs coming how do I have gigs in incorporated in my organisation to work along with my staff within the same place also how within India especially gig is not going to be very easy because there is a lot of labour law restriction which are currently working against some of these things but I think I quickly evolve over a while and hopefully it will all be a thing of the past shortly that we will probably see codes of it's not just fixed costs that we are looking at to have gigs. It's also the energy that you come from sometimes in my case, for example, I use gigs I will rather use gigs for the design is so I'll get global talent and not just talent from a certain particular pool that I will be looking at so I will get designers on those gigs and they will have short term contracts with me and work for me for a very specific project and they will be out. So, a network of teams, gigs, and the whole process around building chords which are very agile building and making sure they get assembled to address the project get back to your original position except this is what is going to happen in the future. I think with technology I mean let's look at this when I said Pre-COVID I remember about the same thing like how many of us probably were there looking at working from home through technology but we all of us have taken so I think at times there is a push from the market that has to happen for us to severely change the organisational structures and the process within the organisation. Within probably a month all of us were communicating in this format what we had to do is possibly train managers who are not able to handle work from home as a structure so I think that's also weren't done efficiently at my place at least and many organisations have done that so we have taken to this change processes within very an overdue was not very planned right it was just kind of lap one thrust upon us but I think from an Indian context I see there's a lot of changes that have happened and we have taken up to these technological changes quite efficiently and effectively. So, organisations will be forced and compelled to change their way of working to such kind of disruptions like what we are experiencing today. Also, there could be a planful disruption that organisations will build I'm in the classic example comes to my mind is Mahindra where probably we had a system where they are looked at an exponential organisations concept where their organisation which will build outside of the Mahindra tractor division they started rental cpractice to build the ecosystem of tractor, etc they are renting of tractor they have an organisation called ‘Traingo’ so they rent actually which is competing with their own tractor business they wanted to build the ecosystem in the farmer to lap up technology they started this ‘Traingo’ which is an organisation not build within the organisation it is outside of the organisation. So, what they were thinking that it would probably the internal antibodies will kill this new organisation concept so they took their whole organisation outside and they have started renting of tractors as a business, like a business line which in a way competes with their own tractor business internally but there are larger for a game plan in terms of focusing on building the ecosystem for the farmer community and then raising awareness of the technology. So, these are the ways and means of organisations doing some very different things. Fascinating, if you read the book exponential organisation there is a very valid concept of building organisation on the edges and it's very valid because large legacy organisations may not be able to dismantle and kind of dismantle the legacy structure and the culture. If the organisations of future can take these smaller projects outside like what Mahindra did build those so that avoid antibodies hitting them and kind of killing them before the time has come to build the structure probably then look at a line of business separately get investments there are or probably embedded in the existing but if you allow if you do not follow that many of times I've seen that these newer initiatives or newer structures in the organisations don't thrive and I like that concept of building exponential organisations on the edges which again it talked in that book about having a purpose for that particular organisation. Therefore, there are many tenets it will be a matter of another discussion if you start talking about exponential and I'll not be able to finish in one hour but I'm just giving a gist that is a model structure that can be thought about how are build exponential organisations on the edges not to be killed by the antibodies within the organisation. Q. I wonder what's holding organisations back today where they have to resort to an exponential organisation structure or an island organisation structure. what is it that they can do to bring the creativity of every individual which is part of the organisation right from the frontline through to the C-Suite? Ans: I think it’s primarily the structures within the organisation, the culture which does not permit. I think probably the fear that we might not want to experiment with something which is so very dramatic and new. Here I would like to give an example of a very boutique firm which when I was doing the study an exponential organisation and not exponential but the concept which Frederick mention self-management, hierarchy less, boundary-less, evolution purpose-led organisation. There is a very small firm which not small in terms of the size but it's small in terms of several people is a firm called Nishit Desai & Associates it’s a legal firm based in Mumbai and all the principles that Frederick talks about on this reinventing organisation implemented by this gentleman called Nishit Desai. He's a guy who's experimented, he doesn't have any goals for his people he says that the goals will limit the energy and the ability of people to achieve much more so they will be restricted by this thing. He had a system where people go and ask for salary raises as a personal thing like you have fix increment. It’s a small hundred 200 people company its legal firm that's one thing. What I experience on his thing is that you know he's converted even the lower rungs of his management to do something. He had some drivers and drivers have free time they were them made to maintain computers in their organisations so and then he's made them as employees who are spending very quality time so there are no titles, there are no hierarchies in that organisation and I witnessed them my colleagues on the call somewhere here both of us have witnessed that's the thing in live in action we tried making that one of our organisation in this fashion we're not completely succeeded, but we are on the path like we have an online tailoring business which we are trying to do an exponent but here when I wanted to benchmark as to what is happening outside and I very much found this organisation on this within our country and this is one organisation I would like to make a mention of and I know him personally so I was fortunate enough to go to his organisation, witness what is happening the first time. So, there are these organisations which are taking these dramatic steps but I think the larger organisation legacy, the culture of conformity plays against a lot of these experimentations. I think it is all it has to start right from the board where they want to do kind of these experimentations if it's not sanction signed off at the highest level and we are not geared to handle this as an organisation better not venture probably you will muddle and mess up the whole thing but if like Nishit Desai case I can tell you Nishit himself is confirmed advocate of self-management and wholesomeness and evolutionary purpose as well as the philosophy drive organisation. So, it starts at the very top if they're not bought into this not just HR, not just marketing heads, not just the business heads would be able to drive this I think that culture change has to come right from the top. Q. This is one of the biggest constraints we hear from organisations we work with when we are thinking something like this is bureaucracy has so much sense of control hierarchy has so much sense of being able to predict things. In your experience you've experimented, you looked at an organisation which is a great example of how do organisations or you overcome that, or what is your advice to organisations to overcome that fear that counseling bureaucracy will mean giving up control? Ans: We did a few things in our organisations to kind of de-limit or restrict bureaucracy like we did the very small thing we have not done a very large but I get down the approval levels and no approval need till senior managers travel. They were ready to move to travel on their own etc so these are smaller changes. I think there are culture changes, policy changes, and systemic changes that have to be brought to so it will be a lot of issues that we need to tackle before we can embark on some of these I think if there's not a right set of leadership and there's not a right set of culture which I'm again and again coming because that's so very important to embrace and then that backed by systems processes should take care like if you have a culture but if you're not delineating that hierarchy are you not kind of breaking you're pursuing hierarchy by mechanisms processes like in our case we are allowing senior managers to travel without any sanction by the managers that were the first step that we wanted to bring in deep recognise by the environment. It will be a 3 front one is the culture the top management buying and at the end of systems processes that we need to do work which probably then will push this whole juggernaut or be hierarchy driven organisation into a change but I think again I'm repeating myself that the first to be bought by the senior leadership, not just at the senior functional head at the board level which then probably drives some of these changes. Q. Why do you exist? What kind of organisation do we want in the future that be clear and then start acting on tenets and it's a journey as you want to put? As work becomes horizontal you talked about data becoming important, and analytics becoming important I just wanted to see what your perspective on human resource or even managers managing people. how should they use data in a new way as far as people are concerned and how should they think about data in the future. what is your perspective on that? Ans: That's my favourite topic I think HR has done very little in terms of data in terms of analytics. I mean data is housing all systems legacy systems, current system but we've not done much about in terms of analytics I think if you want to move from a level of descriptive to prescriptive there's a lot of journeys that have to capture so we will have to get to diagnostic prescriptive and predictive and then prescriptive. I think we want to churn out in HR I mean I'm just restricting myself to HR now but he is more of an MIS and not analytics. There are not many insights that have been developed and I think there is work that is happening at a massive scale I'm not saying it's not happening but I think even the legacy ERP systems some of them have still not really looked at turning their MIS to tools to churning out reports which are more predictive and prescriptive nature. So I think that's the journey that has started in right earnest but I think people within human resources themselves will have to get abreast of technology abreast of what the entire landscape of analytics looks like I think very little has been done in terms of understanding the subject in-depth and probably in my previous organisation when I was there we hired a host of data scientists who worked with us some of the modeling perspectives but that's just not enough I think we got to have models built bring insights to people to take action upon. Today what's happening is probably insights are there but they're not necessarily predictive they are probably lag indicators that are given as predicted but I think if I looking at predictive, can my systems predict what is going to the performance of people if I hired through XYZ system can my systems predict attrition for my top talent and how do I rest their talent how do I ring face that talent at writing. Those are the kind of things we should be looking at and what is my pulse check helping me? Can I do pulse checks which are here and now when I do have modo ermeters today why should take action immediately and not do an engagement survey where the action gets taken after one year or maybe two years. I don't know so how do I build those structures can I have built a milometer on day-to-day basis which the systems today provide but how many start using that very well constructed is going to be a matter of time before we all. But I think the journey for HR issue very quickly ramp up and move from your descriptive to the prescriptive stage at a very fast pace within the next one or two years and we don't have time to contempt that what systems but I think the newer mindset has to be incorporated across the HR fraternity at a very fast pace. Q. In your mind is this a relatively new area cutting edge area or is this something which some organisations at least have embraced and have reaped good benefits. So where does this lie in India or the Indian context? Ans: So it's not a new area it’s now about 3-4-5 years older but I think we've not reaped benefits out of that like even the classical large model’s ERP, they don't have a structure to the system built to dish out directive processes. So, I've checked a lot of ERPs myself from an HR perspective not many of them house dimensional ERP. It’s there for a while in India and some organisations have started building robust processes and systems around this. Some have not just caught up because they're still believing in lag as a mechanism to drive some of these changes but yeah, we're getting there and I don't think it's not that nobody is aware of these things. I think they are aware but it's only the mass of data that’s there how do I get up meaning out of that and get work and help that data to work for me rather than just how's it in some data warehouse system and just not make use of that. Q. Talking immediately about one of the roles and responsibilities of HR in the current scenario of COVID-19 and I'm just going to take that to a broader level both today as well as in the future if you were to start with a blank sheet of paper and think about as a C-Suite member if you were to reshape strategy and reshape people strategy over the next at least six months as well as over the next year. What would you say is possibly a major change or a couple of changes that you would like today’s organisations to make? Ans: Near immediate future what is happening because of COVID, there are a lot of things which are structures, etc getting disturbed. I think it’s an emergent situation where we don’t at a large structure, we have to get things done on the boat and rest the situation that is coming our way in our case. For probably, we didn't have a classical performance system but we move to a system which was very task base in this emergent situation because things not happening, things not working the way we wanted. So, what do I do in terms of incorporating a newer scope power-based systems, etc? So, we said let's have goals which have a base and typically get going so the task will define in the short term to address emerging issues because of COVID, etc. but in the longer term, I think we definitely would need to have from a larger business sense. I would suggest that I'm talking about the larger business strategy, not just HR but I think we'll ever really look at the blue ocean as to look at what are the needs of people in the market which are not even emerging how to address those needs as a person just the things, we know that this is what organisation, therefore, this is the product and service I need this is gist out. So, look at the blue ocean is one of the approaches that the need felt in the future is not even the customers are aware of and build models of organisation to address those things in the future. I'm talking slightly longer not just the COVID immediate here but I'm talking longer if you do that coupled that with design thinking principles which we try and bring that build that in the organisation. I think we will be able to set up the right strategy and business model therefore falling is an outcome which will help us tide in the future quite effectively. So, I think the organisation needs to look at blue ocean areas and spaces which probably will help them to develop niches which other organisations haven't even thought about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLm3Bf50gUE

December 26, 2024, A conversation with Mr. Anindya Bhattacharyya, Head of the Sales & Marketing Academy, Cipla Ltd Interviewed by: Dr. Nitin Batra, CEO – Amity Institute of Training and Development Mr. Anindya Bhattacharyya is an alumnus of XLRI Jamshedpur and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He has held HR leadership positions at Nestle, Bausch & Lomb, CavinKare, Merck Sharp & Dohme. He brings in a rare combination of expertise in HR and Sales & Marketing. He is currently Head of the Sales & Marketing Academy of Cipla Limited, specialize in transformational coaching and mentoring. Q. People are talking about what is the next normal what do you think the next normal is going to look like for Indian businesses and how long do you think that next to normal will arrive and how long will it last? Ans: So once again my take on this would be that the next normal is here, the only difference is unlike the normal which used to be when we sort of entered this tunnel called the COVID 19 pandemic this new normal is constantly evolving as we speak. We saw countries that had opened up and felt that okay we are past peak on this issue and now you see significant portions of Europe once again getting into lockdowns. So, the new normal is here and the only thing is it is constantly evolving as we are speaking and that puts a huge challenge to business as well as HR and learning professionals how to prepare the workforce to be effective in a paradigm which is constantly evolving itself. An additional challenge for us is to keep our workforce very meaningful in these very dynamic times. Q. How do you think as an HR professional you can build trust with somebody who has been boarded online and has been working with you for the last six months? So how do you build trust with an almost invisible man? How do you know to ensure issues like integrity, the commitment of your employees as an HR professional? How do we address issues of workforce management working from home?  Ans: That's a great question Sir, and I will take it in two parts. When you say an "invisible employee", Cipla India business is our biggest business in all Cipla markets. We on average have about 2000 new joiners in a year which means we have to onboard 2000 plus people every year. We used to do this till March beginning of this year in a completely face-to-face program at a very nice location. Since the 17th of March, we have had joining and all these people have been onboarded remotely completely in a digital fashion. Now coming back to the question of integrity and hence the question of trust, which is there, I think it must start and end with leadership. It's the leadership that has to drive this and how do you drive this so my sense is your first drive with communication, I think you cannot over-communicate in such a massive change event. So more and more you communicate, employees get the confidence, and they sort of getting into the groove of this new way of doing things. Along with that, the second most important piece to me is how do you build new processes around these new ways of working, new ways of engagement, new ways of communication. So, a manager used to have a face-to-face conversation with an employee of almost every day till yesterday now they are probably in two cities how do you ensure technology, or I would say the right technology has been employed to ensure that the communication is being seamlessly executed. Along with communication, the second piece I would say is the policies and processes. So as you are reimagining the new ways of work-life so the old policies probably many of them may not be relevant at this point. So how do you redesigning your policies and processes around the re-imagined way of doing things if we do this right and when I say we I mean the leadership of the organisation it starts and ends there. Then you see a new culture evolving and at the end of the leadership is the keeper of the culture. So how do you constantly ensure that our culture is something which lets employees very quickly get into the new way of doing things? So, my answer to this question would be that it's building integrity, building trust starts and ends with nature. Q. What's been or what is effective leadership communication from your perspective? Is it telling the organisation we are in a problem this pandemic, let us be real about this, or is it future-focused? Ans: I do not see this as an either-or question. I think and that is a great way to start that I was a leader do not have all the answers. So being vulnerable as a leader becomes more authentic. You said yes we have a problem let's not wish it away from the window. We have an issue and that problem probably is the biggest reason that we very quickly do need to adopt the new ways of doing things. So, if you are doing that and as a leader, I can do that and consistently, so it is not important saying it once twice or thrice or five times, consistently even when I am not speaking is my behaviour reinforcing that message that yes, we are in a problem. At the same time, we have a plan, and I am counting on each of your 100% support to ensure we execute the plan, and I am sure the team will rally around it. In addition to that, I think one of the ways of getting people to rally around this call of this clarion call of leadership if I may say is going back to the why. What's the purpose of the organisation, why does the organisation exist? I think that these are the best times when we go back. And if I can share the Cipla example our organisation's mission says caring for life is our mission but that is not important what is important is what is the golden legacy of Cipla. Time and time again rising to ensure that the HCPs and everybody in the health ecosystem are enabled to deliver caring for life for those who need it most. It doesn't matter it's in Sub-Saharan Africa where our initiatives have helped save millions of lives who are afflicted with the debilitating condition of HIV Aids or be it currently if you look at the response as an organisation be it the new treatments being ensuring the manufacturing continuity. Everything which we do we strongly believe it is tied back to why the organisation exists and which is the purpose. So if leadership can connect communication to the purpose and be authentic and vulnerable I think magic can happen that would be my opinion. Q. I have leaders and if we take Cipla as an example if you're able to share that information otherwise in your experience, have leaders focused much more on boardrooms or c-suite discussions or in discussions with employees on figuring out how we can continue business as usual as best as we can? If we could not get in touch face to face with our customers with our intermediaries or influencers in your case healthcare professionals how would we redesign our business model? Ans: So my point would be the question is that today for tomorrow versus today for today question so I read it that way. What do I do today to ensure that he today is completed at the same time given where we stand am I also investing significantly for tomorrow by certain actions today? My answer is once again both and we exactly did that and nobody had an idea. Let's not kid ourselves. WHO did not have an idea this is going to go so wrong so who are we to say that and we didn't have a clue but I will give you a story which inspires us that 17th March is a very important date for us. One of the jobs of my learning team which I lead was to ensure that a tremendous scale-up happened. We have a 10,000 strong sales and marketing force out of which almost 7000 is the frontline runner the individual contributor whose primary selling model, is getting inside the doctor's clinic and talking about our medicines, our products, and services. The model the pharmaceutical sales and marketing model has not dramatically evolved in the last four-five decades. We're still because still where the rubber meets the road the primary head of the strategic execution is through in-clinic conversation between a medical rep and a doctor. Now that has changed so our first job as of today was to ensure that the person who is sitting there wishes to spend a significant amount of time travelling between one clinic to another or waiting for the doctor to take that call. Now he's homebound he or she is homebound so how do you scale up to ensure that his skills that the saw is sharpened enough whenever we come out of this pandemic and the doctor call starts happening whichever way it's digital-physical. He or she is equipped to have that conversation but that was the initial part of the pandemic we also understood the customer around which everything the selling marketing model, sales and marketing model around the customer's reality has changed. If the customer's reality has changed how can our engagement models be similar? So, to your question what about anticipating the future exactly that's what we should be investing in and I would always recommend putting the customer at the center. What's his or her reality today and given his or her reality how do we meaningfully engage with him. And when you have this approach you will see the solutions and technologies or processes which are meaningful should evolve because everything else is to just enable that piece that how do you deliver your value to the customer. So c-suite discussion 100% yes without that not going to happen. How do you ensure business continuity and particularly as a large organisation like us a manufacturing and sales organisation but at the same time investing for the future? That has to happen today for a better tomorrow. So, hope I could answer your question. Q. As the current transition to technology adoption and digitalization create more agile ways of working, do you think this is the opportunity to leverage innovation? Now that we are used to a new way of thinking a new way of working, do you think the time is not right with this technology adoption and digitalization to leverage more innovation and getting to think into innovative ways of working? Ans: Absolutely and I would say the time is prime. It should have already happened because we are in the eighth month where we are saying that we are living in this new reality. I have witnessed a tremendous amount of breaking down old paradigms and starting to do new things. I will give you an example, as I was saying we train almost two and a half thousand people to face to face in a completely instructor-led session, within seven days we had to move on to a completely digital training connecting to every corner of this country, people were joining at their homes and they were doing that. How do you do that so you have to reinvent everything including the way the content is, including the way the facilitator is engaging, you don't have an opportunity of walking to a participant and say hey do you understand what I am telling. So how do you ensure that? I think it is a tremendous opportunity it is a hotbed of innovation. To my mind sir to learning professionals and HR professionals this is the biggest opportunity of our lifetimes. Because as the walk gets reimagined we ensure that HR Strategy and the Learning Strategy have to dovetail under the Business Strategy. As business is redefining the ways of walking how we are redefining what would be the behaviours, what would be the capabilities and how do we have new ways of building those capabilities. So absolutely aligned and this is the time this is the moment of our life in our professional careers where we rise to this challenge of being more innovative, being more creative serving our customers be it internal be it external. Q. Just going back to the themes that you spoke about one of the themes is the contactless organisation. We cannot get in touch with the employee anymore. There is another theme on the contactless customer or in our case the influencer. So there is that overarching theme on contactless and what impact that have on the business model? Is there another theme that you can draw out for our attendees anything other than contactless that you think would drive innovation or should have already driven innovation in their organisation? Ans: Sure I would say customer-centricity is the other one because when you say contactless, I would say it's physically contactless. It does not have to necessarily be contactless, contact has to be there. But how do you contact how do you meaningfully ensure that you're connected, you're engaged, you have the mind share of the customer which can be internal. I like the point of influencer because that's the typical tweak our industry has where there is an influencer who is in the value chain. So contact has to be there but how do you do that and hence I would bring in the second theme which is customer-centricity. You put the customer at the center try to see from his or her perspective. How his or her reality has changed? When you see that and ask yourself a very simple question there may be immediate challenges which the customer is facing which of those challenges are meaningfully solvable by us. Not every challenge and we should not try to do that also, and what is that one point where our mission and the healthcare practitioners mission meet and that is caring for life, he or she is delivering care to the patient. How do we ensure that we add value to that process and if you figure that out you would figure out the way to also connect meaningfully? So I would say contactless. physical contactless, so it must be Phygital, it’s not 100% contactless even as we speak. We see significant parts of the country has opened up to physical calls. It may not be the same time there are challenges but calls are happening. So, it is a Phygital, it is physical plus digital. How do you bring it together to ensure there is meaningful contact because now you do not have any more opportunities to say doctor, I just want to give a reminder to you. No, I don't want this because I think that's some element of the past of sales has to be meaningful contact. Q. There are two insights Phygital contact and customer-centricity. there was another insight that you did not spell it out exactly, but it was very clear from your intention which is employee centricity. I see our clients as not entirely sure whether employee-centricity should be pushed in a very different way from what's been done earlier. How much has the focus on employee centricity changed? Is it useful for companies to think about employees first? Ans: I held that point and in fact when I said customer centricity, I did not spell out adequately enough to say that our customer, our employee, our first customer I would say. So, this time it makes even more sense for you to put the employee at the center. And this is tied back to our business continuity also. So if you see Cipla, for example, we have a large manufacturing force who are at our factories constantly working to ensure that these value chain deliveries come, if we don't have products to sell what would you do with sales and marketing. So, one of the first things and I think Cipla’s Human Resource a Leadership response to the pandemic in terms of the employee centricity also has been phenomenal. A factory cannot work from home. My colleague must come to the factory to run the machine lines. How do we ensure the employee feels safe enough? How do you ensure that there are new policies very quickly done to ensure that the employee feels that I can put my best foot forward every day? And that's true for every corner of the organisation and for an organisation of our size and complexity it becomes even more important for us to do that. So 100% of a new joiner has joined in some part of India. How do we ensure that he is stepped into the culture of Cipla, irrespective of whether wherever he or she is, his or her experience of the organisation has to be the seamless one? Why should it change whether or not pandemic has hit our old ways of working out of the window? So 100% that's the most important piece because if our employees are not feeling engaged if your employees are not feeling safe and if the employees feel that I am not being prepared enough to face this huge disruption who is going to execute the business strategy. So absolutely, completely align with your thought. Q. From a value perspective, what you just said, is there ROI on employee engagement in an organisation making the employee feel that they are central, that the organisation cares for them for their safety, for their well-being through a tough time either anecdotally or overall would you have a return on this investment that you can throw some light on? Ans: Great question! I will like to answer the first part of that with my perspective on this. We are in a young organisation. The roots of the organisation are inspiring to say the least. The organisation came into being when basic medicines were not available in this country so that's our root. Our 85-year history has been all about delivering ensuring, assuring, and enabling caring for life. So large organisation and our employee average age are quite young that way, we are a young organisation so how if the employee is not 100% engaged, then there is no question of 100% output of that employee. How would ROI come if the business strategy execution is not optimal? So it's common sense that every part of the organisation the way supply employees have a reason for this occasion. That is proof of what great employee engagement can do, it can be in the form of, we are the only organisation to my knowledge at least in the Pharmaceuticals space in India we have a palliative care center near Pune where we have the end-stage oncology patients who are assured of the dignity of life. We just do not talk about caring for the life we ensure that caring for life is assured for a patient who does not have a long time to live. If every employee is not inspired with the Cipla story, is not engaged with leadership with the line there will not be 100% efforts being made and we need discretionary efforts to ensure that we not only sailed through this pandemic but we're ahead of the competition and I think employee engagement is the fuel which ensures that organisations propelled towards that success. Q. We go back a little to the learning and development. What advice would you give to those training learning and development of their workforce? Now that we are in and what are the areas of priority, of course, you hinted at? How the problem of salespeople not being able to physically meet let us say doctors that there's a problem so in your view what are the priority areas of L&D as things stand today? Ans: So as I said this a short while before, I would say start with the business strategy. As HR professionals if the business for some reason is unable to anticipate and appreciate that the customers' reality has changed we must put our voice. We must say that please do consider while preparing the business strategy. Once that is robust second question is how you do then make your HR and learning strategy? What behaviours would be required in employees to demonstrate? To demonstrate the behaviours what are the capabilities which would be required for the specific employees? Do we have those capabilities at this point in our force? If the answer is yes, then sharpen it furthermore often than not because of these very difficult times we will not have the necessary capabilities to demonstrate those new areas. If that is the case either we must hire or we must retrain people to pick up those capabilities. So my suggestion I wouldn't say advice, my suggestion to my fellow learning and development practitioners, start with the business strategy and ensure that the customers' reality and the customer centricity is an integral part of the business strategy and start from there and then come to the question what capabilities would be required do. I have those capabilities do I need to build for those capabilities? Once you have that question, do I have the technology to deliver the capability building solutions which I'm planning? But sometimes, unfortunately, it does not happen we start with the technology okay let us do this, but this seems to be the end thing to do. Q. I will ask a very Frank question, how are you personally responding to the crisis as a senior HR professional? What do you find helpful and motivating in your work and how do you connect with the purpose, you just talked about the purpose, so would you like to answer that question? Ans: For me, the purpose of my organisation is a daily dose of inspiration and more so during these times as the way we walk is also getting re-imagined. The Cipla story is so resonant and so powerful the way we have done and we continue to do, the agility with which my organisation has responded to COVID in terms of ensuring the supply chain, in terms of ensuring that the full portfolio of available COVID therapeutic choices is available with the company. You would have probably seen in the news that we have now come into COVID testing also. We are launching ELIFAST which would have a very quick detection of the test and once again this is tied back to the purpose of caring for life. If Cipla doesn't do this at this point when we are facing the biggest crisis of our lifetime which other organisations would do that? So that's my daily dose of inspiration. Having said that there have been tremendous personal challenges for all of us, for me, I've spent almost a quarter-century in corporate life daily, drudgery and commuting we always used to curse but sitting in one place from morning to evening become a challenge. A bigger challenge for me, a bigger consideration is my learning team. How do I ensure that I communicate with them and how my learning leaders, my leadership team in the learning team are also keeping my team engaged? We had done a rough count till about mid of October this team has delivered more than 6.5 lac learning hours which is at least 40X times higher learning team is typically used to do. How do you ensure that every team member who is bending his back or her back to deliver this service to the organisation for the cause of caring for life? Why it's important because whatever we are building, the capability to prepare our sales and marketing force to enable the healthcare practitioner to deliver better care for life. So the purpose is at the center and that's something which is extremely motivating to me but it's difficult to get into this new way of doing things managing the workplace because your home and work overlap and I'm sure that's a reality for all of us but yes it's exciting times we are delivering more, learning more. I have learned like never with the speed which I have learned so very exciting times, challenging times no doubt but there is a promise for a better tomorrow and I'm sure we are helping, my team, is helping the organisation get ready to face to go to the new normal. Q. I will next take you to a question, it is not a hypothetical question but it is a question of performance enablement versus performance management. We at Amity Institute of Training and Development play a lot of stress telling our clients to lean more towards enablement rather than measuring and managing performance. What do you feel about this aspect of performance enablement versus performance management? Do you think that now the time has come to change the mindset of our people and as we discussed as of workforce becomes more invisible how you enabled performance? Ans: I think it's a great question! I would say ideally this question shouldn't have been there in the minds of all HR professionals and business leaders also because ideally and philosophically performance enablement should be a part of the overarching performance management process. It should be there, so when we are doing the goal setting and setting the milestones and the success markers the question should also come in how what's the readiness level of the employee to do that and how do we ensure through capabilities through processes the enablement. While that is ideal, philosophical, I completely align with you that this may not be the case. I think it is a big case to build very strong elements of performance enablement and why the reason is there that your reality seems to be shifting so fast, how do we ensure that employee is enabled to be agile, how the employees enable to be adapted to flexible ways of doing things and I think performance enabled is no longer a good thing to have. The need for performance enablement should become hygiene noisy so 100% I agree with you and should be the primary purpose of managers at all levels how do I enable performance if performance happens as per standards you ensure performance management also. Q. As you mentioned agility and flexibility as being the demands of now, are there additional capabilities that you would highlight beyond the required quiet now for dealing with the future? You mentioned strategic thinking as well. So strategic thinking agility flexibility anything else that's required and how do you make sure that learning translates into effectiveness? Ans: First of all to your question that what about the "older workforce". I have a bit of difference of opinion on this. In my opinion, it's not about the older-younger workforce. Every part of the workforce needs a very strong reason why to be spelt out to them why they should pick up new capabilities and I would say it doesn't matter which generation person belongs to. The most important critical success factor for somebody to embrace new ways, new thought process and forget new ways will come second and I link it back to the question so how then strategic thinking agility and flexibility is linked? I said 100% so where would I build strategic thinking, agility, and flexibility first. I would first build in my leadership and this is exactly what we did and that way I think I'm very blessed to have the leadership support and culture you can do in Cipla which is meaningful. Even within a month when we started the lockdown we understood that the biggest lever for enabling the organisation to navigate through the choppy water and then go to very different success would depend on the leadership qualities. What we did was we curated a program for our leaders first and we took the help of one of the leading management institutes of Asia and we curated a course for them including strategic thinking how do you do digital leadership because if digital as a theme, as a concept is not part of my leadership dynamism then start could happen. I cannot expect a front liner to become strategic and be proactive and flexible. How ecosystem is going to enable that so we did this curated journey. We build leaders as teachers as a concept inside this so while the University faculty was getting prepared to deliver the content, complete contextualized to the reality of my Cipla leaders, at the same time we had the top leadership of Cipla also stepping in leaders as teachers and demonstrating these qualities and spelling out the why the purpose very strongly. What's the reason for picking up these new things if that happens irrespective of the age of the workforce? When there is a consistent messaging that this is important, and things will happen so my response is these capabilities are more important to start with at the top leadership because the leaders do not demonstrate this consistently. The employees are going to get confused why should I pick up I have been 20 years in this career, and I have got significant success doing things. Now, who needs to change first I would say the leader has to change first. So in my team, if I'm the head of the Academy has to first start the change by picking on the new skills so yes, of course, the why has to become very strong from leadership and for that we have to prepare the leadership to have this communication. Q. Taking on from that digital aspect of leadership let's get a little bit more into the technology side. As work becomes more horizontal and collaborator, data and technology provides new insights about employee performance and employee behaviour. The ability to understand analytics and draw prescriptive guidance from data will be vital so what support or capabilities do you think HR professionals require to deliver? What the business needs when we move onto that analytics side? Ans: So absolutely if I have to take a step even before that I would say the first capability which all HR professionals need more today is the performance consultation capabilities. I need to be able to be an internal consultant to the business leader to understand that what are performance changes, what are the new behaviours, what are the new capabilities. Now to be able to do that more than ever I need business acumen and client-specific business acumen. So if I am a consultant to you I need to understand your business, your model, and from there comes the question of analytics. If I am business acumen savvy I'd be able to read the analytics also and that brings tremendous credibility for the HR practitioner or the L&D practitioner to the business because business understands, this person understands my reality so he would be more open to having that conversation with you and you should be able to with your understanding ask that question how centrally the customer is placed in your side. Coming to the question of data analytics so first, my recommendation would be, be very clear with the business data. Are you as familiar with the business data the way of business leader and thereby you start from there the other collaborative systems which are there process that we need to very quickly get onto the hang of getting the insights. Insights are more important than the data itself and do only that part which is already not fed as an MIS inside it if it is already there do not break your head over it, I would always say get your time, get your hands dirty to understand the business acumen. The customer reality understands the customers' data set and you would be able to have a conversation and thereby cull up HR and L&D strategy which is completely aligned to the business strategy. Q. You are dealing with a lot of young and new employees, the greater access to information the spread of social media makes employees expect a greater say in shaping the content of their work or the way they work. So what kind of HR practices need to be adopted by companies for developing deeper relationships and engagement with their employees now with this younger generation just out of college. What strategies do you recommend? Ans: Only one sir, I mean maybe my answer will seem very simplistic I think HR and leadership at all level need to demonstrate only one skill, and then we have to add this skill also to our already repertoire of strategic thinking, agility and flexibility, that's the listening. Your ability as a leader to listen would be the most critical factor and how do I put processes which ensure I'm doing employee listening even when I'm not present. If we listen well enough to the point that every generation and all the more the millennial and now one is the Generation Z. I think it's proven that they want to better part defining the organisations and they're connected even more with the purpose of the organisation. So as a leader am I able to listen with empathy, with respect in respective of the hierarchy and layers of the organisation, and how I'm building this listening as a process and culture? If you can do this and together I'm sure we'll be able to craft HR strategies, policies learning, and development interventions that are in complete sync with every employee. Q. We spoke about the leader we spoke about the starting employees; you emphasize the role of the manager as well. Our research suggests 70% of the organisation's engagement depends on the managerial. What has changed or what will change in how managers manage and how can we best prepare managers to address that change? Ans: Great question, when we say manager for a moment because I feel the first line manager plays a decisive role in ensuring the strategic execution of the organisation. Now, what has been the reality of a pharmaceutical first-line manager before the pandemic stuck us. Typically they are people who are very good at doing their reps' job and primarily the reason who has become the manager. So in all probability, they try to do that job by shadowing one of his or her reps so that's the reality. Now, what's happening today the manager may be homebound because where he's from maybe there is a quarantine stage, whatever it is, and all his capabilities of reading data to do on the job very quick performance reviews with the team have tremendously increased because he has to be in three places together. He could afford to be with one person throughout the day morning to evening doing calls, now he has to do that. If it is a call through which he is connecting with the employee his capability to connect engage with the employee with empathy be there with him, have the capability and also the mindset that I am here to review is a paradigm shift which has to happen. We are also in the process of redefining the way a manager with the rep engagement has to happen, we are building capability programs around it. This is a tremendous shift that is going to happen. At higher levels of the hierarchy we are also building them very high-level data analytical skills so that you don't waste too much time in talking about 10 things, talk about one-two key issues and opportunities and in turn, you're helping your next line to focus on them. There's a part to operations, there is you get your biggest issue or opportunity you are also going to get disproportionate results so there is a lot of work which needs to be done at all levels of the sales hierarchy but most critically I would say the first line managers work needs to get re-imagined complete is shifted like never. So we're building a lot of interventions to prepare, not only prepare to identify who is the right person to be a manager first and just not you are a great rep yesterday so you become a manager today. So through very objective assessments processes how the top talent is selected who has higher readiness for the next role then very structured way how do we prepare them so that when they hit the ground in the new role they hit the ground running and I think there is a potential of deriving create competitive advantage whichever organisation can do this well and do this fast I think the time is also essential. Q. I think it would be very unfair we don't ask anything related to pharma. Due to many reasons, Pharma cannot do marketing the way let's say companies selling soap can advertise beauty. There are certain restrictions and regulatory problems. We cannot do marketing like other sectors but traditionally it is still considered that the Pharma sector has been slow coming and entering into the digital spectrum as compared to other major industry and of course, the social distancing norms as you have mentioned already been affected the sales and marketing operations. So what are the emerging opportunities in digital marketing? What are the emerging trends? What innovations are coming? It's a difficult proposition to make sales when you cannot face the doctor? How are people overcoming this problem? Ans: I think there are a lot of initiatives which have been taken and I agree that pharma has not been one of the industries that are known for very pioneering digital work. We had our reasons. However, I see a lot of activities happening around. Starting with the digital ways of doing continuous medical education for the doctors, large scale webinars connecting with doctors digitally and when I say digital it can be a telly call, it can be a one-on-one email, it can be a video call. A lot of startups have also come into the picture. A lot of upgrades happened in existing technological solutions to ensure that a manager and a rep in different cities even at different locations can connect with one doctor through digital means. I think technology is not the problem today. We have the technology to do that but there is a very fundamental question here. The fundamental question is if Dr. Batra had been a medical doctor, I have all technology I can connect with him. The fundamental question is why I should connect with him and I urge my pharmaceutical fellow L&D HR practitioners and my business colleagues all organisations to start with this question. What value can I bring to you that's the question? Once again we are coming back to the question of customer-centricity. If I can answer that I think we have had enough initiatives in the last 6-7 months and Cipla has been one of the forefronts. We have been very agile and adopting new ways of doing things but we need to figure out how do I ensure this value for the conversation to the customer and once you marry these both I think contact will happen, engagement will happen. It will happen in a little different way no doubt about it but yes. Technology is there, processes are there we need to just figure out the customer-centricity bit a little more and I think pharma can be equal if not more than many other industries in very quick digital adoption. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvAMft6rGd0

December 26, 2024, Speakers: Mr. Chandrajit Banerjee, DG, CII in conversation with Brig R.K. Sharma from Amity Institute of Training and Development (AITD) About: Mr. Chandrajit Banerjee is the Director General of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). CII is India's apex industry organisation, proactively enhancing the competitiveness of Indian Industry. He has been with the CII for over 33 years and has served as its Director General since 2008. In this post, he is responsible for the overall operations of CII. He is a member of several important Government Advisory Bodies at the National and State levels. As DG of CII, he is responsible for leading and contributing to many policies level dialogues and discussions to enhance the competitiveness of India Inc and towards the development of India. He holds / has held Trusteeship and Board Member posts in many institutions which includes Institute of Economic Growth (IEG); Global Innovation and Technology Alliance (GITA); Bhartiya Yuva Shakti Trust (BYST); Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM); World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Agenda Council of India; Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council (CWEIC); Indian Institute of Management (IIM), etc. He is also a Member of the Managing Committee of SPORTSCOM and Governing Council Member of Healthcare Sector Skill Council (HSSC). CII Foundation and India@75 Foundation, which are promoted and supported by CII, are also two institutions where CB is a Board level member. CB is also a Director of Singapore India Partnership Foundation (SIPF). He is a Director on the Board at the "Invest India" which is set up by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India. He is also Secretary for many bilateral CEOs Forums constituted by the Government of India like Australia, France, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Sweden, South Africa, etc. Prior to his appointment as Director General, he held several leadership positions in key areas including sectoral verticals of Manufacturing, Services, Agriculture and Life Sciences as well as the SME sector. He has also led CII's policy work relating to macroeconomic policy, financial services, and corporate governance. Q. Can India recover from this disruption? How long will the impact of the disruption last? What happens if the pandemic persists and grows? Ans: In the last few weeks, if one sees the clouds of Covid have been gathering in all over the world. We have seen a massive rise in uncertainty. Just about 5 months ago, no one could have predicted such a complete disruption in all our lives as it is today. And even now how can we say as to what’s going to happen in another few months’ time. Nobody is certain as to how things are going to move from here on. We have seen many such events for causing an increase in the uncertainty index in the world for example the Oil Shock in the 1970s, if I can go back to rattle the history globally. By the way more recently the global financial crisis caused a worldwide recession that took years to return to stability with a fury really being out on whether we got out of the crisis completely before the Covid 19 struck us. Terror attacks and large wars have also raised uncertainty for businesses on many occasions before this. Unlike most Black Swan events that I refer to that we have seen in the last century or so this one has the indications for lives everywhere be it in any income class, any geography or any society and in the current situation there are many questions that really come to our mind such as “Are such uncertainty really going to be part of next normal? Will we see more such Black Swan events taking place? How is the present Covid Pandemic going to change the world? What should we do to manage the situation and even explore how we could find opportunities in today’s crisis? Recently I was referring to this RBI paper which evolved very different criteria for measuring uncertainty in India and it has used big data to examine newspaper articles, internet searches and sentiment analysis. It found that uncertainty is negatively linked with economic activity in India. Higher uncertainty adversely affects inflation, private investments, financial markets and GDP. Therefore, as a nation, how we can manage uncertainty. This is a key to our growth and developmental mission and uncertainty is as is often said relates to the knowns and unknowns, the unknown knowns and the unknown unknowns. So in these changed and unprecedent circumstances, we will have to dice and slice the data points that we have at hand, use sophisticated forecasting tools, identify future scenarios and what would be the probable responses to the crisis situation that will keep unfolding before us. We must look at which are the key uncertainties that will impact economic and social institutions and industry. We use these to prepare different scenarios or different possible future and for each of these different workouts and different strategies. Once we have various strategies options before us, we can decide on how we would be doing the best in terms of the selections. For India, the present situation throws up many challenges in the recovery issues. The Government of India’s decision to lockdown, many believe, quite timely. However, on the other hand this has had deep ramifications on the economic activities as many of us are seeing it today. According to a snap poll conducted by us at the CII that captures the opinion of almost 300 plus CEOs in the country, it may take more than a year for the economy to get back onto its feet once again and additionally it is also important for us to note that according to a large proportions of the firms that were surveyed, a recovery in domestic demand for their product or services may precede the recovery in the foreign demand for the same. As far as the Indian economy is concerned, the Covid situation has impacted the most vulnerable sections of the society, the daily wage earners, migrant workers, households and at the bottom of the income pyramid and many others. Many sectors including the transport sector, the aviation sector, the tourism sector, the hospitality sector, construction sector is amongst the worst that are hit today. There are few more sectors, the MSME segment is facing the brunt of the crisis and needs revival plans and support to tide this over. At the same time, there is a silver lining as one sees for the country and I delve on it in some details as we go along. After all it was a crisis when India undertook the economic reforms if you go back. For faster recovery from disruptive changes, the overall economic environment must be resilient and conducive. India has already taken several proactive steps to cement its leadership position at the global level. The Prime Minister initiated the interaction with SAARC countries, managed to get the G20 to work on the health emergency and brought together the BRIC countries. Over the last few weeks, the Government and the RBI have introduced some new policies that add to the waves of the reforms that I just referred to. The structural reforms are in the areas, as we have seen, in agriculture, in privatisation of public sector enterprises, commercialisation of coal mining, reforms in the power distribution companies and so on. We believe that these reforms will open new avenues for growth both in the domestic as well as in the global economy. At the global level, we see several opportunities that are emerging in front of us today. New kind of globalisation may now be taking place, this would be characterised by sort of shorter supply chain, change in the just-in-time model of business, different ways of reaching the consumer, remote working, remote service provisions and so on. One of the present trends in the globalisation is shifting out of China and we have all heard quite a bit about it and that is pretty taking place amongst the businesses around the world. There is a definite opportunity here for India to capitalise on this trend and attract FBI in the key sectors of our economy. India’s current presence, if you see in the global value chain, is somewhat limited and there is a scope for enhancing FGI for plugging in into these global value chains. India offers a good opportunity in terms of comparative labour, high degree of quality attainments, significant outward orientation and so on and so forth. With some further key reforms, we need the country could attract significant investments from the globe. CII for instance has suggested land and labour reforms. We have also set talks about administrative reforms and judicial reforms which will all contribute towards investing the climate for investments. A lot of progress has been made on the ease of doing business front. We have heard about it in terms of our business rankings at the global level but there is need to ensure that these percolates down to the states and the district levels of our country. The current situation has thrown up many issues at the central, state and local government levels which needs to be managed and there needs to be much more synergy and an effort is really required when it comes to ease off doing business in terms of this at the state level and the district level and ensuring conducive investment climate act really at the grassroots. Many reforms are required in the financial services sector also to enable businesses to access adequate credit and to make available funds for long term infrastructure investments. A corporate bond markets for instance are to be deepened and for this purpose and banks also needs to be capitalised adequately with efficiency norms. So, what would be the big ideas for business say in dealing with this uncertainty that we are in. Taking this to the Covid context really, all CEOs today are in strategy mode looking at risks, looking at opportunities and checking out how to reshape their organisations post the Covid. The issues that are really going deep, one is going into deep dive so to say includes shifts in market, change in supply chains, leveraging technology and managing consumer expectations and above all figuring out how best to leverage the newly learned methods and newly learned merits from working from home as many of us probably still doing. This crisis has also actually taught us many things and it has opened our eyes to the new opportunities that we all keep referring to. For example, this is highlighted the critical importance to our food and nutritional security. I see greater scope for organic foods to gain markets if we institute the best grading and certification systems and organise the right logistics network. There is also a growing need for modernisation of Agriculture that will spur new demands for Aggrotech equipment, food chain infrastructure, food retailing and so on and in the recent months large sections of the society had a deepened-on e-commerce players and others delivering essential goods including food items at our doorstep and there is every reason to believe that e-commerce companies will continue to meet his market need ever after this crisis abates. The lockdown that meant really that schools’ colleges and university students must stay put at home but thanks to the online services that it is possible for the classes to be conducted in the virtual space and it is being done and we look forward to much more of that happening and looking ahead e-learning will see a steep increase in demand and a huge lot of innovations are expected also in this space. Pharmaceuticals and healthcare services, and I must speak about that and that will continue to see a rising demand. We are the largest provider from India as all of us know on generic drugs in the world. We supply the highest number of vaccines in the world. Our biotech sector is expected to reach easily about a 150 billion US by 2025 and India has the largest number of US FDA approved manufacturing facilities in the world. As our Prime Minister announced and he mentioned recently that Indian industry came to the fore and started producing masks, sanitizers, PPEs almost overnight. Much of this was not even been manufactured in India. These all were imported but today we can manufacture a sizeable portion and in fact also give to the world, PPE say for instance. Our textile companies have come together. We are manufacturing ventilators now in India. So, there are many opportunities that have gotten thrown up in the last few weeks and a couple of months and we are seeing India sees some of the opportunities. While we export drugs, say for instance, India also has capabilities in R&D and is currently actively working to develop a vaccine for Covid. In addition, the healthcare sector can provide medical care to global patients in the country and is emerging as a major hub for medical travel. Further our doctors and nurses can still get overseas in very large numbers. Going forward I really see new demands, new investments waiting to happen in these areas of Biotech, Life Sciences and Healthcare Sectors. Coming to the energy sector, even with the rapid fall in the crude oil prices, I believe this is a good time to push green energy for the green energy development. There ought to be new narrative on climate changes, green energy and health for all. India is rapidly moving ahead on green energy and this is likely to gather even more space. With travel restriction, there are many start-ups as we are seeing working on telecom and mobile app solutions. With good support, they can go into much bigger businesses. Banking and insurance businesses are evergreen, and we will continue to serve people everywhere. It is just that these sectors too will have to find ways to cater customer needs in new and innovative way as we go along. There will also be rise in the demand for smart living solutions that will help automate functions that make life at home and office much easier. So, there are opportunities in the sector of even outsourced and remote jobs. India is already a lead player in the IT and IT enabled services accounting for more than 50% of the global exports with digital technology emerging even stronger after this crisis period. This can be effectively deployed to provide more services. There are also avenues opening in big data internet of things, blockchain and so on. Many of these areas where India has the potential to emerge as a leader. The list of opportunities that we have in front are some of these and there are many more. The question would be how best we can leverage these opportunities and we configure our business models. This brings me to what business must do to be able to really leverage these opportunities most effectively. India has the advantage of a large and growing market. Businesses must recalibrate therefore their strategies. Asset light options are order of the day depending on more on people and knowledge power to drive new growth Adelaide. Flexibility will be really the key advantage for businesses in the current scenario. Agile organisations will be better able to change directions and opt to the new models of business. This is a kind of fast turnaround time and quick thinking that is going to keep businesses resilient and able to find the next big opportunity. To conclude I would really like to talk about some quick action that our youth can contribute to dealing with the disruptions that currently are under way: First look at creative solutions for the innovative and for their unusual opportunities. Two work together for the right partners because collaborations and partnerships will be best way to device and implement pioneering solutions. Third keep your eyes open to finding new opportunities examining them and exploring how to leverage them. Four include the option for upskilling and deskilling in your life goals and ongoing basis and depending on changing work scenarios. Five keep abreast of what is happening in the technology world because this is where this new disruption will really emerge from. Six whatever you do in your official work domain as you go forward in your careers it must done with complete sincerity and loyalty to the organisation because this is what will set you apart. Seven within all this never do site and social responsibilities and community engagement. Eight do what is protecting the environment and promoting the circular economy with minimum wastage. Nine adopt a balance work life modal that gives you sufficient time to explore what you are doing because it is possible that the next opportunity will come from all of that. Finally at number 10 I would leave with a message to never loose heart and to always remain optimistic even in difficult time. I am sure we will get out of this current situation, and I will drop in at your campus someday to physically touch place with all of you soon. Amity will not only continue to be a leading institution and it has already led in toughs time but will also lead by example setting the trends for academia to build upon. Q. What should be the future business plan to avoid such massive disruption? Ans: A very important fundamental question for all businesses. All businesses must have a contingent plan, they do have contingent plan. That’s why during my speech I mentioned that what is important I mean surprises will come, there will be surprises from where this covid say for instance the health care was talked about, there was discussion on that there could be something on big health scare that will come but who imagined this could be of this scale and of this type but having said that the point I have mentioned was that there is need for all companies, all businesses, especially all institutions to be nimble footed and to be very fast and agile in their thinking and I think that is very critical at this point in time to anticipate to plan to really look today the way. One of the biggest thing that happens especially in India and I would imagine that it happens all over the world but in India we function and we function brilliantly under pressure be it business, be it any other fear of the world and as I said that who at that point in time believe that Indian businesses would be able to start getting into a tractor company or an earth moving construction company getting into a manufacturing of ventilators, an automobile company working on ventilators, people who starting to manufacture PPEs which are world class PPEs in the world starting to manufacture them in the country. So I would imagine the agility and the nimble footedness is going to be one of the most important facets that will take us to deal with these sudden surprises that will come our way and that’s going to be very well critical in times to come. Q. What future opportunities do you see for training and skill development professionals in the present circumstances? Ans: I think one of the most important areas that comes out of covid 19 and well it was emerging covid 19 only aggravates it and I would see that what the biggest challenge that our country would face is that of jobs and that’s going to be very critical. What happens because of people have migrated back to their homes to rural India, companies would function with much lesser number of people, many areas of functioning would see much lesser number of labour, would see much lesser number of people in companies. So, there would be a push to which will go towards much more automation. We will see new types of, therefore livelihood which will also emerge in rural India in the district we will have to invest in that. We will have to see that non-agricultural rural-incomes are well developed so that we can really address this huge population of our country, are gainfully sort of employed and for all of this there will be new skills which will be required and even freelance skills will be required for every aspects of our society, every sector that I spoke about be it the hospitality sector, be it the services industry, be it the manufacturing industry, be it the education field, there will be different levels of skilling that India will require. All skills future skills gaps that we have mapped upon shows that there is so much more that’s required in terms of skilling and that will be required because India will have to, Indian companies will be requiring people over a period, there will be requirements for different types of people. Therefore, that gap can only be filled up through skills and I would think that you would see much more investment both by government and by the private sector into skill development and for people in this entire eco-system of skill development. Q. What leadership qualities are essential now for the Corporate Leaders because of this disruption and uncertainty? Ans: Leaders today needs to be resilient currently. It is important for them to consider the needs of all stakeholders particularly employees and workers to be still in confidence and other prospects. The leaders must communicate with their stake holders and be transparent. Further innovative thinking and really thinking completely in the new domain is what is required. For example, auto companies have configured to produce Ventilators and apparel companies in producing PPEs. New opportunities can be explored with the mindset of innovation. I would really underline that one of the most important hallmarks of leadership will be ethics and commitment to its people because we need to show the leaders would have to lead the way. Today one of the things that has arisen especially in the corporate leadership is this gap which we have talked about in recent past about trust deficit which industry has sometimes experienced be it with the government or to be it with the civil society. So, standing tall through strong moral ground as well as on ethics is going to be one of the most important hall marks for leadership in our country. Q. Leading Corporation Apple is planning to move one-third of its production capacity from China to India. Are we preparing to deal with such a massive production load given to stringent quality norm demand?  Ans: My answer is two folds. Yes, in most of the cases and No in some. Yes, in terms of quality standards, our ability, our intelligence, our technology. Indian goods and products are sometime very competitive till the time its reaches to the factory store, it becomes less and less competitive as it goes from the factory door to may be the spot because of our logistic and so on and so forth. What I would really like to say that we have been global leaders in many things we have been able to establish ourselves as global leaders in manufacturing say for instance in car, the component industry and so on. I don’t see any problem from that point of view for a leading company like Apple to find its strong feet in India both from the services point of view as well as from the manufacturing point of view. But I would think that we needs, for attracting capital, we needs to focus on ease of doing business and we need to make things at the district level at the ground level becoming much easier for the business to function and I think that’s here we needs to do little bit of homework and we have to work in partnership between the industry and the Government to see that there are certain rules, regulatory frameworks reform, our internal reform are carried on very strongly to make such capital getting more and more attracted and become more and more successful in India. Q. Should Corporate India focus on the bottom line or the top line to get out of this crisis. Ans: I would say that Corporate India should not lose site on triple bottom line. They must look at both its own profitability it is important, it must look from the prism of its entire eco system where it is, the profit needs to be sustainable wherever we are doing, what comes out of sustainable products, sustainable services that needs to be very carefully seen and of course corporate India would have to work with a lot of human face. Human face when I say it is for its employees it would also needs to be whether the way they manage, and I think most of the corporate would do that is being very ethical and very right in its practices as it moves along because this is the time when a lot of flabs will get cut out of your company. You will be obviously cutting and most of us are doing it, every one of us are seeing to it how we can cut costs, cut corners. When I say cut cost it is the extra that we are spending which is probably unnecessary and how do we become smarter that is going to be the focus of the business models will change. I would imagine that the focus would be completely different from what it has been. The new normal will be completely different from where we were. So, what we would need to be in search of at this point of time is to see how we can become more and more competitive given that the challenges both in demand as we move along and supplies related challenges that we have would remain for quite some time to come. Q. Your views on the Chemical Sector post Covid-19 era. Ans: Between the Government and the Industry we have been looking at some of the sectors which can be seen to become “Champion Sectors” in the country and there are many sectors that we believe can be the sectors for tomorrow for India. I will name some of the sectors. Food processing is one such sector and is a very labour-intensive sector and India can go into strong heights. Similarly, there are other sectors like textile, auto components. Chemicals is one such sector I would imagine that India has huge strengths in terms of both quality chemicals and chemicals both for internal consumption but more so far also export is one sector will be a growing sector and there are many issues which relates to how we can see to it that way we are able to create much more conducive environment of ease of doing business in the chemical area notwithstanding the issues of environment etc that we need to keep in mind but that’s one sector which has enormous scope in India to expand and we would look forward to actually that being nurtured in India to become one of those Champion Sector I talked about. Q. What will be the impact of Covid 19 on medical tourism? Ans: I would imagine that this is the temporary challenge in fact many countries look forward to coming to India for medical value travel. I think this is one industry which is very badly hit now, but I would imagine that as things move on it will take a few quarters for this to heel up. We are dealing with the challenge that this point in time but let me say that I would imagine that this is a promising sector for India we have some of our best products and services at the most competitive prices across the world that healthcare is being delivered in India. So, we would emerge out of this, but it will take the next few quarters for us to do so but we will at some point in time will bounce back. Here also I would mention that we need to with the scope that we have and the way where we are operating, I see a tremendous gap there we have a huge potential in this, and I think post covid we must be very careful. Things are slowly opening, there would be some people trickling in as you will see in the next couple of quarters when the airline sector start operating across the world, but I would imagine India’s potential on medical tourism is not realized near full potential at all and I would say by next year we should see that once again come back. But now yes, it’s a very stressful sector I must agree. Q. If this pandemic continues for another 6 months (say), most of the domestic and international consumption will go down to the bottom. In this case what are the future opportunity for us? Ans: The way I would look at as you know there is a lot of action which is being taking place in terms of both the cure as well as the vaccine. There is a lot of work which is going into it, and I am quite hopeful that we will sooner or later get some sort of a cure which will enable us deal with it in much more effectively than what we are dealing now. I would imagine that across the world, we are learning to live with this, we are learning to live with it, anyone can have it as long as we can get cured as long as a cure would be available, much before probably the vaccine comes in, we should learn how to live with this and to live with this we should have to focus on how do we destigmatize some of the entire issues which relates to COVID, we need to understand that we need to accept that and move on. But as we go along, there would be, I see the next two quarters to be very challenging, demand would not be picking up, I am sure all of us are buying less all of us are not going to malls, there no malls are open, no retail stores are open. So, there is a demand which is not there now. So, what we really need to do is to see how we can enthuse demand now. So, we are saying that we need to do more and more business as normal to see and I mentioned about ecommerce being one of it to see how consumption can be seen to come forth in the next few months. But yes, there is a challenge and if such challenges happen, I am sure we will see newer interventions from the Government besides whatever we have seen which has been done to see how the economy is kept alive with those interventions which would be extremely important. Q. What are your views on trade post pandemic and more specifically on the role of organisations like WTO? Ans: WTO as you have rightly said is under pressure. But we will see more and more countries talking about how we talk about this word which is come back protectionist attitude by many of the countries flouting the WTO regulations or WTO framework. Now having said that I would imagine that you will also see a new normal growing there and there will be some countries which will come forth in terms of contributing to what could be that new normal be. India has a huge potential. There is always as you are rightly seeing that goods from some countries, investments into some countries are getting challenged now. So, India should pick up on that opportunity. We are seeing that that there is a huge amount of possibility of India to cater to the world and it's not just the pharmaceutical sector which India has today supported many countries, but India is capable of its products to be supplied to the rest of the world and that might lead to that new normal that I was talking about and yes there are many guidelines and rules which the WTO prescribed. Some countries even getaways we don't even know the type of violations that take place in some of these countries in terms of WTO rules. But yes I would say that multilateralism should be supported and we should see WTO being living up to be once again being relevant and it would be very important for WTO to be relevant and I think some of the countries like ourselves must work towards it, towards creating much giving much more teeth and power to as is required to a body like the WTO so that it can really look at trade, the World Trade in the right perspective and in all of that I see the opportunity for India to be very strong if we get our act right and of course I mentioned some of the points that we need to do well. Q. Migration has been observed from ancient time. Is this an opportunity for India to decongest its industrial settings and create new job opportunities or new landscape in India? Ans: This is a very important question. All along we have always focused and we have always thought and for us still this time again the normal way of functioning was to make the city smart, the city more infrastructure wise smart otherwise smart we needed to cater to the migration which used to take place from the rural to urban and we always catered too much more of investments into the urban infrastructure and cities. I have always championed the idea and I think what we need to also look at India is to see how we can make our villages smart how we can look at and I mentioned it during the course of this discussion, during the question answer session, I talked a little bit about how we can look at more opportunities in rural India through social as well as a physical infrastructure being invested upon and I also mentioned that we need to see it to how we can focus on non-agricultural rural livelihood and I think non-agricultural rural livelihood creation of that would be also very important. The other aspect is we have seen this, we have noticed that the pattern of migration very clearly in the last few weeks as to how it has happened in India. My suggestion and one way to work for is also to see that in India the right type of investments is also directed towards certain parts of the country which would also lessen the type of migratory hazards that we have seen. So, we need to create jobs for people where they are, and I think that's going to be a very essential part of our planning that we should work focus upon. So here again I would imagine there is a partnership approach that will be required from the local State Government, the Central Government and the industry to see how certain typical type of investments are carried through proper planning and development of infrastructure into those areas from where we have seen migratory labour in such large number. Besides of course this is very important point of creating strong rural infrastructure both healthcare, education, I would imagine and many other, the district level hospitals improvement, district level jobs which need to be created through investments. And I would imagine these all has to be non-agricultural income to a great extent which will sustain people to stay back happily in some of the areas which they leave and come to urban cities. Q. Do you feel that the financial package is enough to look after MEMEs or what more needs to be done to protect MSME and unorganised sector in India? Ans: It’s an important question because one of the most affected sectors today yes of course is Small, Micro and Mid-size companies. The credit availability says for instance for MSME and the reduction in interest rates should help the MSME now and monetary support as in some countries is a fiscal challenge and CII has recommended opening credit taps for them. The redefinition of the sector as you know it has been redefined the MSME sector will ensure that more enterprises are able to get the packages that are available for the MSME and we believe that this will be introduced very quickly and at the earliest and it is important that the MSME’s are facilitated through competitiveness measures which would be better industrial parts, better logistics, more information on tapping export markets, they have a strong export potential, they should be able to do that. Besides the MSME's payments are also pretty much delayed both from the government departments as well as from PSU that even from some private sectors and I think that's something that now when we talked about the role of business and what should we be doing that something that we should be careful about in terms of seeing to it that they are paid. The unorganised sector which is a very important point that you said I would imagine that we should see to it that the entire unorganised sector which employs so much, actually which is we are able to focus very seriously on both migrant labourers as well as the unorganised sectors because most of them are employed in the unorganised sector as a special sort of a Department which needs to really focus both at the state level and at the senior level. But at the MSME I would like to say that many of the measures that have been taken over the last few years the MSME’s liquidity issues have been somewhat addressed by the recent stimulus packages and that should be of help, the 3.7 lac crores through liquidity support which was including loans with the government guarantees that's one very important point and 2nd the 9250 EPF support where government paid the EPF contribution of both employers and employees, that's a very important point. And the ₹75,000 crores of liquidity support to NDFCs which predominantly lends the MSMEs. So, these are some of the things which I would think would help the MSMEs which are the backbones. If MSMEs are not strong it would be difficult for the supply chain to be completed with a large company also will not be supported. We need to have a very strong focus on the MSMEs. Q. There has been massive disruption of supply chain because of the disruption in China and other parts of world. So, what do you think needs to be done to make India and Indian industry more attractive to these foreign investors who may be thinking of leaving China? Ans: As I mentioned the two aspects of this global supply chains have been severely disrupted as we are talking about the global supply chain. This will obviously have a strong effect on the Indian imports and exports and what all really needs to be done to make the global trade and business sustainable in the future is a big question that is coming up. India's exports and imports have been really affected by the lockdown in most countries. We have had interaction on exports with our Commerce Ministry and one of the things that it stated that while exports contracted by over 60% in April there is an expectation that the contraction can come down to about 30 to 35% in May with a June numbers probably which will be at par with what we were last year. So, the minister also really felt that the exports can be greatly boosted by reviving manufacturing, so we also need to look at diversification of our export basket from India. Our share in the top global exported items is less than one 1% and it is important to build up a product such as electronics, machinery, automotive and so on and so forth. And on the import side the falling oil prices has been an additional factor in contraction by about 58% and if we are to become an export powerhouse and avail of the global opportunities in shifting supply chains, then our imports should be carefully calibrated so that imports and raw materials have no tariffs while higher tariffs are based on final goods. It is here that we have an opportunity to become really the supply chain of the world as alternative to China which is also being driven by changes in their policies and higher labour costs in China. So ramping up local manufacturing capacity, further improving ease of doing business and more reforms In addition to what has been announced specially on the land reforms, on the labour reforms, on cost of finance, cost of power, top class infrastructure and business friendly regulations and many such easing of such processes will really help India get some of those investments that we talked about and gain a major footprint in the global supply chain. That's the way I would look at it. Q. What technology do we need to embrace in our country post COVID? Ans: The top companies in India have globally comparable technology standards if one can see and can match global benchmarks in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Internet of Things etc. This is also beginning to happen in the second-tier companies. So, among the MSME the capability for technology is very high as we see in the numerous start-up that have emerged in the last five years. These are based on technology and new ideas and new platforms. However, the larger base of MSME require assistance for technology adoption. The Government therefore should set up two new tool rooms and ensure that common facilities are made available in industrial hubs. Industry 4.0 is sweeping the world and all of us know that and we in India can be much a part of this revolution and I think the mindset change is there, but the challenge is to lower costs and to make these technologies readily available. This in itself is an opportunity, however, there are many issues that needs to be addressed, first we need to encourage R&D and innovation and the government should set up an R & D fund which will absorb at least 50% of the risks. Second one would like to see that we still need to strengthen the IPR regime in terms of implementation. Finally, India has a large pool of scientific and engineering talent which needs to be skilled and to be readily absorbed so you talked about skills earlier so another potential of what work you can do to skill. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zmRLVnN1pg

December 26, 2024, About: Ms Jayeeta Sarkar has proven Learning and Development experience in diversified industries including Hospitality, Telecom and Healthcare. She has been with HCL healthcare as an employee with both HR and Quality Management. Currently, she is heading a multi-dimensional Portfolio encompassing diversity and inclusion, Talent Development, Employee Experience & Engagement. Jayeeta is also an NLP certified trainer, Mentor and Life Coach. Q. What are the key areas of focus and how to keep the workforce engaged? What new skills are required to thrive in the future? Ans: I am currently for HCL head so it was kind of you to say that everything encompasses it. Two Portfolios that I head are training and quality amongst which the diversity the other parts of it come in, but two predominant Portfolios I chair are for training & quality. At HCL Healthcare, we are in the field of preventive health and more so in the sphere of corporate wellbeing. What we do is we are focused not on the reactive methods of healthcare but on the preventive side. COVID I think is a good eye-opener for all of us, we must have seen that there was one point in time when health always took the backseat, we used to always talk about that in a very big way that, for us first is the job then is your recreation, then it's time with your family and finally, it's time for yourself or your health, but COVID has somehow made the end dimension go a little haywire, wherein we have now given health as the topmost priority.You would see even on major social platforms, everywhere you sell all products for prevention. Ayurveda has seemed to have kicked off, and everybody is taking every shot of turmeric if possible. Going in for walks, trying to keep themselves safe, and healthy. The whole focus is on preventive health, how I can keep myself, fitter, so that I don't need to go to the hospital. And that's the entire proposition for HCL Healthcare. Our mission is not to bill you. The moment you come to a hospital, our vision is different, to keep you away from going to the hospitals and even if you go you come back and again lead a healthier lifestyle, what is it that we do? That's the business proposition for HCL Healthcare.We find out first, what your health status is and how healthy you are, depending on that I will tell you that, okay, if I give you a grading, which is very a unique composition that is only present with HCL Healthcare. I give you a health index marker that on a scale of 10 how healthy you are. And based on that I put you onto certain care plans, which is a mix of your lab diagnostics, doctor visits, and a dietary consult. I do all these three and also the unique proposition is I will give you a health coach, you must have heard about this term in learning and development of CEO coaching, but nobody applies it for their health. I provide you with a health coach who is going to talk to you on a regular basis to find out how healthy you are, what are steps you are taking that are right or wrong, and help you correct and ensure that in this entire journey of care, you turn out to be fitter. So, that's the business that I am in. Q. How was the impact of COVID on HCL Healthcare, and how did it affect you and your role as an HR leader and as a corporate? Ans: What I think is, when before COVID hit us, there were many things that we thought were not possible, like we are a healthcare company, and whenever we thought of operating from home was a concept which was not there at all in anybody's mind. We always felt that you know we can only be productive at work health checks can happen only in person. But this pandemic taught us elsewhere. So, for both the line of businesses what we realized is training can be made a very effective form and there are wonderful tools which is available online I had my entire team, who has utilized LinkedIn learning, to the best of its output and I have seen people on that with a lot of skills that they have acquired ‘Udemy Coursera’. These were great online platforms, from which my people have learned apart from that also as an organisation, within my team I deployed my team into doing lot of interactive work, we have used teams to their highest potential, and we have trained people. Now when I come to the other side of operations, there also I think as HCL Healthcare we seize the opportunity at the right time. Preventive health checks so luckily for us, even during the lockdown of healthcare services there was no ban on healthcare services. The health checks that we used to provide in our clinic, we shifted it to the customers’ homes. We said that we will send my technician, my lab partner to your home, do the blood sample collection. Once the sample is collected and the reports are out. Telemedicine luckily at that time had not got approved by the Government. COVID saw approval that the Telemedicine sector also got, so because of this I could get the health checks done at home, the blood sample collection, and through the virtual model. We had our doctor connects done. Therefore it ensured that our people stayed in touch so they could take their samples, they could consult a doctor and they could be enrolled in certain care plans and their care journey continued. We also created COVID helplines in our company, wherein all the people who had lots of ambiguities, and doubts and wanted clinical consults from doctors that was also possible through a virtual connection that we had through the COVID helpline. Q. What should HR do to build a strong employee experience and inspire their people? Ans: Absolutely. I think there is a huge shift now we are doing is, before HR was considered like fun Fridays and Monday motivations were considered to be great employee engagement tools that you have come in, do some activity on the floor, that makes your people excited. The answer is not there. Actually, what happens is we need to find out what's your true calling is so, therefore, employee experience can only be enhanced, not only by the HR department, it's a joint effort. Firstly, you need to hire the right resource. And when you are hiring the right resource there is an equal responsibility from the person who is hiring and the person who is getting interviewed as well, that are you in the right job. Are you or have you signed up for something that you like, the moment you have signed up for what is right? It is also the responsibility of your manager to provide you with experience on enabling you with tools which are right, like I might really like to join the army but if an army doesn't equip me how to face combat. The Javan is not going to be in a very comfortable situation on the War-front. Similarly, therefore when I train the person well when I equip the person with doing what they do. And finally, experiences about how every single day what is it that you are learning what value is what you are getting at your job. That's very very important. I think nowadays as companies or as employees, it really doesn't matter if you don't do a floor activity. That's good to have it just a moment of happiness that you do. Because what is important is every single day the work that I do. Am I being appreciated at the work, am I adding value to what we are doing. It's basically as sales managers, we need to ensure that whether we are making the entire engagement of the employee, reach their unique potential save people I always, as a manager question this with my team, that my team should be happy working with me. You should have the ability to voice out against me also. There has been multiple times I worked with a team that if I tell something they sit to discuss and argue it out with me, that is not right, why are we doing this. This is not an autocratic power that since I am in a position of power, everybody needs to listen. It's all about inclusivity and that creates the experience. Q How do you provide flexibility in when where and how people work? Tell us what you are looking for? Ans: I would refuse again it's a paycheque that definitely matters end of the day. These are all questions people ask when they get the flexibility they say give me money. It's money that matters but yes, I think, again COVID has learnt to teach us how we can be relevant, even if you are not coming to the office. Ultimately see this flexibility, the balance we always talk about it all the time, but I. need to also reinforce this fact that in every life stage, there are certain commitments that we need to do to our jobs and our flexibility again, is like responsibility. With great power comes great responsibility which Spider-Man had said, which is very true. If you want flexibility, if you want empowerment, we need to question it every single day as employees, am I being true to the flexibility that I am getting? As an employee I feel, that every component is important, and paycheque is important but then if I get flexibility is important. If I get everything, there has to be a balance, it can't be like, I get everything, and I don't contribute and people don't tell anything and I continue in a workplace. There are no free lunches. I think, again, it has to be a huge balance that if I have taken flexibility, am I working on my output? What if I am working from home, am I working during the period that I am working? Or is it that I am playing with my kids, taking an afternoon siesta and then I say I am overworked and stretched, I am depressed. And that doesn't work like that in the long term. All that we got as a benefit during COVID. I think, for all these practices to last incorporated, it's very important as, employees or as people who are looking for new jobs, we need to ask ourselves, how to stay relevant, how to stay more productive. And to do that, if the question is if I can make myself so productive, it doesn't matter whether I am here or you would get your desired output. If that's the conviction, I get with my manager, flexibility definitely will be given. Q. Now, as we stand today, in February, as we enter March, things are slowly returning to normal, there are a lot of trades going on; whether work from home is okay or work from the office is required? What kind of a balance of mix do you foresee in the next few years and how will it impact the workforce? What kind of workplace do you expect? And how will it impact the workforce? Ans: In my mind, I think, as you know, what I was speaking in the previous question that you asked; flexibility is here to stay. Work from home also is here to stay. However, with an annexure that if I am promoting work from home, I should also see as an employee, whether I am being true to this entire format, or not. So, working from home, I have noticed in multiple situations or multiple employees have come across who take a call, when they are working from bed, they are half in their supine position and they are attending meetings. Attentiveness does not happen like that. There have been people where I have seen that as a problem. And also, I have seen the corollary of it, that there are people since they have cut down on their travel time, they've been able to stay at home and also give focus to their families; their productivity has also gone up. I think it will be a balance that will be seen later as to what happens or how we utilize this entire change. See, as corporates, I think many of the corporations are happy to offer work from home. And that's what the trend that’s happening now is. Because it saves a lot of costs, it saves a lot of costs to the company, because infrastructure cost is saved to a great deal. But with that, if productivity is not hampered, the companies will be happy to take it. But if productivity shows up, a couple of us who do not take this benefit well, then that's where it's going to not be, we leg and get back to probably the traditional way of working. But I think so therefore, the bonus lies with each one of us who is working because I have known a lot of parents who are happy, especially new moms who have young kids, they feel that while they can be productive, they have been able to take care of their kids also, and they have been overseeing them. That's a benefit. But again, like I said, to have that work, it's very important that as employees we do our bit very honestly and be productive during the day. Take meetings attentively, and make sure that we are visible and available during work hours. So, all that is very, very essential. Q. What talent management strategies do you recommend for your colleagues who are listening to you today and for business who would like to be future-ready? What kind of talent management strategies have you found useful? Ans: Again, at HCL we give learning and development quite a bit of importance. We feel like learning is continuous, so learning is not compulsory so is survival, right? But to survive, we need to be constantly learning. Similarly to be relevant at work, it is important that we are constantly on the journey of learning. Talent management, I think, is very very important. I believe that as an employee like I was just speaking earlier, that when an employee joins, it's very important to have a great induction. For most of the induction, it is very important that we need to identify the potential areas where the employees are good at and harness that to a greater extent. I am not a believer that where people say that suppose if analytics is not my trait then it is not my thing, you sending me to 10 Excel programs wouldn't help, because that's not the thing, which I am good at. If communication is a thing that I am good at, I should be given more training around communication so that I become better at that. Therefore, as managers as employees, whenever you are picking up development courses, I think the focus should be on picking up things that you are good at and making that better so that you sharpen your axe in that direction. If you are something that is just not your strength and you are working hard towards strengthening it, if that doesn't happen. The third part is, as organisations, I think it's very important to identify talent. Because most of the time, we identify talent only when the talent is leaving, or is resigning from us. That's the time we tried to give money and say that please stay back. That's a very wrong practice, both for the employee and the employer. Because once the employee starts to feel that I am so important that the organisation can’t stay away and let me go. And the organisation gets into a mode, which is like, I just decide to who's going to manage my work? Therefore, a rightful identification of talent is important, nurturing that talent is also very important. And looking into the success path and career progression for that particular talent is again, very important so that there is a good jump in the corporate ladder. And that's the right way to keep your employees motivated. Q. We are the learning and development team and we have a lot of interaction with our corporate clients and we keep discussing with them to know, what are the skills required? What kind of training do you require? How do you harvest new technology to empower your workforce and the kind of skills that are required for tomorrow? Ans: Technology is very important. It's going to be the next big thing. I think the first and foremost block is a mental block that many of us have that you are not I am not tech-savvy. Though, I think, these days, millennials are really in the right direction. But I think as young people who are into the call, I think one piece of advice that I would give is always to keep sharpening your axe. Today, there is enough and more opportunities, which is there available online, to learn new skills. It's like in this entire journey, we always wait and watch to feel that the corporation is going to give us everything, all the training that we need to succeed. That's not true, right? You will not go to get everything that you want. It's very important as an individual I feel we should all have a dream, the dream? What is the dream that I have? What is it that I or how is it that I want to see myself? Where is it that I want to go? Depending on that I should make certain charts that to achieve there, what is it that I am doing? To know where I am going I need to know what the skills that I am picking up are. Like this, what I tell my team also all the time is that, be progressive, pick up something new, pick up some learning areas that you want to pick up, and do something that you've never done. Those are the things that will make your job interesting, feel relevant in the industry. If I keep saying this like if you talk with me today, again, you invite me and I say the same lines that I have been saying you will not have many people who will be keen to listen. I need to be relevant; I need to update myself with the truth and that goes for employees as well. Technology today is very important. Apart from technology, I think what is important is zeal in individuals that I need to have the right zeal and the build-up right relationships going forward. These are all the things that make you successful. Q. How do you get that kind of talent that you need for tomorrow? Ans: At HCL Healthcare, we are very particular that we hire the right talent. I think that's an important role as a manager as employee of the organisation, it's not to be reactive to see if I can pick up somebody who is not a right fit of the job and then I expect the person to perform. It's a real wrong expectation that I am having in the first place. It's very important that I pick up the right talent; so at HCL we do not hurry-bury about talent. We are known to be people who we really are. We interview a lot of candidates and only pick up the ones that we feel are really suitable for the role. And post that as I said, we give them a proper and a thorough induction and only place them. That's very important and key to success. Now suppose for certain situations I pick up a person who I see has the potential but doesn't have the skill. Then learning and development plays a very key role. Before I deploy that individual, they go through a very stringent L&D process. They go through proper training. They are certified and if the Training Team doesn't certify them. The Operations team can't take them for Operations. We don't give a go-ahead if they do not clear the training. That's the importance of the department. That's the importance of L&D that we have at HCL Healthcare because we feel is a key critical component to success, that I can't have an unskilled person facing my customer, then I not only compromise the image of that individual, but I also compromise the image for my company. And that's a complete ‘No’. Q. How does a company focus on employee retention so that it retains talented and motivated employees and what strategies have you found useful in your experience? Ans: If you really ask me, I am a very relationship-oriented person. I feel employees take if you give them a job that they like to do, if you give them the power to voice out do what they do. If you give them the power to make mistakes and not hold them accountable completely for the mistakes and reprimand them like crazy that you know why have you done it so the ability to make mistakes and finally the power of relationship. I might tell you and also I have situations where I can shout at somebody I can voice out dissatisfaction, but I feel we should wrap up the day with good feelings. That's very important. But again, all these components like finding a job that's value add to an individual. In my personal experience, I have seen a lot of individuals who are in the wrong job. I pick up a person I and the person is also eager to join a particular role because he has nothing in hand and you are looking desperately for a job. You pick up that thing as a great opportunity but over a period you find out that you are not cut out for that job. If you are feeling like that you are not cut out for the job and you are into it. And if I give you a lot of training I do you motivational speeches. You are still not going to love your job. First is identifying that the employee is in the right place. Giving them opportunities, allowing them to make mistakes, allowing them to do things right. And finally, as a manager I feel is also sharing the credit, it cannot be like get things done by my team. Go outside and say it is my work. It always has to be teamwork. When you give your people it's due credit people feel acknowledged and that’s the right way to grow. And that's the stickiness that you can create. Q. The question is that a micro managed employee is an employee who feels undervalued and distrusted by the management which will impact his productivity and happiness at work. How does a good company make employees feel secure and trusted which is very important? Otherwise he will leave the company. Ans: Again micromanaging comes when you do not trust your team. The first essence is when we talk of each other as a team; you would be relating it with your army days. Right? So, team is not just a word. It’s a word for the entire unit. If one person in the unit is not doing something right, the entire unit fails. AITD: We say that our strength is equal to our weakest link, so if one person is weak, you are the weak unit. Ms. Jayeeta Sarkar: Absolutely. As a manager, your week link is, when you cannot trust your team. If you look every day into a given assignment and you feel that this person is not going to do it or the person is taking a leave, he is actually lying. Even if this kind of thought comes in your mind, it stems with the fact that you do not trust your team and therefore you are micromanaging it. Nobody is going to stick around. I think It's very important that, we as managers, learn to trust and again as I repeat, it also holds true for the employees, that as employees, it's always very important to build-in the right character in the job. It is okay to take leaves and is okay to give the right reason why you want to take a leave. It is okay to voice out a few things which you have not liked about your manager. It is much better than doing backbiting later like if your manager scolded you. It's important if you don't agree you should always say that I beg to disagree. But that should finish there. It cannot be that you go to the pantry and you are still talking about your own team. That means you are not a cohesive team and therefore things will not happen right and you can never stay engaged. There's a mantra that we follow in HCL Healthcare and that is; the ‘Art of positive conversation’. We always say at HCL Healthcare there are three things that we really abide by is the, ‘Art of positive conversations’. Days will not be right but what is important is that even if things are not right, we say it in a positive tone; so, if I say that you are not doing something right, I should also tell you what is it that you can do to make it right. That's positive. Second, is if things are not happening right, it's not a good thing to always say that the system is bad. Who is the system? System is you and me. So, it's important that we demand to make those corrections in the right place. And finally, every single day, question ourselves, am I working in my full potential? Am I productive today? I always ask myself and I asked my team to ask this question, has today been a good day? If repeatedly the answer comes ‘No’; then you are not in the right job, and therefore you would start feeling all these kinds of negative thoughts that I am being micromanaged, people are overpowering me, and this is not the right environment. These are all nothing but negative conversations. So, change it to positive and you will see a world of difference. Q. How do we build resilience in the workforce to enable them to adapt positively to stress? And, how can an organisation play a role in relieving stress before a crisis or during a crisis or as we come out of a crisis? Every company has a responsibility towards employees. So, what kind of strategy do you recommend? Ans: In our organisation Brig. Rajesh, we do not reprimand people for the mistakes that they do. We give people ample opportunities to try few things and it's okay to fail. One of my favourite lines which I really believe is ‘it's okay not to be okay’. It's okay not to be fine all the time, right? You can't expect that every single day you are going to come to work feeling really motivated. There are going to be bad days and that’s okay, one line that rings with me is that ‘not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted, counts’. It's okay if few things don’t happen your way, it's very important to let go. That is okay, so that's where I feel today's generation takes everything very seriously. You don't need to take life so seriously. Life is only enjoyable when you make mistakes because that's where you will be talking about it making fun of yourself. And the second part is this ability to make fun of yourself. If you can stand up in a room and talk how there are 310 things that you don't know how to do. That gives you more power than standing up and saying I am perfect in what I do. I feel people who say that they are not true to themselves, and they're taking a lot of stress, which is not required. End of the day work is again like a baggage. Why are we working? We are working to have a good life. If I don't enjoy my life, if I don't go to bed happy, am I really making any sense in the process? It's like a bag on my shoulder. Sometimes the bag is heavy. It is important to put it down. You don't carry a heavy bag all the time. Put it down, take a break and look for a trolley that can carry your bag. That's very important. And then all these depressions, stress, everything will go down. Go down, go for a walk. Laugh out with a friend. Crack a joke; watch a movie, come back charged to say you can create a defensive model. Q. How do we build a business build an inclusive workplace? What is your experience and what is your advice to your friends who are listening to you? Ans: I think it's again very important that we speak about diversity we speak about inclusions, but in a real time when it comes to; there are a few issues that I feel we should be cognizant about. If I talk for male employee and a female employee, there are a couple of challenges which a woman face, which probably in our society, a man doesn't. We need to be cognizant about it and not brush it under the carpet. If you look at your career clock and your biological clock. They run completely opposite to each other. When you join and you start working within about 26-27 people when you are right picking up in your career, marriage happens for a woman They are loaded with responsibilities and when they try to manage that, there is another component of kids that come into the picture to about at 30 where you need to be really productive. These are challenges that we have and I think the modern workplace needs to adapt to these kinds of challenges where we give you those opportunities to understand that there are constraints but we give a lot of flexibility to the employees so that they are able to continue doing their job. While they are going through their life stage. And when you are cognizant about such facts, you definitely see employee retention, and you see stickiness within the environment and people stay. So, diversity is actually a change of mindset that we need to do. And there are a lot of biases that we have as a society, which we need to pull out. Also, as conversations in an organisation, we are very particular, about what is it that we are talking it cannot be gender-centric abusive language, which is again, if you look at it is lot prevalent in North India, we use it like a vocabulary, which is, again, highly focused on gender, which is again, something that we need to stop. We need to start respecting start standing challenges and defining rules accordingly. So, that definitely would help us, and we'll see more engaged employees. Q. What leadership styles are required today to instill a sense of ownership and shared purpose amongst the employees and how do you develop the leadership skills in your teams? Ans: I know this is a topic that we always say so again as I said leadership traits needs to be built over a period. Today’s generation or the way I look at a positive leadership skill is the act of inclusiveness. Today's generation doesn’t like to be told and why today's generation, I think, even we have never liked to be told. We all like to experience things. So, as Leaders, I think it's our responsibility to let the team experience different situations and find out the impact. And then finally the art of having the right conversations is important, having open conversations with the team is very important. We have those conversations and then again following the 24 hours rule is very important. We are working with a big team I always see this as a challenge. There is always one person against the other, this person has done this, what do we do? I always talk of people to follow the 24-hour rule. If you are really disturbed, follow the 24-hour rule. If you are upset, follow the 24-hour rule. Even after 24 hours if you still feel that angry then let's talk and before you come to the leader, you should always first discuss things laterally. First, discuss it with each other and then come vertically. I have people who come running into me and I ask this only as a question have you discussed this lateral, so first kill each other. After you've killed and sorted out each other, then let's come and have a discussion. And we can find out what has worked and what hasn't. And that’s the exact cohesiveness in the team. Today's leaders are no longer people who have all the ideas or who tells team what to do. Today’s leaders are one when you pick up ideas from the team and you execute to perfection and make people believe or show them the right direction through your experiences. That's what is important and again as leaders, it’s our responsibility to stay relevant to know what is happening to understand the millennials to be a one team with them. Q. How has it impacted the way learning and development is done what are the new areas of training, what are the new methodologies that you found useful? How do you see that because people are not happy to go about training program when you tell them that you go and attend training program for two days? How do you make the training experience more rewarding or what are the new trends that you see coming over the horizon which will help us also to design training programs for people? Ans: I think, what is very important is now that we are on virtual mode. I always feel that we should have training programs nomination-based, instead of having it as compulsion-based; that you need to join this session. It should be that I want to join. So, the first shift is from a ‘have to do something’ to shift to ‘I want to do’. Second is, now that we are using technology, so we should also use technology responsibly. So, if you are in a training program, we should always insist that we keep our cameras on. That makes us understand that we are into the session, we are completely there. It helps to make the sessions a little more interactive whereas a trainer and as a participant, you are able to see each other. That really makes an impact because just to switching off your cameras don't help the third part of it that we can do is create engaging content through the online platforms. There are various tools that are available now like you can do mind maps while doing sessions you can use multi-meter as an option where people can write in comments, which makes it a lot more interactive. And most of all, I think we should definitely make this session very-very interactive with a lot of quizzes, lot of participation and invite to different people to present some things and create a debating or an opinion around a couple of sessions, which are not subject oriented where you are improving on your behavioural skills. There should be a lot of discussion, opinion generation, idea generation that can be brought and participation in these programs should be rewarded. Once, we tried to do it, I think it will be a lot better even if we are doing training virtually. We need to adapt ourselves and also develop a couple of norms of doing the online medium; that's very important. Q. Which reward and recognition strategies have you found to be most effective? Ans: This is an initiative that we have launched in HCL Healthcare. I will tell you about it. Every individual end of the day wants to feel appreciated, wants to feel nice about the work that we do. But it's not possible, right? Your manager can’t come into your office every single day to say hello, you've done a great job. Most of the time, if you are doing a great job, it's your colleagues who know about it so what we do is always as human nature if there are things which are not happening, right, we write emails about it. But if there are some things that is happening right with an individual we never take, we don't pause and appreciate that person. At HCL Healthcare we have launched something called the ‘Alchemy Award’. So, what is Alchemy? Alchemy is a process of transforming metal into gold. So, alchemy at work is when you convert your ordinary work experience into something which is extraordinary something which is gold standards. So, to do that we give ‘Alchemy Awards’ to people who you feel I have made a difference to you every single day. So, we have created barcodes in the office and if you feel like I have done a great job and you really liked some gesture of mine, you can just scan a code and give me a star or give me a note that you know, appreciate me for things that I have done right, and it gets collated at one place and every month we give people stars. If you have received an Alchemy note from one of your colleagues, we let you know, and the HR puts the star in front of your workstation. It's like your Army Accolades that you carry. The number of stars you carry is the number of times people have really appreciated you and made you feel nice. Let me tell you, it's not a very easy thing to start, so initially and we had kicked off this initiative. Not a lot of people are very reluctant to wonder that ‘why should I give’ and if I am giving a start to you, what are you going to give me in return? Human tendency of selflessly acknowledging your colleague is good when you discuss it in these webinars, but it's very difficult to follow. So that's the culture that I feel that we are building in HCL Healthcare that you first appreciate each other. And if you appreciate each other, you will feel appreciated; somebody will come and appreciate you once. And that's the greatest form of the rewards that you can get apart from that we also have R&R Strategies, appreciations, and other modes which we can talk about later something. Q. We want you to give us your final thoughts on how you look at the future? What kind of workforce do you look at future? What kind of things need to be done to make the workforce future-ready? Ans: I feel the future is very bright because the youngsters of today's generation are very, very bright people. But they are restless, so every single time the work that we do how or the opportunities that we provide, we need to constantly look into it to make sure that the work there's no stagnancy. We give people new or newer assignments to do. I think that’s the responsibility of the corporates that they need to keep up with. Technologies is going to come into a big way. We are talking about ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and everything; but however, I have a strong belief that it's never going to take away our jobs. It will help us enhance our jobs. Therefore, in whatever comes as different technologies, be curious. Curiosity is a very-very important trait. Develop curiosity as to what is happening in different industries. How is it that working? At Amity, these kinds of sessions, I think you've talked with different leaders of different organisations and understand different practices that they do which is very important to all the listeners who have been listening; I think it's a great opportunity to pick up and research more on the organisations. Find out what is it that you can do to be more and more relevant. Now while the organisation or the environment will make things interesting for you, but opportunities may not be in all directions. So therefore, it's very important to stay relevant to pick up new courses to keep building your own traits that you have or your own skills that’s going to make us future-ready. That’s going to make all the difference and I think the right attitude is what is important, and we should finally also like we always get success with a big smile we should also look at failures with a big smile. In interview, I always ask how many things that you tried which you were failed. If a person has never tried anything that he has failed that person hasn’t tried hard enough. So, it’s important to try multiple things you may fail that’s ok. Pick up something that you like that’s a learning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4fJ7ozJbY4

December 26, 2024, Speaker: Mr. Surya Prakash Mohapatra, Global Head of Talent Transformation at Wipro BPS Interviewed by: Mr. Ashish Sahu, Vice President Training, Amity Institute of Training & Development Mr. Surya Prakash Mohapatra is currently the Global Head of Talent Transformation at Wipro BPS and has over 20 years of experience in various leadership roles in several leading IT (Information Technology) and ITES (Information Technology Enabled Services) organisations. Before joining Wipro, he had worked with HP (Hewlett Packard) Microland, FirstRing, Computer Garage and a few other organisations and he is such a veteran in L&D and has extensive experience in setting up and running L&D functions for organisations of India and international locations. He has set up the global training function for Wipro BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) which spanned across 10 locations in Brazil, Mexico, Romania, Poland, China, and India, He also led leadership development and capability development building and talent management efforts in various organisations. He was also instrumental in setting up the Management Academy and Domain Gurukul in Wipro BPO. Mr. Surya brings with him vast experience in setting up Knowledge Centres of Excellence in various domains, defining and implementing training models for Rural BPO, Tier-III BPO etc. Welcome to today's podcast where we're going to get into an important conversation in relation to the rapidly changing role of HR professionals in today's fast-moving world. Today, we are going to step into a world where HR is not limited to payroll processing and filling vacant positions but actual people planning that can be aligned with organisational objectives. We're going to be talking to you about how organisations can bring in and retain the right people, and also help them grow and develop as well. From adaptive learning strategies and the power of technology- AI and analytics-to precision in upskilling and reskilling, here's how HR is at the edge of driving better success through smarter talent management. So, whether you are an HR professional, a leader, or merely interested in how companies are approaching the future of work, this conversation is sure to be packed with insights that you won't want to miss. Let's get started! Q. How to develop an organisation with the future of work mindset which is more resilient coping with uncertain times and more adaptable or able to adapt and thrive I would say? Ans: When you are talking about how to develop organisations for the future of work that are resilient. I think one thing that we should understand before talking about it is, what is the future of work going to look like. The future of work is going to be interesting. And then some of it is already here today, started happening. So, in the future of work, we will see technology playing a dominant role in everything that we do, in `what businesses organisations do, we will see the workplace look quite different. We are going to talk about hybrid workplaces in the future. A hybrid workplace is a distributed workplace, where people some people will be working at the workplace, some would be working from their homes, some will be coming to office few days a week or a month and some people will be in various parts of the globe. It is not just going to be the hybrid workplace; it is also going to be a hybrid workforce. We will see all kinds of people in the workforce composition. We will see contract employees, will see full-time employees, part-time employees, will see Gig workers, will see freelancers, we will see people working multiple employees at the same time. The concept of nine to six offices has already gone away, I think the pandemic has expedited that change. And people will be on the go, they will be working all the time, they will be working while they are on the go, they could be working from anywhere. And a few other interesting kinds of stuff we will see at the workplace. We will see the coexistence of men and machines in the same workplace. While in the past we saw people. Today we will see people working side by side, alongside machines in the same workflow. So, supervisors are going to be challenged to figure out how to give instructions to people and how to give instructions to machines. The machine works 365 days a year, 30 days a month, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, men and women work for eight hours a day, five days a week, and so on. So how do you do the balancing act? That is going to be an interesting thing in future. So, these are some of the things that we will start seeing in future. And in Future of Work, as knowledge is going to be the dominant player, we will see innovative technologies, we will see technologies replacing human beings all the time or replacing the work that human beings are doing. So, in a scenario like this organisations, industries will struggle to survive unless they innovate, unless they keep thinking, unless they keep learning all the time, they will find it difficult to survive. So, during change, in a very volatile environment where things are changing all the time. It requires a tremendous amount of resilience to stay on foot and survive. When we think about the pandemic. The biggest challenge organisations have, how to bounce back from this crisis, and stay alive and not just stay alive but also thrive amid everything that is going on. So, I think the biggest ask for organisations is to find out their purpose. It is a sense that will drive. Q. Now in the process of adapting to this changing reality, every process function and role will be reimagined fundamentally changing the three key critical aspects what you were just mentioning is one is the future of work. The second is workforce and the workspace where we talk about hybrid workplace. So, can you elaborate further on this, what is your viewpoint on these three aspects, how do they integrate? I mean, future of work, workforce, and workspace, all the three. In terms of futuristic if you look at five years from now. Ans: It is an ever-changing equation they will keep changing all the time. And I think what will be interesting to see is while the nature of work is changing, and in some cases, we will see that work itself is disappearing. For example, if I take the example of driving as we see support, or as a job, tomorrow as driverless cars coming in, driving will disappear. You do not need drivers to drive cars anymore. So, work we will continue to change, it eliminated, new work will emerge. And work can happen anywhere, it can happen at the workplace, it can happen virtually it can happen from people's homes, and so on. And the workforce is going to be very dynamic, the workforce will continue to evolve. And that is where you mentioned something particularly important, now is a workforce going to reimagine and rethink. That is going to be the challenge. So, in every function of every team, every individual will have to reimagine their role. They will have to reimagine their future. So, for example as an L&D practitioner. I would urge all L&D practitioners to reimagine their role as Performance Consultants as Business Partners. I would like them to reimagine themselves as members, or as entrepreneurs running a start-up while organisations would like to cut down costs. You really must look at yourself as a lean, mean fighting machine, how you can contribute value to the organisation, how can you deliver ROI (return on investment) for every program that you run. So, we will have to reimagine our role. For example, during the pandemic the cloth manufacturing companies, started manufacturing masks, automobile companies started manufacturing ventilators. So, a lot of reimagination happened they really relooked at themselves and reimagine themselves and then say hey, we were known for creating something but now in a new context will have to real reimagine ourselves. Q. How can an organisation culture of such sorts balance all work-life, flexibility, opportunity, and growth at the same time? Ans: There are a lot of interesting things that are happening today, so the concept of work-life balance is becoming slightly outdated and now we are talking about life integration. But most executives working from home today, then their work and life, have already been integrated. Now, how do you build an inclusive culture that is a great question. I think what will happen during the change, which is very radical, an environment which is volatile and ambiguous, some people will be ahead of the curve, they will be thinking far ahead, they will be reimagining, they will the change-makers. They will move fast. They will be thriving. And some will be surviving. They will adapt to the change quickly they will follow the leaders, when they see that change is coming, they will start embracing change and so on, they will survive. And then some would find it difficult to change. For example, when the pandemic hit us badly, many people are waiting for a pandemic to get over and then they were saying hey it is another two months, one month, three months and it will be all over and then we will be back to the old way of doing things. But the reality is that is not what happened again. It is a new world that we are talking about a new norm. So, some people will still struggle to adapt to the change and then keep pace with the change. But in organisations, we need everybody. And we need to encourage and promote people who are the changemakers and allow them to challenge, so that they can innovate, rethink, and then take the organisation forward their career forward and then we will have to help the people who are good at adapting to the change, embracing change, and moving forward. We will also have to support the people who are struggling. That is why inclusion is important. We cannot say that the changemakers will thrive, and those who cannot keep pace with change will perish. Then we do not need HR, HR must play that inclusive role, HR will have to support people, people who cannot keep pace with change will require help. They will require additional reskilling. they will require upskilling they will require counselling and they will require support. And not just those people, I think within the organisation, people should get their own pace, who have their work style and preferences, who have their struggles, trials, and tribulations. We will have to make sure that they stand up and they enable people who are thrivers who are changemakers to flourish. Q. How do organisations rethink their existing processes and hierarchies also to allow flexibility and agile working? Now this word agility is something which everybody is talking about these days. So how do you see the Agile working and renewed hierarchies and processes post-pandemic? Ans: We need to relook at the hierarchies, the processes, the structures, the policies. everything needs to be relooked, I think, without getting into the details of the changes, I can talk about the fundamental pillars such as structures, organisation structures, processes, policies, which drives the working, ease of doing business, empowerment, trust, collaboration, and so on. The processes and policies are too bureaucratic, such organisations will not survive. They will not thrive in this future work scenario. If you have processes that require multiple layers of approvals for a small expenditure, then you are not creating an environment of trust and empowerment. There is an organisation that allows the employees to fly any class if they want to fly business class, they can fly. They can choose the airline they want to fly. They have given that kind of autonomy to people and assigned to hold the people accountable. They say each team each department is responsible for maintaining that profitability. We will not ask you to explain why you are spending so much on travel why are you spending so much on the advertisement, but you need to make sure that you meet your revenue goals, profitably goals. So, if you empower people, they will do their best, they will become responsible. People are always responsible. So, I think in an environment like this, the fundamental principles of a structure, processes, policies need to be empowerment, trust, convenience, ease of working, ease of doing business, and so on. Structures, processes, policies that hinder, all of this will not help organisations, organisations which have the right structures, hierarchies’ principles policies, practices which support this, these fundamental principles I talked about will thrive. Each organisation can decide how they want to do it. Q. We talked about what mindset shift does this represent for the future and how different are these priorities was today, the priorities which we had in the past. Are you seeing some of them started to happen? Some mind shifts which I would like to focus on here like enabling performance or managing performance. That is one. The second is that you know the mindset should be job focused or wellbeing focused. It should be bureaucracy or self-managed team which you have said in the previous discussion, culture and behaviour focused or strategy or goal-focused, people-focused, or technology-focused? So, I think you have spoken about these. So, I just wanted to focus on what mindset shift, we are seeing now, and we will see in the future. In all these five areas? Ans: I think the two parts to that question, the first part of the question was, what is going to be the role of HR. And how is the HR role going to evolve? Today tomorrow the role of HR is not to be multifarious, versatile. An HR leader will have to be a technology specialist, he or she needs to understand technology very well. He or she needs to understand analytics very well and use data and analytics to interpret insights that he is getting and make sense out of it and take decisions basis data and insights. And he or she must become a good marketing guy so that he can attract talent to the organisation. And not just attract but retain them, keep them engaged, motivated, and inspired. The HR leader will have to become a finance guy, he must make sure that he or she does everything and then also in a manner where the profitability is not impacted the revenue is not impacted and so on. So, there are multiple roles the HR person is going to play in future. I was addressing a group of students in one conversation. One student told me that I chose it HR because I did not like marketing. I said hey you are in the wrong place. You are a marketing person as an HR leader. So, if you chose HR because you did not like marketing, then you are in the wrong place. Because in future an HR guy must be marketing guy, sales guy, technology guy, and analytics guy, business, and finance guy, and so on. So, I think we will have to wear multiple hats, and we will have to take off one hat out and another depending on where we are on. Now you gave me some scenarios you talked about whether it is culture strategy, bureaucracy, or government or people-focused, or business focused and so on. Now the reality is both, HR and organisations will have to find the balance. Finding the balance is the key. You cannot be completely tilting towards one side. It is like the pandemic situation where you have a lockdown and no lockdown. If there are no lockdowns people are dying if there are lockdowns people are also dying. They are starving because they are out of jobs, they do not have income. How do you really find that balance? I think the successful line finding the balance, the true balance. That is important; they are not completely tilted on one side. As HR you will have to make sure organises earns its revenues, maintains profitability. At the same time and must make sure people are taken care of, people are given the support they need, people who are struggling, people who have health issues, people who have psychological issues who have nervous breakdowns. They need to be taken care of. So, you must take care of people, you must take care of business. You must take care of both. That is important. It is it cannot be either-or. Q. What is your people strategy, what kind of talent you recruit and how you manage them? Do you see people strategy as a differentiator for companies? I mean does it make difference. Are there any instances where you have seen differentiated people's strategies contributing to the impact of the company or industry? Ans: People strategy is important. It is a key differentiator. And because today we are living in a knowledge economy, where 90% of what we see in organisations is knowledge. The rest 10% could be buildings machinery etc. So, it is in a knowledge economy human capital is extremely critical and the success of organisations depends on the cumulative knowledge of the organisation and the organisation's ability to unleash that knowledge. So, there was a McKinsey report recently in a study that was carried out. It says that situations like pandemics, another black swan event put a lot of pressure on organisations. And there is pressure to innovate, there is pressure on them to automate, there is pressure on them to kind of drive innovative programs and so on. And during chaos organisations struggle to figure out how to respond to these changes that they see around them. And the real success lies in the reaction time. How quickly do organisations respond to the changes? So pandemic situation COVID-19 challenged many paradigms but organisations which responded quickly, I think, survived. And many of them thrived and they became more profitable than they used to be before the pandemic situation. So, what is important for organisations and for individuals to understand is to have a robust talent strategy that is built around knowledge, and why I talked about change and the ability to respond to the change because it depends on the ability, the collective capability of the organisation to respond to the change. So, when the external environment changing the internal environment also must change, but that is not enough. The internal environment must change faster than the external environment. It must survive and thrive. We talk about the GAFA companies, Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and so on. They are the organisations that have demonstrated that they can pre-empt change, they can see change before it comes, and they take advantage of that. And they become the front runners. So, when during volatility, ambiguity they thrive because they can see change coming and they are better prepared to deal with the change not just to deal with the change but to sometimes to drive the change themselves. They become change-makers. So, then what is the crux of that, the crux of that is people talent. You do not have the right talent then you will not be able to respond to the changes it is it boils down to capability. So, talent strategy is important. So, in today's world, there is an important thing that we always talk about there is a talent war, the war for talent. During the war for talent, organisations need to have a robust talent strategy otherwise they will lose the war for talent. They will lose to the competition. So, it is particularly important that organisations need to have a very robust people strategy and talent strategy at the core. People are at the core of everything that an organisation does, and that is important. How do we attract the right talent? How do you retain them, how do you develop them, how do you grow them, how to provide them career opportunities? These need to be fundamentals of any business strategy. People at the core of the strategy is important. Q. You talked about like knowledge economy and we are talking about attracting talent we are talking about retaining talent. And there the role of HR becomes extremely critical. And the one thing which we are being a learning and development organisation where we are working with various organisations as a knowledge partner. And one thing which has come out very strongly is the concept of BEI (Behavioural Event Interview) interviewing skills which is Behavioural Event Interviewing Skills which is very-very important, and we are working with a couple of organisations regarding this. It is emerging and we have experts who have researched for 10 years or so in this technique. And it is extraordinarily strong because until and unless you can attract the right kind of talent, retaining them, nurturing them becomes much more difficult. And like you had mentioned earlier, and we talk about it later also about the role of re-skilling. Ans: Can I add something which I missed mentioning in that. While it is important to have a robust strategy to attract talent and then develop and grow them etc, what is also important is to create an ecosystem where they can thrive. We need to create a culture where people are not afraid of making mistakes. They are encouraged to experiment try out new things, their growth mindset is encouraged. That is important. Some organisations spent millions of dollars and getting immense talent to the organisation, but they do not know how to take care of that. And they fail. Those the talent who comes in, the people who come in either become unproductive, get demotivated, and they quit after some time. So, I think creating the right ecosystem and culture is also equally important as part of this people strategy. Q. It is especially important that once we track the right talent, how do you groom them to take out the best potential is very-very critical and very-very important? I am agreed with what you rightly said. Ans: There was a discussion with Mr. Ratan Tata, they were talking about a manager, and his manager was being reviewed and there were some performance issues with that manager and a senior executive mentioned to Ratan Tata. Sir, it is a skill issue. And Mr. Tata replied, is it a skill issue or a grooming issue, a senior executive may not have an answer. Q. How do you accelerate individuals learning curves, so that they can become much more productive? So, we are talking about grooming as you said you are grooming about a conducive environment. So how do we improve the learning curve and make them much more productive, particularly in the post-pandemic era? Ans: So earlier at the workplace, people were sitting in front of the manager, the manager used to allocate work. So, the manager had an innovative idea of who is productive, who is efficient, who is producing what, he or she is expected to produce but today managers are concerned because people are in a distributed environment. So, I think productivity has become a matter of concern. But I think the way to address that is going to be giving them the right opportunity and empowering people. So, managers need to stop micromanaging they should stop looking over somebody's shoulders to figure out how much progress he or she has made. Managers will have to manage by objectives and managed by outcomes, that is the only way to drive productivity. The second thing is how do you have people come across the learning curve quickly, especially people who are not in a classroom, not in a production environment that they can build an SME and today there are technologies which have evolved. Now we come to adapting the strategy when I talk about adaptive learning which is a new concept that is emerging. Adaptive learning adapts to the learning style of the learner. If I am a quick learner. It adopts a style it starts pushing more content to me. It knows that I am moving faster. If somebody is a slow learner. It gives that learner the space. It gives the learner more time to learn. In a physical classroom environment that does not happen because every individual gets similar treatment by the instructor or the trainer. Adaptive Learning Technologies today are helping organisations drive speed to proficiency. Speed to proficiency is challenging, how can new people become as productive as the existing staff. I answered my question. But concisely, I wanted to say that adaptive learning strategies today are driving speed to proficiency and productivity. Q. How do organisations leverage artificial intelligence and analytics to infer current skill levels and provide personalized learning experiences for every employee like fostering a culture of perpetual learning that rewards continual skills illustrious career and learning paths, if I must see from the perspective of the adaptive learning strategies? Ans: This is a great question. So how are we using technologies like AI (Artificial Intelligence) analytics etc to drive personalized learning? I think what I said earlier is linked to that question that you are asking me. So, I talk about something remarkably interesting. I would use this metaphor, I say “buying your sandwich” so when we walk into a subway outlet. The guide there would ask you to choose your bread, choose your cheese. choose your sauce and at the end of it, you come back with your sandwich. Every everybody who walks into the same outlet walks away with a different sandwich highly personalized customized. Learning an organisation must become like that. Learners should be able to choose their sandwich and I say chose their sandwich I mean they should choose their learning path. Learners should understand what their career aspirations are, what is their calling. The learning system which is powered by AI and analytics should enable that. It should push content to me, basis my aspirations and interests and styles like I go to a subway and then choose my sandwich and I make my sandwich. I should be able to create my learning path using my LMS which is powered by AI and analytics. I use another example, often in conversations like this. Today when we switch on our smartphone, we keep getting notifications, it says the moment of switch on it says 30 WhatsApp messages waiting for you, 20 messages on Facebook Messenger waiting for you, it says that this is a news item that you may be interested in and so on. So, in the good old days, people used to go and look for content. They were going out to find content. Today content finds you. Content comes after you. Messages come and tell you hey messages waiting for you. Hey, you may be interested in this. That is how learning must evolve. Learning must evolve to that level of personalization when I switch on log into my learning management system, it should so tell me, Mr. Mohapatra, we think you are interested in this model. This is all that you have been reading all these days we think you will be interested in reading this book. We think that you will be interested in this training module. That is how content should find the learner. In the past learner used to try and find content. It has reversed. That is how I see AI and analytics driving personalization. Q. We have designed very specialized programs which we call performance enablement solutions which are bite-size programs we run 90-minute workshops every week which is very-very popular among the corporates, they take care of these things and upscaling well-being, performance enablement. How do you use these in rescaling and upskilling and enabling the performance of the employees as an HR person? Ans: I think all upscaling rescaling now needs to be relevant. We should teach people what they exactly need to learn. I do not think we should spend time teaching people nicely to know stuff that is anyway available on YouTube and Google and all that people can figure out. Our strategy should be very precise. We need a precision strategy where we exactly hit a nail on his head. That is important. So, making learning interventions razor-sharp and making it very-very relevant to the needs of the job or the new job that the person is going to pick up. University, Educational Institutions have professional courses which run for years together. But people are losing jobs at the workplace. And they are not expected to come into a new university or a B School to enrol for a two-year program and then go back and get a job. They do not have the time, especially people who are suffering from a midlife crisis, who are in the 40s, 30s late 30s, early 40s mid-40s. They cannot step out with so many commitments, financial commitments and then do a two-year course. Our education needs to become more modular. I am happy to hear that you have 90-minute workshops. They need modules like this, extremely focused razor-sharp truly relevant teaching them practical skills, that is the need of the hour. Organisations need to drive that. Organisations need to engage in such programs and their curriculum really must become bite-size, microlearning, available on-demand, map to people and their roles that they are performing today, or they are going to perform tomorrow, is important. Another important aspect is outplacement, out skilling, we talked about rescaling, upscaling, we also need to talk about out skilling, where organisation not only should prepare their people for new roles within the organisation. Some people will not find opportunities within the organisation because of whatever reasons. They have the responsibility of skilling them, providing they do not work outside. It is not enough to tell them Hey you worked here for so many years, now your skills are not relevant, we tried to find a job for you we have not found a suitable opportunity for you, this is the notice period you find a job. It is not enough. Organisations have a moral commitment to people who have worked with them for a longer period. Then it will be more important to provide them with the skilling so that they find opportunities outside. Q. What will be the role of outsourcing for HR functions in learning and development like as you said that the capability is not always within the organisation. I mean this is something of our interest, how often do you think that for L&D functions outsourcing is there or it should be done? Ans: Outsourcing will be in the back end. Organisations will not start with this. Organisations will first figure out what they can eliminate but what they no longer need to do. After eliminating what they find, they still have had to do a few things. The second question they will ask is can we automate these things. And if they find opportunities to automate those tasks, they will do that. So, they will eliminate them they will automate. Then what cannot be automated, will be outsourced, except the core. Outsourcing will be at the end of the spectrum. It will start with elimination, automation, and outsourcing. Everything that is non-core, in my view, will be either automated or outsourced both in HR and L&D and it is not new it has started happening. Q. What will be some of the key themes on organisation culture that IT sector will need to embrace in the future. Where are we now on these themes? Ans: The themes of organisation culture, I think we have talked about some of the discussion during the discussion. We have talked about inclusiveness, we talked about collaboration, we talked about customer-centricity, organisations, and individuals will have to demonstrate a great amount of ownership, a sense of accountability, respect for each other. These are going to be the hallmarks of the Organisation culture, and this is extremely important for organisations to focus on them because all of us know there is an incredibly famous saying “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” So, if we want, we need to inculcate the right culture. Culture is a sum of what you get to see in the organisation, the way people talk, the way people engage with each other the way people interact with the customers, with their suppliers, their behaviours, their demeanours, habits, all this form the culture of an organisation. And the challenge with culture is if your culture is non-responsive for a guy who comes from outside, who has a great deal of responsiveness and accountability. If he or she gets into the organisation and then figures out that people are not responsive, even that person will also transition to the culture that is prevalent in your organisation. So, I think bad culture and a good culture both are learning opportunities. We will have to walk the talk. And everybody else will have to consistently demonstrate. The leaders will have to demonstrate, and then if they do the others will also start demonstrating. Q. The final three things which you would like to tell the audience, as far as the Rethinking role of HR is concerned? Ans: Today we are living in a world where knowledge is evolving amazingly fast. The knowledge that we acquired in the past in our schools, colleges, universities, we are not using at the workplace today. The knowledge that we need, we shall need tomorrow, does not even exist today, that knowledge, must be invented. It must emerge. So, all of us need to become lifelong learners. That is the message that I would like to leave with you is to invest in yourself and be a lifelong learner. That will take you far in life and your career. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9JL4ZHZpvw

December 26, 2024, Speaker: Mr. Manoj Jain, Managing Director, Shriram Life Insurance Mr Manoj Jain is the Managing Director of Shriram Life Insurance and a partner in Shriram Group of Companies. He comes with a very rich experience of 31 years in the banking and financial services domain and over 20 years in the life insurance industry. During his tenure as CEO of Shriram Life, he transformed the company PAN India with consistent growth of 20% CAGR against the industry growth of 10% which is highly commendable. He has been chosen as World Leader Businessperson Award by the World Confederation of Business in the year 2009. He has also been chosen as CEO of the year at ABP News by Indian Financial Services and Insurance Awards for three consecutive years which is 2015, 2016, and 2018. He has also been chosen as the ‘Top 100 most influential people in BFSI Sector’ by World BFSI Congress in 2018. Q. A well-developed insurance sector acts as the backbone of a nation as it supports the citizens even in unforeseen events which we have seen during Covid 19. It not only helps consumers by providing financial protection but also contributes to the nation’s economy, so it plays a very critical role in the nation’s economy. What has been the impact of Covid 19 on the Life Insurance Sector in India? Ans: Thank you Mr Ashish for providing me with an opportunity to speak to the audience. I know this is being globally telecasted. I can just say ‘Hi’ to all my young viewers. The question which you put up that is the life insurance sector or insurance sector is a very critical sector for any economy because it's more like a backbone like banking insurance and financial services. And as you rightly said that insurance provides big support in nation-building and India the population and the penetration India contributes only 2% of the global premium where the population of India is almost as high as 30% of the world population. So, you can just see the potential is huge. With regard to your question that how Covid has impacted this industry I think Covid impact started in India in the last 15 days of March and you know in India the March is a very special month when it comes to insurance because historically and even now also in India people buy insurance particularly life insurance more as a tax saving instrument so it's very irony that 50% of the business comes in January, February and March and within that 50% close to around 30% comes alone in March and in that 30%, 20% comes alone in the last 10 days. The last 15 days got impacted by Covid and because of that the industry which is growing almost by 15% last year the industry who are just flat because the cream 15 days has just gone in the Covid. April was a completely washed away month but from May there’s a sharp recovery has happened, and I can just say the end of September the industry numbers are already there. In life insurance, we have just a cumulative de-growth of around 5% when it comes to health insurance it has grown by 25%. The general insurance industry has grown by 5% and there's a huge demand is coming now for a term plan. So while in Covid, the industries like hospitality, travel, tourism, hoteling, they all got impacted very badly but life insurance as I said was impacted for 45 or 60 days and then there's a sharp recovery and if everything goes well I think this year may be in next one or two months the industry will be on track. Q. How does the Insurance Industry look forward to mitigating such risks and look at risk assessment from a fresh perspective because there are certain things which are unforeseen, nobody knows that what is going to happen? How do we mitigate such risks in future and do the risk assessment from a fresh perspective? Ans: Insurance is all about managing risk, we are in the business of risk, at best we can only mitigate the risk. I think all these, whether it is Covid or any sort of pandemic are already factored in the pricing of any insurance company. So just for the viewers, I can just say that all insurance policies which are sold by the life insurance company in India are covered for Covid also. It's not that we were knowing that Covid is going to come but everything is covered in the pricing and that's what we call it that take insurance and you will be away from your tensions but unfortunately in India, the awareness of insurance is very-very poor very-very low. This Covid has given a huge opportunity and huge visibility and huge need as now the people are coming and saying we don't have life insurance; we need to buy it. So, coming to your question I think this Covid period has given an opportunity, as I said there is a huge surge in the demand for health insurance. People are buying now health insurance. They are aware that if they don't have a policy, how the family will be vulnerable especially in Covid. If the Covid comes to one family member, the whole family gets suffered and the industry and the regulatory particularly in India is very-very proactive and I think with a record time of just 30 days, the industry has come together and launched even the special Covid policies also. A customer can buy a Covid plan which is available for 6.5 months to 9 months on a very-very nominal premium amount. Even today also if I don't know whether you all have seen the newspaper, the regulator has come with a Saral Bima Yojana, a common insurance policy that can be bought by any individual. Across life insurance companies, this plan can be bought so when it comes to mitigating the risk, risk will be there but it is already factored in the pricing so I don't see any reason for panic because whatever the premium the consumer is paying, its already given in the price and all the claims are getting settled on time and we generally say insurance is a business which is a very very long-lasting. Some companies are selling insurance policies for 30 years, 40 years, 50 years and insurance company takes care of all risks and eventualities and there is well establish Reinsurance market is also available in the country. So, from that angle, the health of all insurance companies is in very good shape. Just to give a perspective to everybody in India, we have close to around 57 insurance companies working, 34 life insurance company and the balance 33 are general insurance companies. Last year the total premium collected by the industry and I am talking about only the life insurance is around 7.31 lac crore. That’s the premium which is being collected and in that the 1st year premium is around 2.5 lac crore and the total fund which is managed by the life insurance industry alone is around 40 lac crores. This industry is huge although there's a large potential as I said, the market is very intact, there is huge potential knowing the fact that in the last 20 years industry has grown with a CAGR of around 10% and in the next 10-15 years also I think the same trend will continue. Q. How long it has been impacted, being a group company, how it has impacted employees, people regarding Covid-19. We would like to know more about the Group per se. Ans: I think just to give a perspective, Shriram Group is a 45, 4.5-decade-old group. Our DNA comes from truck financing. We are having one of our group company Shriram Transport is the largest truck finance company of India. We are the market leader in used vehicle finance. Every second vehicle on the road is funded by Shriram Transport and our DNA is we want to serve the unserved population, the common man. If you see our logo, the logo represents a common man who said that the Sky is the Limit. So that’s the vision which our Founder Chairman Mr Thyagarajan has envisaged 45 years back because getting finance even now also for a common man is not all that easy. So we are having a largest truck finance company. We are having another company which is the largest SME finance company and a two-wheeler finance company. In the insurance business, we are around 15 years old and probably this is the only company which is making a profit from year one. And as I said that our focus is the common man so our penetration, our distribution, our reach is in tier 3 and tier 4 town. Rather every second policy which we sell is a rural policy. That’s what is the DNA of the group and just to give a perspective we have close to around 80,000 employees working in the company in the entire group and we have close to around 10,000 branches across India. So we are no longer a South-based company, we are PAN India footprint primarily in the rural tier 3 and tier 4 town and primarily serving the unserved customer. That's what is the DNA of the group. Q. How is the Shriram group which is a conglomerate of different businesses dealing with such digital circulation because as you move to the rural tier 3 and tier 4 cities, there will be challenges regarding getting internet connectivity and so and so? How does your company deal with this? Ans: I think it’s a very-very relevant question in the current scenario. I think we realised the need of moving to the digital platform maybe five years back. So the digital transformation in the entire group, we have started in 2016-2017 onward and I am very happy to say that in the last 5 months we must have sold close to around 20,000 life insurance policies. We have sold completely on digital platforms, completely paperless. Thanks to the Regulator that they have even agreed to a digital signature on the proposal form. So we have done completely paperless. Rather I am very happy to share that 3 years back we started a channel called ‘Phygital’ channel. Why I am using the word ‘Phygital’ because in India even though there is a huge platform available that you can buy life insurance policies across the counter, there are so many platforms, there so many web aggregators are there where you can get an insurance policy on a click of a button but my experience says insurance or financial services, trust is very-very important especially when the customer is looking for a claim, the insurance company should be around. Historically in India or worldwide from that matter insurance is always sold, people have not bought it. So you require somebody who can give a touching feel, while the customer is accessing online but they expect that somebody should come and explain as well. So the 'Phygital’ channel which I am talking about is, the entire team is digital therefrom proposal form to policy to everything but there is an agent, he can go and explain to the customer. So not us, I think the entire industry has come a long way on digital transformation and even the Indian customer especially in tier 3 tier 4 towns, just to give you an overview, we have a total book size of around 6 lac policies. So on several policies, we are among the top 10 insurance companies in India and as high as 60% of the customers are paying premiums through online or digital mode. So the digital transformation has gone much faster in rural India than in urban India. The customer is fully aware there are various platforms are there such as they can go to Paytm pay the premium, they can go to Google Pay and pay the premium, they can go to net banking, they can have Nach mandate. So as I said 60% of my customer are paying a premium through digital mode and as I said in the last 6 months almost around 80 to 90% policies we have sold digitally. When I am saying sold digitally means the processing is done digitally but then, an amount of element of advice is there because unless that is not there the customer doesn't get that comfort. So that's on the digital side but we have a long way to go. Although in a company, we have started using something called artificial intelligence, data mining all that is happening but then as I said it will take a little longer time because insurance per se is more a push product. Somebody has to go and talk because I think a normal Indian, a common man in India thinks that nothing is going to happen to me it's only going to happen to my neighbours or my relatives. So somebody has to come and explain to him why he should buy insurance. Why the sudden demand for insurance has come, even people are seeing, people are dying due to Covid and when the families are checking they don't have sufficient health insurance coverage. So people get insurance out of fear as well. The only challenge which is there in the industry is awareness, awareness and awareness. Q. As you mentioned earlier also while talking about ‘Phygital’ and I also have seen by experience, we normally buy insurance policy because there is an element of trust involved and these are people who are known to us, they are family friends and attend all our functions and things like that. And that is very based on what that they tell us. So very very interesting which you said is Phygital part. So in that scenario, what is the position of digital sales and services offering because important is that the customer should be satisfied, they have a trust? Now how things are changing due to Covid and it’s more of a digital thing. Ans: As I said the inquiry level which was hardly 5% that has gone up but still as I said 90 to 95% of policies are getting sold offline because the customer doesn't get that type of satisfaction online although all the comparisons are there all data. Another thing as I said awareness. The customer himself is not aware of what type of policy will suit him, what is his requirement, whether a term plan is fine for him or he is looking for money back or he is looking for endowment policies or whether he wants a pension plan. Somebody has to go and advice, we call something called need analysis. We go and advise the customer and do his financial health checkup and check actually what is his requirement, what he is looking for, at what age he is, what is his liabilities, what income he is drawing because there is something called human life value. Each customer is having, individual is having different human life values. There is a labour in a factory, his insurance requirement is different, he is a manager in the factory his insurance requirement is different and the owner in the factory, his insurance requirement is different. So each one has to be something called human life value and then based on that and based on his age, we suggest that look this is what is an ideal cover you should have. Generally, we recommend that an individual should have at least 20 times of his income as insurance, life insurance. So that if anything happens to him, the family will get that money and the family puts that money into a safe even bank deposit, the interest will given, that type of income to the family. Yes, emotional loss, nobody can make, nobody can fulfil that emotional loss but the financial loss, an insurance policy can do it. Just to make it simple if the salary of an individual say is around 5 lac rupees per annum, ideally, he should have a cover of around a crore of rupees, that’s a thumb rule. I know in India only 2% or 3% is a penetration. So we have a large number of customers who don’t have insurance and we have a large number of customers who are having insurance but they don't have sufficient insurance. When I am saying sufficient insurance, just to give a more simple example, somebody is having a Mercedes and having insurance of Maruti. A Mercedes is costing say 30 lacs and he is having insurance of 3 lacs which is of Maruti. Now tomorrow if that vehicle meets with an accident. Same with an individual, if an individual should have the cover of 3 crores and he is saying no I have a policy but then he is having 30 lacs policy. So there that human life value comes in place and lot of awareness has gone but as I said we have still a long way to go. Q. In fact, my question was related to this only which you have mentioned a very interesting thing. You also mentioned Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics. So what I wanted to ask you data drives are more highly targeted marketing and sales approaches, they are very targeted marketing approaches when we talk about data analytics and artificial intelligence. How much you earn, won't determine your worth anymore, as you rightly said now not for sure insurance companies anyway, they are now using data analytics and AI to suggest a policy based on the service or device that you are using. For example, if I am using an iPhone, if I logged in through an iPhone, the insurers will direct you towards premium policies which are of higher value. This is something which I was a little curious to know how to do data analytics and artificial intelligence take care of that as you mentioned about the example of Maruti? Ans: There are various insurance companies, there are some insurance companies that are using data analytics and artificial intelligence for prospective new customers but there is a large number of insurance companies currently using these 2 tools on their existing customer base. Whether somebody has bought a policy what is the propensity that customer will renew this policy and continuous policy for next 10 years or next 15 years because the other challenge, particularly in India, is a huge lapsation happens. People do buy policies but as I said 30% of policies get lapsed at the end of the first year. At the end of the fifth year, only 40 to 45% of policies are only in the books. What does this mean, the customer has taken an insurance and when he is looking for an insurance company, by that time you realise that the policy has already lapsed and day in day out we are getting claims, intimation and when we go and check, the customer has taken a policy but then he has not renewed it. So a lot of work insurance companies are doing in educating the customer that why insurance and why he should continue once he has bought an insurance policy he should pay and then we are using all this data whatever we have of an existing customer that how we can use this just to drive that yes we have sold a particular insurance policy in a particular market segment, what are the chances of getting the renewal. There are some companies including us have started using even for sourcing new business but as I said the online currently is around 5 to 8% of the overall business. So lead generation and all that happens but then we give those leads to our agents or intermediaries and they go and meet the customer because somewhere the customer feels that he doesn’t need life insurance, somebody has to come and push him. It’s not like that bank fix deposit that I have some money lying in my saving account and I feel oh let me just do a fixed deposit, not like general insurance because the car which I have, I cannot drive on the road even one day without insurance and I always say whether the car is important or the person who is driving the car is important but unfortunately people insure their car but the person who is driving the car is uninsured or less insured. Q. What is the emerging trend out and why I am asking this is very important because I know that Shriram Life had won the CII Award for Customer Obsession in 2019? You know the customer than anybody else for that matter. Ans: It’s a very interesting and very good question. I can just divide it into two. India, itself, is a very-very diversified country. Generally, we say that one is India other is Bharat. Now if you see the demographic of India, we have a population of say 130 crores. If you see we have close to around 40 crore households. Now in 40 crore household, we have close to around 3 crore households, roughly a population around 15 crores, which we call a poor segment. They are fighting for their basic needs. I don't think insurance companies can do anything at this stage because, for them, they are looking for basic needs. Then the second segment comes, where there is a chunk of close to around 12 crore households. Their income is ranging from 1.5 lac to around 4 or 5 lac rupees. We generally call that middle, the common middle or middle-class family. That is a huge segment, 12 crores. Now in that segment, what Shriram is working, if you see there is a need for insurance because, in the entire family, there is only one person who is earning. If anything happens and this is the segment where a lot of aspirations also there. So not only they earn, they have a plan to buy a house, they have a plan to send their kids for education, they take even loans also. Now in that segment, we primarily focus. And the third segment comes, which we call, maybe HNI where income is ranging from 10 to say 25 lacs. Now that's a segment where is a very small market. And the fourth segment comes, maybe a rich or super-rich. Now the above two segments Shriram is not at all looking because we know those are the people, they have enough money, they don't know what to do. So most of these customers are having a bank account in large private sector banks and then they buy insurance from there. So our focus is on the 12 crore household, which is a huge market and is completely untapped and there we are looking even the initiative which IRDAI announced today, Saral Bima Yojna, even before that Government of India announced two or three schemes which was aimed for the middle class and the lower middle class, ‘Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Yojana’. I don't know how many of the viewers are aware that the Government of India has designed it in 2014 and made it compulsory for all insurance companies to sell insurance. There is the cover is of 2 lacs and the premium is only one rupee per day. So you end up paying even less than one rupee, you end up paying 330 rupees in a year. And if anything happens, 2 lacs rupees cover is there. The only thing that is required, you should have a bank account. Because the intermediary cost is almost negligible in that. So the customer has to have a bank account and he can just give a standing instruction, the bank will debit and the 2 lacs rupees cover is there. The second policy that the Government of India announces ‘Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Suraksha Yojana’. That’s again 2 lacs rupees cover. If anything happens due to an accident, it's only one rupee per month, only 12 rupees a year. So in 350 rupees, an individual is having a cover of four lakhs, which is I think sufficient when it comes to lower middle-class people and quite affordable. Although I think combined policies sold by an insurance company in the area is roughly around 155 million policies are already sold. But you know the population of India. I think everybody should take that policy. So if I am saying 40 crore households, at least 40 crore people should go and buy that policy. That's what is our vision. But coming to your question on particular segmentation, we have a lot of lifestyle policies as well. We have focus group policies like for the business category, we have something called Keyman Insurance for professionals. And housewives, we have policies taking care of the needs of that particular segment. We come from a common man and our mind always goes on the common man. So we had a dedicated insurance policy for the truck drivers. And I am happy to share that in the last 15 years, we may have covered close to around more than 10 lacs truck drivers on insurance. Because this is one segment where no insurance company wants to touch this segment. But then we have designed a policy at a very affordable rate. Just to give a perspective, a truck driver gets a cover of around 5 to 8 lacs rupees by paying a premium of around 5000 rupees in a year. And if nothing happens to him, he will get his money back at the end of 10 years whatever premium he has paid. Another group which we tried using technology to the core. Long back there used to be a company called Telenor, which was a telecom provider company in India. So we had a tie-up with them and this product is very very popular in South Africa where our partners are there. Just by clicking a button, an insurance cover was available for the people and the cover was, you recharge because the Telenor was in the only prepaid segment. So from 5000 to 50,000 cover was there for a particular period. Again you recharge, your plan will again be valid. And this premium was paid at that time by Telenor. So a lot of other insurance companies have tried this. But then, what happened a large number of people get covered. We also had covered close to 2 crore people at that time, but the premium was very small. But then it was completely technology-driven selling, focus on a target segment and we have settled, I think a good amount of premium as well. So in India, as I said there is a variety of customers are there, there are customers who are looking for a 10 crore insurance also but a large number of customers are looking for maybe 1 lac and 1.5 to 2 lacs life. Q. So I would like to shift a little focus on what we have been talking about in the insurance sector then coming back to your organisation as well. As most of the employees are working from home, working in virtual teams, this is something which is our interest, what we are strictly into a day in day out. Now this pandemic has brought this tremendous change in human resource planning and operating to ensure employee well being, how do we enable their performances so that as you rightly said that it is a ‘Phygital’ world where they have to physically also go. And how do we up-skill employees for performing well in these unprecedented times as we have to be future-ready because we don't know how long this will be continued. What is your take on this about the current situation? Ans: I think it’s a very valid question. And most of the companies as I said, a lot of preparedness although. If you see, compare the insurance industry versus banks, banks are far ahead on the technology compared to an insurance company. But having said that in the last five years, a lot of work has gone by. I can just say that we are representing a company which works for the common man. But then we have developed certain apps which are there with our agent on his smartphone. And through that app, he can finish the complete sales process. Even his training, we are doing on that smartphone. He is talking to the customer on a smartphone. If required, he is going and meeting the customer. All of our employees on that angle are fully equipped. But as I said, insurance industry we may be having close to around 3 lacs employees, maybe around 10 lacs agents. 90% of that are responsible for business development. And as I said in the beginning, even they are all tech-savvy but then each customer expects that my agent, my sales guy should come and meet me, not virtually, one to one. So while they are fully geared up with the technology, but that one-time human interaction is there. Although net banking is there, the premium can be paid through debit cards, credit cards and all that. But that one to one interaction is still there, but our back-office teams, people who are responsible for servicing the existing customers, people who are responsible for the policy generations, people who are responsible for underwritings, our actuarial teams, our finance and accounts team, our sales support team, they are all working from remote. And that is completely seamless working. Our challenge is that how we can put the entire sales process also virtual. Technology is there, a customer can solicit insurance, even on WhatsApp call, but it will take a little longer time. But it will surely happen, but the industry is ready. And most of the insurance companies are having those apps technology-enabled where everything can be done online. Q. So would like to ask you about what are the innovations in terms of the part of the payment, in terms of servicing the client, taking care of the claims and other things because it’s all virtual. How you are coping with these things and how are the employees coping with these things. Ans: As I said that we have a very forward-looking regulator. And the preparedness for digital transformation has started 4 or 5 years back. So most of the companies are having all these tools available which at the need of the customer, intermediaries are using it and when it coming to impacting people, I will give my example, before COVID I was travelling at least for 10-15 days in a month because somewhere a mental block I was having that unless I will go and meet and talk to the people one to one, the influence and impact will not be there. But from theAbout last six months, we are all on the zoom call or Cisco call or Google call and we are conducting the meetings and the impact is almost the same. So everybody is changing including me, like, even I don't see that for next three months also I will travel because the zoom call is very very effective. Earlier we used to plan meetings at least one and half months in advance, even sometimes used to plan a large meeting, a large gathering at least three months in advance to check the availability of the hotels, the venue, availability of the people. Now it has become so handy that now I decide that in the evening I want to have or I want to talk to all my people who report to me and we can all get connected. There are many technologies or telecommunication facilities there because we run a large team. All our regional managers are equipped that in just one dial, they can connect 200 people in one go. The message can go on a real-time basis to our people. In the last six months, the kind of even audio calls, even I have done an audio call to 2000 people in one go. I had never addressed such a large gathering physically because 2000 people in one go will be difficult. But on audio calls 2000 people seamlessly we could connect to the last miles. I think political parties used to do this. I think nowadays because of COVID, the insurance industry how to connect real-time with our agents, with our sales officers, how we can tell them that we were concerned about their well being. So I think last six months, I may have done, close to around 1 dozen web calls just to talk to the team, connect with the team and it is happening at various stages. So you are right, Covid has given us a thinking and the plus side of all this is, close to around 5 to 7% of our overall expenses, used to go in travelling and these meetings. And if you ask me what are the expenses in the last six months, virtually it is negligible. Hardly people are travelling, hardly we are conducting any meetings. Even if meetings are also happening, there is no party after that because nobody wants to do it. So Covid has really prepared each one of us from that angle and most of our employees, not even our company in their entire industry, especially the large back-office teams, especially when they have to settle the claims, maturity claims or the death claims and without meeting people, without doing physical investigations that have posted some challenge, but then the industry has very well accepted that, and we are working very-very seamlessly from that angle. Q. Very well said Sir, very interesting and what you said is building on that what you said is, the current economic scenario, situation is such that everybody is talking about creativity and innovation, We are innovating in every way or the other like who would have thought that people in rural areas would be taking online classes and so on. So what are the innovative strategies to catalyze growth as far as the Indian insurance sector is going on? I mean as far as your company is concerned because as you said, it has been happening for five years and the Covid has nothing but accelerated the innovation and digital technology which are coming in pictures. Ans: I think the big innovation which is there and I think people will see soon, the product innovation. Generally, people say that life insurance a very-very complicated subject, people don't understand. So a lot of work is currently happening that how we can simplify the product, give a simple product to the customer, and be easy to understand. So a lot of work is happening. And I think this Covid has accelerated that and put a little more pressure on the regulator and the industry that how we can go to the customer. Because a lot of customers want to buy insurance but then they are not sure what product to buy. If there is a simple product is available, then the sale can happen. I think you can see, next 3-6 months, a lot of innovative products will be there, launched by various insurance companies. Even today’s newspapers are telling that from 1st January, all the insurance companies have to launch ‘Saral Beema Yojna’. It is nothing, a very simple product, same pricing. Customers can go to any insurance company and can buy. He will end up paying eventually the same premium and same product. So all that is there and I think thanks to Covid, that Covid has also given a lot of thinking to each one of us that how we can cut the processing cost. How we can bring efficiency in our processes. All the savings in some way or other will go to the customer only either in terms of reduced pricing on the premium or better bonuses or a better return to the customer. Because at the end of the day, what is insurance - insurance, we are the aggregators, we are the trustee of the premium paid by the customers. We are only managing their funds on their behalf and pulling that together and giving back to society after taking care of our expenses and all that. So Covid has given a big room for all of us to think differently and see how innovative we are and how we can bring more efficiency, more lean organisation and service customers seamlessly with the help of technology. Q. Very interesting Sir. And one question that comes to my mind that we are talking about that the expenses have gone down. It is more of remote working and people are working from their homes and not many expenses the company is looking at. What will it impact too, the premium will go up or premium will go down in that case? There is a lot of synergy in terms of cost-efficiency. Ans:  I can just tell you, you have to see from the global perspective, the premium in India is the cheapest. The premium rate which Indian life insurance companies are charging is the cheapest. So there is nothing called the premium will go down or premium will go up. At the end of the day, if an X company is charging a little higher premium, the maturity of that company will be more because the mortality rate is the same across industries. Each company is using the same mortality table. Now, whatever this efficiency is coming in the system, which will definitely in some way or other, will go to the consumer. But as I said in the beginning SIS 80% of the sale in India is coming through an intermediary. Now, if they become more productive and at the end of the day if my intermediary who is selling three policies in a month if he starts selling five policies in a month then his earning will go. Although his per unit earning will go down and that benefit in some way or other will go to the customer because at the end of the day, the industry is not comprehensive and customers will not come to the life insurance companies. So all that efficiency, all the cost-saving, whatever is there definitely will go to the customer. But just to give one more data point, there are 24 life insurance companies in India, and insurance has a very long gestation period, it takes 10 years for any life insurance company to reach breakeven. Because the biggest cost as I said in the beginning is a distribution cost. And unfortunately in India, we have to pay everything upfront where a policy continues for 10 years but all the expenses, I have to book in the first year itself. So if efficiency improves, if my agent productivity goes up, my branch productivity go up, definitely, the cost will come down. And that can only happen if a lot of awareness. I think the industry is also doing a lot of work, regulatory is also doing lots of work, the government is also helping because currently if the agent meets 10 customers, he ends up selling only one policy. I am looking for a day, I don't know whether it's in my lifetime, that my agent meets 10 customers and he ends up selling to all 10. And that can only happen as Even our economy is we are still down. So once the economy grows, the disposable income goes up then obviously the affordability will go up. And as I said India requires at least 10 large size life insurance companies like LIC of India. That potential is there and insurance as I said, 40 lacs crore that's the AUM which is there and almost 80% of that is invested in various government projects because the long term money only comes from insurance. So that's why I call it nation-building by the insurance industry. Q. The question which they are asking is how life insurance is looking at 2020 and the future of insurance in the industry in the next 3 years because nobody knows how things will turn up, when the vaccine will be out and how Covid will subside and things like that. So how do you see the insurance sector in the next 3 years, Sir? Ans: See as I said this is a sun rising industry for the last 10 years. This is growing by around 10%. And as I said there was a temporary pause for 3 or 4 months. We are almost back to normal. Most of the insurance companies are working the way they used to work in past. Although we are down by around 5% life insurance health insurance is up by 25%, general Insurance is up by 5%. So if you see the overall industry is back to normal. Now next 3 years, even next 6 months, I think we will be back on track. And if everything goes the way things are moving, the industry will show growth of at least around 5% this year and next 3 years we will be growing at a pace of around 10-15%. That will happen because as I said, the potential is huge. We have not even tapped 1/10th of the potential. Q. How you are servicing to your customers, the sales part, a very-very interesting discussion we had Sir. Before we end our session so one last thought from your side Sir. What you would like to tell our viewers. Ans: I can just tell to all of the viewers because most of you are young. I think you should buy one insurance policy when you are young because if you are buying an insurance policy when you are 25 or 24, you end up paying a very less premium. Because once you reach the age of 40, 45 or 50, you will end up paying at least three times more premium than what otherwise you will pay when you bought the policy at a young age. And each of your students, if they can take an oath or they can make a decision for them that they will go and tell five people the benefit of insurance. Because insurance is always sold through word of mouth. So if each one of you decides to tell five people why life insurance is important, I think this journey which has just started, can then go to many folds. India requires a lot of long term capital. If you look at any project, any infrastructure project, it requires a minimum of 10 years to 15 years to 20 years and those funds can only come from life insurance. So spreading the word of insurance, that's what and you will buy at least one life insurance policy. Take a protection plan or take a saving plan, it's up to you. But you must take it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm_tOB0ALwk

December 26, 2024, Interviewed by: Mr. Ashish Sahu, Vice President Training, Amity Institute of Training & Development About: Mr. Mathur is an MD and CEO of Canada HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce OBC Life Insurance, which is now a part of PNB; with a vision and commitment to providing customers innovative life insurance solutions to manage their wealth and security financial goals. He is the founder member of the Company and has headed various key roles before taking over as CEO in 2015. He has done transformation in the Company, clocking 24% CAGR growth in the last five years. He strongly believes that sustainable growth for the Company can only come with a customer-centric approach and that's what the values are also seen in the Company. The first value of the Company is customer-centricity. He also firmly believes that the most valuable asset for the Company are employees and strongly believes in giving opportunities to people to learn and grow in the Organisation and this is what we are also into Learning and Development space and in his opinion, a person can deliver the best performance if the performers think like an Entrepreneur of the business and not as an employee of the business and more so I think at this point of time when the economy is going through a tough time globally. Q. The first thing which I would like to ask you is, that I was looking through research which was given by McKinsey and Howard Business School, which said that Companies that had the most agile transformations pre-COVID 19 had performed better and move faster post-COVID 19 than those that have not? So, what do you think, what is your viewpoint on this? Ans: I will provide industry perspective and I know we have got an audience here who are kind of much more aware of in terms of digital technology, we have people of Generation-Z; Gen-Z; which we call, so I'm going to share both in terms of practical perspective in terms of what we do at our business. Before actually, I answer your question, another important thing which I want to talk about upfront, is the need for protection, because I'm from the Insurance sector and we have seen the kind of risk which pandemic has brought in and I think a lot of insurance awareness has come in, in the last 9-10 months so before we get into the discussion my request to everyone here in this discussion would be that please look at the protection needed it's important, particularly in this environment where we have all these risks coming in. Please take it seriously it's not just for savings but it's also for protection that you should buy the insurance and I am not saying this because I work for a Life Insurance Company, this is something which is the need of the hour and I know we have young guys here in this session; so, my request to everyone will be to please look at protection, protecting your family and for your future goals. So, now I'll answer the question which you asked me and I think the research which has happened is right and it's true; the companies which started with their transformation journey and with the agile environment, have performed much better because it's not possible and particularly big businesses, who turn on and turn off, let's say in few days, particularly, for example, if I talk about our business we started our transformation journey many months before we were hit by COVID, we never knew that this is going to happen in March so our transformation journey started way back last year and digital was our priority in terms of how we can make business more digital-savvy without even knowing that COVID is going to hit us in the next few months and does help. So, Companies that started early with agile transformation were much better prepared and that was visible in terms of the turnaround time in terms of disruption; so, I think if I look at our business we were up and running and 95% of our business operations were up and running within two days. So, when the lockdown happened on the 20th, within two days our people who are all working from home were enabled to work digitally and there was virtually no disruption in services and this we have seen in other companies also other businesses that whosoever had this preparation in advance were able to face this pandemic with much more agility. Q. How does the Organisation prioritise so many things that are going at the same time, how do you think the Organisation, you have to prioritize and strike the right balance to complete the objectives in this dynamic where things are changing every day, so how do lead your Organisation to deal with this change? Ans: I think the words that you used in terms of transform, change, accelerate, improve; these are the things which I hear from our shareholders also and other stakeholders, so this is the ideal state where we have to be very-very cost-effective, but I'll put it slightly differently. When you are running a big business, you have to plan for some of these things well in advance you cannot just accelerate business suddenly it will not happen or if you want to transform, it’s a journey it's not something which you can do overnight. So, as a Company, we focus on these things and what we did we set a vision for ourselves because some of these things can happen only if you have a vision to kind of accelerate business in the long term these are not things where you can take shortcuts, you can do in a short period so you have to have that vision, long-term vision, that how you are going to grow your business where do you see industry growing and if I could put the single important thing in various things which you just mentioned. I think change is very-very crucial so even if you must accelerate the business, people have to be mentally ready for the change and transformation in people–talk. It's not just a transformation of systems and processes, I'll put it the transformation of mindset of people I think that's most important and particularly in the service industry and particularly in financial services of which we are part people have to be ready to accept this change. So, I think acceptance of change is the single most important thing, if you ask me, amongst various things which you said in terms of what we need to do accelerate business, transform business, so that is the most important thing. The other thing which I would like to mention, and this is a concept which is kind of catching up very fast is the ESG some of you would have heard there's a lot of focus now in the corporate sector on ESG which is focusing on Environment, focusing on Social responsibilities, and focusing on Governance. So, while there's always rush for growing the business doing things fast and all that but what I have observed, this is my experience of last 28 years that if you want to build a sustainable Organisation, if you want to build a sustainable business, this is very important so as a Company, our focus is on good governance if you ask me in today's era, if 2 - 3 things one has to be really kind of aware of, one is good governance, the other is risk management so I would say that all of us have to focus on growth, we have to accelerate growth we have to do better, we have to transform, we have to be agile but let's not forget what is really important in the background in terms of good governance, good risk management practises and building a very compliance kind of structure in place so growth can happen only if the foundation is strong and I firmly believe that for anybody who accelerate the business or to grow the foundation has to be really strong in terms of good governance so that is my view. World is changing very fast, you hardly get any time to plan in advance and all that you have to be super agile and really quick in terms of implementation but this is something which I would like to mention that in this race one should not forget about good governance, risk management and compliance and today if you see globally, companies which are growing which are doing really well; they are very clear in terms of their priorities; they have proper governance, they have very robust risk management practises and I think this is important I'll also like to touch upon the cost-effective piece which you mentioned and in this environment where margins are under pressure, it is important so I'll call it as cost-optimization and not cost-effectiveness, because if you have to grow business, you have to invest in systems, you have to invest in processes, you have to invest in people but cost-optimization is something where you can continue to invest in the right things and then you see the business growing. So, in many Organisations, they call it cost-rationalisation, cost-effectiveness, I will say it is more of cost optimization getting the best value for money rather than just cutting corners and not investing the for future. I think what you rightly said you mentioned earlier also is the agility and the speed by which you take these into stride like as you said within two days things were managed you were back on track in the business as usual as you normally term it ‘business usual’, that shows itself that what kind of change or what kind of mindset you talked about what kind of mind-set the employees already have because if that is not there it will be not that rampant or not that fast as you rightly said, I believe that you are leading Organisation in such a way that people have a very positive mindset and they've taken up that change very naturally and that is the reason why within two days you can do that. Now at this point like most of the employees are working from home in virtual teams the pandemic has brought in tremendous change in human resource planning, operating to ensure that every employee is taking care of their well-being. We also talked about their performance enablement and upskilling employees for performing well in these times like we also as an Organisation we run a lot of workshops in terms of performance enablement where we try to enable the performance it's not about, they had been working but how do we enable them in these unprecedented times. Q. How do you think you make the employees future-ready, how do you feel that they are future-ready, and they can take this, how do you reskill them how do ensure that the performances are there which is required by them? Ans: So, in our business, this is what I often tell my team members that the only asset which we have in this business is our people. We are not into manufacturing so the main assets which we carry on our balance sheet are in terms of people and we cannot sign a rupee value to it but the contribution from each member of the team matters. So, the question which you have asked is very important particularly pandemic environment where people are not kind of meeting face to face, we are not sitting in an office environment where the performance can be monitored on a real-time basis so in this environment or to be relevant and I'm using the word relevant this pandemic is difficult for businesses to kind of cope up with so if we have to be relevant for a business and if you want to grow with the Organisation it's very important in this pandemic environment that our performance our delivery should be at its best because performers will survive and people who are not able to perform over some time will exit from the system. So, I think it's important that people should invest themselves in learning and development in upskilling themselves because right now in this virtual environment there's nobody who's supervising you 8 hours or 9 hours a day. So, I think it's very important for people to understand the importance of training of learning and development and of upskilling and I don't know how long will this pandemic continue we are all hopeful and fingers crossed that hopefully once the vaccine is where we should be back in our normal environment but even the normal environment will be new normal if I can put it that way I don't think so we will ever go back into the working environment which used to exist a year back. It will be a hybrid environment and in this environment, people must invest their time in upskilling themselves. So, I'll just list out few things which we have done as an Organisation and I think it's really important and while I feel that training is everyone's responsibility every person including the employee is responsible for training but I have seen that the HR function can actually do wonders here and I don't put accountability onto HR because HR can only create environment but these days you will see that HR is not just restricting themselves to hiring people or kind of their performance management. They are investing a lot of time and energy in terms of enabling them making them more productive making them more effective and in our Company, we have taken numbers of steps knowing that this is the new normal or we will never go back to the original kind of environment where you can put 50 people in a room and then impose training on them so we have used digital mode for imparting training for making people understand what is required in terms of upskilling So, I was talking about the role of CPO, Chief People Officer; how that person can make people more effective and if I have to talk about our Company HR and IT they are partners when we got into this lockdown situation when we got into pandemic HR played a very important role in terms of enabling infrastructure ensuring that every person can contribute so I think it's a partnership now and the domain of HR is not just limited to hiring and training people but also to create that environment where people can perform and since we talked about virtual teams and virtual environment. I think what is also important is that people engagement should be there because what we have seen in the initial days that this work from home environment initially excited people but very soon people got kind of I can use the word bored or felt challenged because meeting face to face is always the best collaboration, exchange of ideas so now with working for more than nine months in this virtual environment it became really important for us to engage employees because earlier we used to call it ‘fun at work’ but now the concept is ‘fun along with work’ because we all working from a different location so having fun along with work is something very, very important so our HR team along with internal communications team; they created a framework in which we are engaging with the employees we are involving them there are various programmes which we have launched for employees engagement and we have seen very good participation. So, the virtual environment has its challenges and for us to get the best productivity or best commitment from employees must feel engaged they should feel part of the business and they actively contribute so these are some of the prerequisites if you ask me in terms of what is required in this virtual environment. Q. What do you think because why I'm asking this question is very important because insurance is normally sold through intermediates and it is said that intermediaries are like they are known to you, they are a family person and it's a face to face connection and it will be difficult to digital connect with customers so because since they have a bonding that kind of thing that kind of trust they have built upon since a lot of years so similarly about employees, what innovation you are doing to engage in connecting these people? Ans:  I will cover the engagement part first in terms of what as a leadership team we are doing. So, when this lockdown started the first month, we all observed in terms of how things are settling in. But then we realised, when we saw that this pandemic situation is going to continue for a long, what we did, we started with Engagement Calls. So, when I say engagement calls, we have a group of senior management team members and we call that group ‘Manthan Group’. So, we started with a single Engagement Call, a weekly call, within the Manthan Group wherein we were connecting. It's a group of about 65-70 senior people in the Company. We connected and we used to exchange thoughts, ideas and let’s say if some good work was happening in some pocket, in some function, in some area, we used to call it out, we used to talk about it, and we used to appreciate good work. And then similar discussions were happening within the teams also. So, this is how we created the engagement model. We realised that during difficult times it is very important to be in touch with the teams. So, this is something that we created at the senior management level. Then as a Company, we started doing regular webinars. So, for example, the Sales Director was having regular calls with her team members for engagements. I did a couple of webinars too, with the entire workforce in terms of what the Company is doing. So, if you ask me for engagement, employees need to know what is happening in the Company. This can’t be one-way traffic that you ask employees to perform, keep on performing without they are getting visibility in terms of where we are heading for and what is in it for them. So, we call it, WIFM - What's in it for me. So, employees should know that what is there for them, and particularly in this COVID environment where most of the news which you hear from media is all negative of job losses, pay cuts or redundancy. I think it's important, and we didn't do any of this stuff. In fact, over the last nine months, we have increased our manpower, we have increased our number of employees, and almost 2000 people have joined us in the last nine months. So, what we did, we communicated to all our people in terms of what we are doing as a company, what are the transformation initiatives we have taken. And this was across. So, this happened in certain groups and then there was Companywide communication which was happening. And we also have very regular kind of mails which goes to employees in terms of eye connect where we tell people that what is happening in the Company. So, I think this engagement is very important, connect with leadership is very important wherein you regularly need to communicate to people, what is happening in the Company. So, this is something which we did on the engagement part, and I think this is true for most successful Organisations, wherein the leadership is reaching out to the last level, communicating with people and thankfully I think technology is supporting. So, we have a lot more than 5000 people in the company and through webinars, we can connect with all of them without even any need for any travel. So, I think technology is a big enabler. As we have seen that these calls have helped us in terms of meeting our business objectives as well as making clear to people that what is our long-term vision, how we are going to cope with this pandemic. Now, coming to your second question which is in terms of this Virtual Environment, and whether people can permanently work from home. So, my response is that I think a hybrid model will exist and task which is very-very kind of measurable, where you have a clear give and get that this is what you expect from an individual, the guy can work from home in certain roles. I am very clear because now I think these days’ people talk about work from home permanently. So, maybe in certain businesses, it is possible, but I am a very practical man, and I would like to mention that in a B2C environment, and I think you also alluded to it that insurance is always sold, and you must think over at least 3 to 4 times before the person buys the policy. So, there are certain businesses and there are certain roles, customer-facing roles, where you have to be with the customer. So, I would say that it will depend on which business you are in and within the business, what is your role. And there are certain roles which can happen only from an office environment, for example, our call centres. So, while during the lockdown period they were all connected, and we were addressing, or we were in touch with the customers over mails and digital mode. But then we realised that the environment which exists requires you to be in office. So, in certain areas, we said that ok, people who are in a call centre for better efficiency, for better output, for better connect, you have to be in office and let's be very practical. The environment, the infrastructure also in India, in some pockets it supports but it's very difficult, let's say if a person is living in a small house, where the kids are also studying and then there are other activities also happening, in certain roles, you are required to be in an office environment. So, that's our strategy where the question is that you must operate in an office environment, you will operate from the office. We have not made it mandatory; it is optional for people but certain roles as I mentioned for an example Sales role, you don't have a choice, you have to be in the field, you have to be in bank branches, you have to meet the customers. Q. What do you think that how do we adapt and what tools we can use as an Organisation to make it more effective? Ans: Technology is the backbone, I can use that word like we have a backbone, if the backbone is strong, a person will be able to work and will be able to deliver the output. So, I think technology for any business and particularly in our business, technology gets involved in each area. I can't think of any actionable or any task which you have to deliver, which can happen without technology. So, that's the backbone. So, in this ‘Phygital’ world, where you need to have the digital assets, and at the same time, you need to also have Customer Connect, customer interaction. I think one has to strike the right balance, particularly in insurance, I think ‘Phygital’ is the right word or the right process, wherein we are using our digital assets to communicate with the customers, and actually, if you ask me it's the optimal way of doing business because there is complete transparency and I talked about governance and all these things. So, when you are using digital means for communication, there is complete transparency, there is no communication drop or there is no scope of misunderstanding. So, we have leverage on technology so first, for 5000 people, all of them are connected digitally, so they have access to emails, they have the majority of people, they have tabs through which they work, but each person in the Organisation now either has a tab or a laptop. So, first, it was very important for us to have the infrastructure in place, and this is something which we had for quite some time, so we didn't do anything special for this COVID environment. We had to, for some people, who used to work from the office, and they were working on desktop, we had to arrange laptops for them. But in terms of technology, there are various aspects to it, so I think hardware is one thing where you need to provide hardware to the employer to be connected. But, as I mentioned, the backbone has to be very strong, so be it in terms of the bandwidth connectivity for employees, if they are working from home, it becomes all the more important that the last mile connectivity is very strong. It becomes very important for you to invest in some of the tools so I will talk specifically about our business. So, we have a policy administration system that we are using since the beginning. But we created a workflow, underwriting workflow to which we can process business faster, we have implemented it. Similarly, CRM is for Customer Interactions and Customer Relationship Management. That's something which we implemented, and we started with this journey, as I mentioned to you, before COVID. So, this was not done post-Covid because you can't make these changes overnight, so we started with this journey last year and this has helped us in terms of digitally enabling people. So, even an executive is attending to customers through a remote facility, he or she is now able to look at customer interaction. He can assess the customer need. So, that's something which is happening. So, having the right tools is very, very important. And now I think there are so many available options, I think we have WebEx which is available through which you can communicate with people informally, you can connect with people over Zoom or whatever. So, I think all these things have become very-very handy in terms of doing business, ease of doing business. And if I talk about Customer Centricity because that's core to our business. The customer experience has not dropped in the last nine months, COVID environment, and particularly the busy period which was of March. We were up and running in terms of our customer call centre, in terms of our interaction, nothing got impacted. So, that is something, which I think is great, where technology helped us. And for every business, I think technology is the backbone, so investing in technology is very important. What we also did - we moved into the Micro-services-based Architecture. So, earlier we had an old monolithic setup but then we said okay we must be future-ready, so we got into this architecture which provides the Agility, which provides the ability to make changes quickly and implement them. So, these are things that we did. And, obviously, the AIML, all these things helped us in terms of, analytics helps us in terms of assessing the customer profile and doing the right things. So, these are few things that we did on the technology side or leveraging on various tools to do business. Q. You talked about Microservices based Architecture, can you just tell us something more about it, what does it do, it's a very interesting tool? Ans: What I understand of this is that your systems are very Agile in this kind of environment, you have various API's through which you can quickly change the environment, you can integrate, you can quickly make those changes which are required from time to time and the dependence on systems, the core system goes down when you have microservices-based open architecture, you can make quick changes, you can transform basis some of these integrations which you create in the system. So, it's not a technical answer, it’s more of a layman answer. Q. How do you think, what measures we can take to bring that culture which is so essential for the Organisation? Ans: There are 2-3 things which I would like to mention because you can’t create culture, or you can’t change culture overnight. Like DNA, you are born with that DNA, so obviously it will reflect in your actions and your behaviour. So, as an Organisation, we were very particular right from day one and you talked about Our Values - the five values which we have. I did participate in a particular workshop where we came out with values as an Organisation, but it was the team that created these values because it has to be from the team or you can't impose these things from the top, they will not work. So, when you must build culture, you have to invite these values and you have to be a role model, you have to demonstrate that you believe in these values. And that's how the culture is created in the Organisation. And when you get people from outside because you have to recruit people with skills and various things, the DNA must be preserved, the DNA of the Company has to be preserved and which comes in through some of the values which the Organisation has and you have to live with those values, you have to follow these values and that's how you build a sustainable business. So, coming to this, as I mentioned to you, we were having these regular calls with the teams and employees, in every cell, we used to talk about some of these values, not necessarily that we have to talk about all the five values, but you have to talk about these things and how people are living with these values, how they are delivering it, and then that's how the culture gets created. So, it's not that if you must create the right culture in each interaction, you have to focus on it. It is not something which you talk about once a year and then the Organisation will build the culture. So, that's how we have retreated in this, if I can use the word ‘Robotic’, where you have over-dependence on systems and processes, the human touch mustn’t be lost. And that's something very important for the Organisation. I think that the human touch is very very important, and leaders will have to invest time in ensuring that there is a connection with the team and they demonstrate that they are adhering to these values and business is being conducted in line with these values. Q. How do you think that we can create shared workforce resilience where people are open, they can adapt to changing situations, that resilience – how to build upon that? Ans: I think it's important for any Organisation that while the hierarchy is there, the openness in the Organisation should exist. So, if people have any problem, they should have that kind of freedom to speak, to talk about it. And when I say that we have a very positive culture in the company, it's not that we don't have problems, or we don't have challenges or people don't talk about very high targets and how to do business in a challenging environment. I think those things remain. But when people talk about culture, they don't talk from a tactical point of view, they talk from a long term sustainability point of view and some of the exit interviews if we do when people are leaving, we ask them this question - would you like to join back if there's an opportunity later. And we have seen almost 80-85% people saying yes, this is a good Organisation, we would like to work with this Organisation in future. So, maybe if somebody is getting a good opportunity wish him good luck. But these people, and there are many cases where we re-hire, where people come back, and they join. So, they join because of the culture, which is there at the workplace. And as I mentioned, I think Openness, Transparency and Role Model Behaviour in leadership is very, very important. If you demonstrate these qualities, then I think the culture gets created in the Organisation. And again, I may be repeating it for the third or fourth time Engagement with Employees is very-very important. If you can communicate that this is the vision of the Company, but these are the values and these are the values which we will adhere to, there will be a zero-tolerance for non-adherence, then I think people accept it. And once people accept it, and then I think you have a cohesive workforce that is working with one vision with clear objectives. So, that's very important. What we also did at the beginning of the year at the Organisation level; we said that these are our top 10 priorities, because many times it's very important to give a sense of direction to people that what are we trying to achieve. So, at the beginning of the year, we said okay these are the top 10 priorities and everything which we will do, will revolve around these top 10 priorities. So, many times, it is very important that if you want to drive Organisation in a particular manner that you have to give that direction, you have to steer people efforts in that direction. And this is more relevant now in a virtual environment where you can't have face to face interactions, you can't have meetings face to face. So, it becomes important that some of these things are communicated on regular basis, then only they will be buying and something which I talked about ‘What is in it for Me’ is very important so it has to be a handshake, where the employee should also feel that if there is a value which is happening, obviously everyone works for money so that remains a priority for people. But at the end of the day, if a person knows that this is what he is trying to achieve or this is the value that is getting added, you will see that cohesive behaviour. So, that's something which I wanted to mention I hope I've answered your question. Q. What are these new workforce latest strategies that can help bridge the crisis response to the new normal, like we have undergone a crisis? So, what workforce-related strategy you can think of which can help bridge the crisis response to the new normal by laying the foundation to thrive in the aftermath? Ans: I think what is more important in this environment is empathy because these are difficult times. And I think, employees, I have seen, are also kind of struggling between personal life and work and all that, so empathy is important. And when I say empathy is important, I am not saying that we should not be a hard taskmaster. In fact, in our Company, we chase each actionable and the timelines set and there is clear accountability. But, along with this kind of culture of execution, it's also important to understand people's needs in this kind of environment. So, that is something very, very important and meets face to face or meet virtual environment. If you have empathy for people, if you think that they are your long-term assets in the Company then I think people will also develop respect for the business, they will develop respect for the Company. So, I think in this virtual environment it's important that while most of the discussions are happening on kind of Zoom calls or WebEx or whatever, we should not forget the human side of it. And let me tell you, the last 9-10 months have been extremely, extremely difficult for people in the Corporate World. While initially there was a lot of excitement of work from home but unfortunately this work from home environment, virtual environment, the boundaries have got blurred. So, there are no fixed timings, if you are in office you know at least you are slogging for 10 hours or 11 hours and then you are back home. But now in this environment, you have to virtually slog for 24 x 7. And this is the kind of commitment which we have seen from our employees that people have said that okay, these are difficult times and people are slogging hard for business. So, I think, respecting that hard work which people are putting in, keeping them motivated, ensuring that they have a purpose and long-term growth in the Company. So, these are few things which are very important for any leader to kind of communicate to people and I strongly believe that whether it is the virtual environment or it is face to face, if you can create this kind of environment where you have empathy for hard work, you have to be hard taskmaster, I am not saying that you can relax, you can say that okay it's fine. Work is still a priority. But having that human angle is very important and what we have seen is that even in the COVID environment, people deliver, they deliver to their best level and we have seen that while the personal priorities are also there, people say openly - okay for 2 hours I will be off the work, that's fine, because when you are working for rest of the day, you are working as per the kind of flexible hours, you want to. So, I think Respect and Empathy are the two important factors if I can say two important ingredients for any successful business. And that's something which we demonstrate in this business. Q. How do you accelerate the individual learning curve so that they become more and more productive to capitalize on this because a lot of time is saved while working from home at the same time?Ans: I think I call this an investment in people. You must invest in people in terms of upscaling them, in terms of training them and providing the right tools. So, what we have done, because face to face, classroom training are not possible, we have Virtual Training which happens and clearly, then we tell people that this is something which is there for you and you have to invest your time because I strongly believe that the need for training or the urge for training or the urge for upskilling has to come from the employee. So, that's where I think you have to make it very clear to people that if you have to be relevant for the Organisation, or if you want to be successful in your career, you have to invest time and energy into it. We have got tools. So, we have enabled it digitally, and we monitor also but we don't force, this is something which we kind of encourage people that if you invest in learning and development, it is for your benefit. And as I mentioned we have started with e-learning we had this E-learning module for quite some time for many years, we had. So, that is something which we are using very-very effectively. The first few months of lockdown, which was a complete lockdown period starting from the third week of March till about the end of May, we trained our sales fraternity, sales colleagues who actually converse or interact with the customers digitally, and needed training programs for them, we kind of did hand-holding. And then we saw a need for a different kind of work. After the lockdown, people are now out there and they are interacting, but as you rightly said in the beginning ‘‘Physical’’ is the new model, and for people to be kind of successful in ‘‘Phygital’’ mode, it's important for people to understand the digital ways of doing things. So, that's where training has helped and we have invested, as I mentioned, we have got tools, we have got the infrastructure, we have got ‘E-live’ as our online training module where people go through these courses and then they do their assessment also. Q. How do you think that what mindset people should have and what kind of ecosystem Organisation should build that people should come forward that this is something that they require rather it being forced upon them? Ans: Right. I think there are different views on each training piece, which is more effective, face to face is more effective or online is more effective. So, we can debate on that for the next one hour and we will not get a single view. So, that's the reality. But I strongly feel that and I mentioned that also that urge to learn, urge to innovate has to come from inside. And to some extent, it is also driven by necessity. So, we saw during April-May when there was complete lockdown that people were forced to get into the digital mode, so be it WhatsApp presentations, all these things happened on their own. But I think if there's a desire to learn and desire to innovate, then obviously people find ways and means and particularly the audience we have here today, they are all, most of them would be Gen-Z, and I think they are much better in terms of use of technology. Now they have many more ways to kind of understand what is happening globally. So, it's not just about India but also understanding the global practices, I think data is very, very important, which is available now so whatever you want to understand what to learn, it's just available at our fingertips. All you need to have is desire and as an Organisation, we support that. So, for all the learning needs, within the Company we have a sales training department, we have an L&D team within HR, where we customize Learning modules but at the same time, I think it is very important for people to understand and to know that for them to be relevant in the Organisation if they want to do something professionally for their professional saa satisfaction, that urge must come from inside. As a Company we can only provide infrastructure, we can tell people to undergo training programs, we can assess them also. But if that desire is not there from inside, then it's not going to happen and particularly in a virtual environment, because you can just switch on your video and audio and you can just be a passive listener, but that doesn't help. So, I think enablement is something that employers can do, which corporate can do, and desire is something that has to come from employees from within. So, that's how I see things evolving, and if you ask me about the long term also, I think people who invest in themselves, are the people who are going to survive, are the people who are going to thrive. So, people must understand the need for learning and development and do it themselves rather than being forced. Q. How do you see the Indian workplace of the future evolving in the next five years since we are talking about the future work? You have already taken a lot of initiatives, innovation, how do you see it will evolve? What will happen in the next 5 years, things will come back to normal, it will be hybrid, I just want to listen from you, and our viewers would like to know? Ans: Right. So, I think five years is a pretty long period, and it will be a sort of a guess from my side if I try to answer your question that how it is going to evolve in five years. I can talk about the next year, at best. I can make a shot maybe for the next two to three years. So, I think it's not going to be the same as it used to be in the past. I think virtual engagement is what people are kind of doing now and I think they are reaping the benefits also. So, in my view, I think it would be a hybrid model which will work going forward. And people will find these virtual ways of engagement much more convenient and kinder of trendy for them, for example, today in a virtual environment, if you have to get into a customer engagement discussion, you don't have to restrict yourself to the working hours; that the discussion has to happen between nine to six. It can happen at any point in time, at per the customer convenience. So, I think this is the new normal. And, as we say, disruption helps. So, I think the pandemic was a big disruption, which all of us saw, and I think we are adjusting to new normal, and people are comfortable now. So, I think it will be a mix of both physical as well as digital in the next three years, you will find that people will get adapted to this new normal. And not even three years, next one year itself, you will find that this will become more of a kind of new normal and people will adhere to it so next five years could be completely different. So, the concept of office can completely go away. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk76In01sME

December 26, 2024, About: Mr. Peter Pugh-Jones leads a team of expert industry Consultants across Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific Region for the Global IoT division at SAS which is the leader in Business Analytics Software and Services and the largest Independent vendor in the Business Intelligence market. During a Career spanning of over four decades, Peter has worked all over the World in diverse roles and Technology sectors and Software industries. A passionate believer of utilizing the right tools and Technology to deliver the best value and outcomes, Peter considers himself as a life-long learner with an optimistic view of future of Technology. With the convergence of Robotics, Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI), IoT is on the cusp for the fourth Industrial Revolution. He believes there has never been a more exciting or important time to be working in the advanced Internet space as we begin the journey to operationalize Artificial Intelligence and transform all lives. Q. Now, before we start we would like to know more about you and your Organisation? What has been the vision of SAS in attaining Leadership position in IoT Analytic, solutions and what has been the importance and significance of IoT in the insurance sector? Ans: To help me tell just a little bit more information about SAS and the areas we focus on, I thought it might be nice to share just a few slides to help discuss the subject a bit more. So, I am going to share a couple of slides, just while we do this part and then I will turn it off again in a moment. So, to start with one of the Philosophies of SAS, so we are as you mentioned earlier, one of the largest Independent Software Company, currently by Revenue size in the World which is I think quite an interesting achievement with around about three billion dollars Revenue on a yearly basis. But, to get to that point, how we got there is focusing purely on an area of expertise within Software, which of course, is Analytics and what we do is we focus on helping people do what they need to do deriving value from Analytics in the life cycle of data so as the data is gathered as the data flows through their systems doing the best we can to optimize where Analytics can help the most and so to do that I just wanted to mention a couple of things on this slide. We start by saying, Analytics is our core. We created something called an Analytics Life Cycle and that allows us to help people think about looking at the data figuring out how they work with that data and then building Analytics models and other things they might want intelligence from it that they can take and persist somewhere and they might persist that Analytics inside a platform. So, one of the things SAS creates is an Analytics platform, which people can pick up and embed in their other platforms, such as an IoT platform, so you might have a platform of services around IoT you might take the SAS Analytics platform and embed it in there so that you can expand the value you get from the data that you are working with and then beyond that you might also take advantage of some of our own solutions that we have created especially in the Manufacturing, Banking and Insurance sectors where people utilize solutions we have built from our knowledge of 45 plus years of working in the Analytics space to make life easier for them to utilize and gain Intelligence from the Analytics that they create. We have solutions for things like IFRS 9 we have solutions for Risk Management and obviously those things are used all around the World at leading Companies in those spaces. If we go and have a look at a little bit more about SAS, I am sure many people on the call have heard of the Company before, since we have been around a while, but may not be aware of the fact that we actually have Offices in most major Cities around the World. we have a development R&D sites in the US which is obviously our Head Office, but we also have a R&D facility in India. We have some in the North of England and now in Scotland and we also have R&D facilities in a few other parts of the World as well. We are about 15000 people strong around the Globe and some 6000 of those people are PhD Mathematicians or Statisticians, so that allows us to be able to help our Customers figure out what they want to do as best as possible with their Analytics. So, with all those things in mind, I am then going to just do a little Introduction around the importance of data, because for us, as an Analytics Company it is really all about data. And, I like to use this picture which I am not going to name but to show that I am sure some people have seen that show before and I am going to use the word ‘Evolution’ to help explain why I have got that picture in there, so we are talking about Evolution of Technology which leads to Evolution of Growth in data. So, this slide is going to start by positioning something that some people on the call may have never seen before. It is actually the very first portable or known as the first portable Computer that was called an Osborne-1 and it was originally launched in 1981. You can see that portable is perhaps a relative term. I mean that that's quite a chunky piece of equipment and it is worth mentioning this discussion of course is about connected devices and I would say that the nearest thing to being connected that had was if you use the keyboard with your hands then you know it's kind of connected. But the reason, I have got it there is because I want to compare it to something that came into the marketplace only 27 years later and to do that we will pop it up on the screen so those of you on the call I am sure recognize an iPhone, the first iPhone in 2007 and the reason I am showing you the two is because of that expansive Growth. So that first Computer is actually would you believe at launch of the iPhone that the Osborne-1 adjusted for Inflation was about ten times more expensive than the iPhone was, when it launched and obviously that's to do with Economies of scale to do with Production of scale and so on and the savings in the Technology industry as it grew. But it's also worth mentioning that the iPhone is 500 times smaller and is a hundred times faster and it's actually also just out of interest, it weighs 100 times less so all very straightforward numbers to think about, okay, it's actually 500 times smaller. So with those things in mind we are seeing a huge change from the people that started with that first portable computer to the people that work with those iPhones. Now, why am I drawing attention to that? Well, there is one other thing to mention that the iPhone is essentially on unless you turn it off; it is always connected to something. It's always on the Wi-Fi or on the Internet or if you like on your cell on your cell services; so it's on all the time and one of the things I want to do is borrow a slide from one of our partners called Cisco, who I am sure many people know that was published I think quite a while ago now, around 2015. This slide comes from and as you mentioned earlier, you can see the Growth of devices that are connected to the Internet over time and this is terrific! Now, it is worth mentioning that this is what we call connected devices and I will come back to that in a minute when we talk about IoT and connected devices because there is a slight difference we need to just make sure we talk about it. But, I like this slide for lots of reasons partly because these are very funny devices on here like a connected ‘toothbrush’. I am not entirely sure how valuable that really is but the real point about this is that only half a billion Computers of any kind were connected to the Internet in the early 2000s but only a few years later you can see that in fact by 2016, we are talking many-many more eight and a half billion plus of devices and the kinds of devices changed suddenly from large Computers; you have got light bulbs, you have got fridges, you have got ovens. You have got so Wind Power, you have got traffic lights, you have got all sorts of interesting devices that may or may not be successful in the marketplace but the point is they generate data and even more recently, we have got, door locks I mean I have a door lock that I can open with Wi-Fi right for to get in and out of my house. I have to have the gadget obviously because I work in that space. So this is really important because all of these devices create a lot of data and it's a well-known Statistic that somewhere in about 2015 there was a study done that showed that some 127 devices are added to the Internet every second around the World! Q. In fact, you are talking about 50 billion in 2020 as per McKinsey report; it was supposed to reach in 2025.So, in fact we have added more devices we are ahead of target? Ans: Yes, absolutely its insane how quickly that's escalating now! Why do we care about that? Because of the whole concept of Analytics, so, if you have lots of things creating lots of data and you don't have anything helping you look at that data, how are you ever going to get any value from that data? So, that's why Analytics is so vital; that's why we play such an important role in the value chain of that data from creation to value. And on the flip side of it, it is also worth mentioning that if you don't have any data or the right kind of data then there is not really much you can do ‘analytically’. You don't need to have data to be able to come up with models that could then add value to your sources so there is a heavy careful balance you have to make between the two. So in the old days and before sort of 2010, the general rule of thumb was well let's just grab all the data which makes me laugh right now because in the old days, you could almost say well I will just get myself a Hadoop Distribution somewhere. I will put it in my ‘Data Centre’ or maybe I will use this new thing in 2010. I will use this new thing called the Cloud and I will stick stuff in the Cloud and see what I can do, once I have collected it all. It's a bit like thinking about saying “oh, just download the Internet and I will keep a copy of it on my hard drive in case I need it for later, right”! It's a silly concept but that was what people used to do. They used to say, “let's collect it all and then we will analyse it when we have got it all”. But, the World isn't going to work that way anymore because the average Internet user consumes about one and a half Gigabytes of data a day and if you are my daughter by the way, it's way more than that as I have discovered right because she watches lots of streaming Movies. What do you keep right? Single Hospital can produce three Terabytes of data a day on average; modern cars like a Tesla generates about four terabytes of data a day most of which is not used or even like it doesn't even leave the car at the moment it's not really doing very much. An airplane, you can imagine generates an awful lot of data, 40 terabytes and a large factory, a petabyte of data a day. So, that concept of “hey let's just save it all isn't really valid anymore, right”? So, one of the ways you deal with this is that you come up with new disruptive ways to deal with that Technology so we have got I mean this is one of our examples, we have got a solution called SAS Analytics for IoT which handily also has the same letters in its name as our key concept which is Artificial Intelligence of things and we like to talk about this. Being the way that we help people derive greater value from the data that might be coming from all sorts of places whatever the situation you are in and so that's why I wanted to just make sure I was able to tell you a little bit about that so that people get an understanding of where we are coming from as a Company in terms of our IoT knowledge but also in terms of how that then applies to things in in the Insurance space. Q. A couple of things like the iPhone is 500 times smaller and 100 times faster about the data and I remember when we started, we used to have 10 GB hard disk and used to say plenty of hard disk. Now, we have even one Terabyte and that even then it is less because of data we are storing, storing and we don't know what to do about it? Ans: It's really funny you should say that because I went with some of our newer members of the SAS Company to an event about a year or two ago; there was a sort of pop-up Museum in London and it was a Museum of Computer Technologies and I am walking around that Museum with people in their 20s who recently just started work and they go “wow, look at that I have never seen one of those before and I turned to what it was a floppy disk and I said I have used those before”. It made me feel like a dinosaur! Q. Tell me what are the latest IoT trends in Health, Life and general Insurance because we are talking about Insurance sector and Health is which is very important during this Pandemic? Ans: There are so many areas of disruption and transformations going on, especially in the Health space, which of course affects Insurance. But, before I start sharing some information about that space, it's important just to address the concept of IoT in that space and stay connected. So, I have been talking mostly about what I call connected devices rather than specifically IoT, it fits under the IoT umbrella but IoT is and most people will know is generally defined as machines that talk to each other without human interaction so the general rule is, if it's a machine that interacts with humans or requires interaction with a human, then it's not considered generally IoT as a purest definition, but I like to consider human interaction devices as IoT devices as well and that's because for us as an Analytics Company, we need to think about all connected devices as sources of data and if you are wearing an Apple watch like mine, it is a wearable device; it has loads of sensors on it and yes it requires interaction from me to do certain things but other things happen automatically and could gather data automatically. So, therefore to me, it's still something that I consider to be a sort of IoT related device and that also by the way accounts for vehicles because a car currently requires human input to drive it's still considered more of a connected device then it is a IoT device. If that makes sense, but on it there are thousands of sensors and those do things automatically so therefore it's still to me relevant. Now, the reason I want to draw that distinction is because from here on I am mostly talking about connected devices generally and that includes devices that have human interaction so when we talk about Healthcare, the sorts of things that we are and that we have been working on seeing in the marketplace are generally around how it is with the growing population in the World and in some parts of the World, where we have an ageing population and less younger people, how can we allow people to stay at home longer if they want to and work Independently feel Independent at home and maybe provide them with additional security and Insurance around without feeling like we are watching them right because that's one of the problems with Analytics and Automation is people feeling like “well hang on, that's encroaching on my personal space”. So, one way you can do that in the Health space is with things like audio; so we do have examples, which I will show in a moment of utilizing audio signals to process things like people walking around a room and they are boiling the kettle have they done that at the same time every day, are they therefore going through their normal routines and if so then everything's fine. If they are not going through their normal routines, is there something that we can do to check that they are okay that sort of concept right and we can have a look at? Now, the other kinds of things in Healthcare, of course, which are the most obvious ones and that SAS is very heavily involved in is helping the sheer weight of diagnosis of patients, in say, for example, scans or CAT scans or where people have done X-rays right and for an average set of X-rays of say lungs or livers could be a very reading. High pile of things for an expert to look through to detect problems with people's lungs or livers but if you can use Analytics or Artificial Intelligence to maybe run through those images first instead of having a huge pile of things for one Doctor to look through, you could maybe reduce that down to just the ones that the AI have detected as maybe needing further Research right. So, that's a really good example of how in the Health space, you can use Analytics and Artificial Intelligence to assist and certainly when that relates to Insurance Policies of course then you are talking about helping perhaps predict or reduce claims by predicting problems sooner than perhaps you could otherwise do and therefore catching people's illnesses and maybe providing proactive care in advance right which is something that is really very much on people's radars. I am obviously not the World's leading expert on Health itself but on the application of IoT in those Environments is we have done quite a lot of things. So, Healthcare is definitely a space like that and then of course you have got safety people in Construction; there's Insurance related to people's working habits and what they are doing so in the Construction space, you might use cameras, you might use geo-fencing to make sure that people are carefully avoiding areas of danger. Maybe you are alerting them in some way, if they go into an area where a crane could be dropping equipment or something like this and there's quite a lot of people implementing capabilities like that which are again linked to Insurance Policies right if people are to adhere to those rules in the Environment, then the Insurance is valid. So, Healthcare definitely is an area of straight Growth and general Insurance I mean you probably know there are Insurance Companies right now that offer Life Insurance Policies and also Health related treatment Policies, private Health Policies based on how well you comply with fitness routines. For example, on an Apple watch, if you wear your watch and you do the certain amount of exercise per month; you don't have to pay as much for that Apple watch than you might otherwise have to pay. It's a really good example of getting gamification right and to reach out to people to reach targets and keep and actually maintain some level of Health and fitness, which is probably a really good thing in the modern World. Q. Because these days, we have seen that the parents are alone and the children are abroad or they are working in different Cities and they are continuously checking about their health and they are worried and they want to know, how they are caring every day in terms of their daily routine so nothing is amiss? Ans: Actually, in the last couple of years, it's been very hard, hasn't it, to visit people, in person, right? So, there's been a significant advancement of people experimenting with Technologies like that in the last year or two, having realized that it really is an urgent thing to start, to resolve right because if we have another situation like COVID again, we really want to make sure we are prepared better for not being able to see people in person as much. That's a real impetus; it's providing a real impetus in the Healthcare and in the Insurance space to try and find ways of helping that and in the care play space and of helping that be easier should it happen again. Q. What development of IoT services for Ecosystem has a long time investment future capabilities and these are some of things which you have said so what I am asking is what is your opinion on Insurance should see the development IoT services for developing this Ecosystem in a long-term fashion? Ans: So, some of the major Insurers that I am aware of and certainly in the UK, the ones that I am familiar with are definitely experimenting. As we talked about, we are able to link Technology to personal Policies, those kinds of things. So, that's very good, but I think there is a new sort of disruptive element coming in the Insurance World. It's been around a little while but it's referred to as a InsureTech and it is definitely a space where there are start-ups being created that will come in and help disrupt the sort of the way that Insurance is done today and the way that it's been done for a long time. It's worth mentioning the principles of an Insurance Policy were created in the early 1700s, right through 1706 or something like that was the first actual Insurance Policy defined right for Life Insurance and I think if we think about that that's based on the principles and understanding of a world in 1706, only 50 years before did they realize that the Earth, the Universe didn't revolve around the Earth, so with that sort of thing in mind maybe it's good to re-examine and disrupt and think about the Insurance space today. And, I think there's some really obvious stories out there which are very commonly discussed in the modern World. I can give you an example. If you take a Tesla vehicle and once you pick it up, you buy a Tesla you pick it up from the from the factory and you drive it home and you think “gosh, that's fun, I wonder what I can do to tweak and improve my Tesla”, so you have got your Insurance Policy you have taken out for the vehicle that rolled off the factory line but maybe you think “oh, I wonder what what's this mode here, oh I can turn it into what do they call it, I think it's absurd mode or something like that” and it makes the performance of the engine and the vehicle, not the engine, the motor in the vehicle and everything about the vehicle changed entirely from the original Insurance Policy and you can do it by pressing a couple of buttons on your phone. So, how does the Insurance World react to that in in this modern World that we are in? How does the insurance world think about autonomous vehicles in in 10, 15 years’ time, is that going to be a standard? How do they think about managing the Insurance and whose risk and faults and responsibility is different, an instance happening, so I think, that kind of disruption is coming anyway because of the Technical advancements and I think Insurance Companies obviously have to move with the times to figure it out. It's going to be a fascinating time and I think InsureTech is definitely going to bring disruption to that space but in a good way. Q. As you said the first Policy was issued in 1706 and the parameters of risk assessment and all were very different what they are today. So, usage-based insurance is something which is a very interesting thing and I would like to know more about it? Ans: I have only really been exposed to the usage of it and also how we can apply IoT capabilities or Analytics of the IoT involved in it. So, one of the things we could do is bring in some of our Insurance specialists to have a deeper discussion in the future around their thinking in that space but, for sure, I mean what I see about using space Insurance over the last couple of years has been fascinating because my daughter has just passed her driving test and she had to take out Insurance for her vehicle and I think the Insurance that she was quoted for a per year was about 2000 pounds a year, which is obviously excessively high from my perspective, I think, “gosh, it's that's a lot of money, right”? But, if we agreed to have a black box fitted in her vehicle by the Insurance Company, they would cut that down by half right so that allows her to pay only a thousand, still a lot of money, but anyway it's a thousand pounds a year and let's face it, I am paying for that right? But, anyway the point being, that they are monitoring over time using Analytics and Statistical Analysis, the performance of her driving they are not going to just cancel her Policy, if she exceeds the speed limit on any given day; they are going to look at characteristics over time and then over a three month period or a month period or whatever it is that they want to do; they are going to take into account all the metrics about her driving, maybe compare her to other drivers of the same age and then come up with a Policy over the year that will be suitable for her style of driving next year and I can see a time where my daughter will experience Insurance Policies that might change based on your usage without you having to go onto a website and change the data. If you move house or you decide that you don't keep the car in the garage anymore or maybe you park it on the road at the moment but then you buy a new house, you park it on the driveway, you are required at the moment to go in somewhere and change all of that. Ring them up and talk about it all but actually, what they can do is that automatically really if they wanted to right now with Telematics coming off vehicles and GPS and location stuff and what great Customer experience, would that be if they say, “oh, we have noticed you now keep your car in the driveway so we can adjust your Policy to this amount if you agree let us know”, that's customer service right and that's moving towards the customer satisfaction side of things that people might like right. So, of course there's another side to that which could be the side that people don't like. Q. Just one example which came to my mind is as I was talking to somebody in the Insurance sector and it is said that, nowadays, there are no Intermediaries. You are not logging in, you are doing digital, you are searching for the policies and you are buying on your own, and the device which you are logging in also makes a lot of difference suppose you are logging in from iPhone that will decide how much premium how much Insurance you can be given. Ans: It's fascinating! So, many more metrics that they take into account you are absolutely right, I mean yes, how are you even connecting to their website is something that they will consider right as part of the Policy assessment right? So, yes you are absolutely right, it's a fascinating area and I mean we provide service in the Insurance industry, we helped you credit scoring on claims and also on taking out Policies and it's a fascinating area to work in and for sure I hope it makes the experience from for people better because of it but there's so much more they could do they could automate a lot more of that I think based on data available, either from the vehicles themselves or from people's actual devices as long as the people are happy with that being used for those purposes right. Q. How does Auto Telematics allow Insurers to provide value-added services like driver feedback, theft prevention and road assistance?' Ans: In some areas of Insurance, we talked about earlier on an average car in the modern era generating about I think I said 40 Terabytes of data a day; a lot of that data doesn't really leave the vehicle and is not yet used for much beyond anything except historical review by an Engineer when you take it in for service right and there's definitely Insurance Companies are still at the beginning of their usage of that data and still figuring out the right way to make use of it for helping with Policy definitions. So, some of it, they do quite well, other areas they are still negotiating. For example, there are two kinds of Telematics; there's the pure Telematics coming off the vehicle itself so that's where you have got the Manufacturer putting inside in the vehicle the Computer equipment that's in there already that generates lots and lots of data. Then you have got the sort of the hybrid that most Insurance Companies use today which is like my daughter's scenario where in fact they have designed with a partner some sort of block black box that they are going to put in the vehicle somewhere in the vehicle and it just collects a few things independently. It doesn't really read stuff off the vehicle itself it's sort of collecting things independently such as GPS speed momentum and a few other things, they could probably detect things like braking and stuff I am not entirely sure everything that's on those devices but it doesn't necessarily read the data directly off the vehicle so I think there's some there's still some work to be done in some of those areas right because obviously there's much richer data available in the telematics that comes from the actual vehicle itself rather than these new devices that are separate and added in separately if that makes sense. But, most Insurance Companies tend to use those separate devices at the moment but there are Companies out there now that are partnering with the Manufacturers and the vehicle Manufacturers to provide methodologies for anyone interested, viz. Insurance Companies to gather that Telematics off the vehicles directly without needing a specialized box that has been designed for just specific things and, I think, that is a major advancement, that will become a very useful way for Insurers to be able to make more value from the data. And, it's going to be awhile. I am not sure if any of the Insurers are actually reading directly from Telematics data off the vehicle. Yet, most of them still fit their own box and that's partly because of I think Rules and Regulation and Governance, they know what's in that box they fitted it themselves. It passed certain Rules and tests; so therefore, they can do it whereas of course if they are connecting to the raw data on the car they need someone else to really tidy that data up first and they need to be sure that that's being tied up in a way that meets all those requirements. Making sure people's personal data is protected and so on. But, once you have those things you can move into a world which is really fascinating and we have been working in in that space for some time there are plenty of Customers we have worked with and partners we have worked with who always often ask us really interesting questions so we had one where they wanted to know about vehicles passing a particular stadium in the United States Football Stadium during particular times of day because of the congestion and the transportation problems and that was used a combination of geo-fences around the Stadium itself and then data reading off certain manufactured vehicles where they were sharing the information and that was a really interesting study that allowed us to help them optimize closures of road management of the things around the Stadium during sporting events. Then, you have got the other side of that where you are maybe utilising the data or Customer Intelligence reasons and perhaps what you want to do is, as long as and this is where it becomes a little bit tricky you don't want people to feel like that you are being intrusive, right? I will give you an example, right, if I am driving my car past a Starbucks, right and my phone pops up with anything I shouldn't look at my phone right that's the first thing but if for some reason I am able to see the screen of my phone what I don't really know if I would like very much is my Insurance Company saying, “hey we're partnered with Starbucks, here's a free voucher for you to go into Starbucks and buy a coffee”. I might find that a bit, “it's like, oh hang on a minute you are really spying on me here”. I don't know if I would like that but on the other side if I get a pop-up that says, “hey, we have noticed that you are feeling a bit drowsy why don't you pop into Starbucks and grab a coffee on us because we can see that you are feeling a bit sleepy from your driving habit maybe I would appreciate that, right”? So, it just depends on how you do it right and I think that's the subtlety that Artificial Intelligence can definitely help with rights to make sure they are using the right methodology to communicate with you for the right reasons and make you feel like it's something that providing you benefit right and so that's another example and then and then finally I will show some slides just to give you some additional info. So, this is more to do with asset performance and management but let me just share this and I will go to the slide for it. So, this is SAS working with, can you see I mean these are just some web pages I scraped just to give people a little bit of background information but this is about maximizing the vehicle up time for fleet of Volvo and MACK is the brand in the United States vehicles. As they move around the US, doing their thing and one of the challenges they have is maximizing or improving the service time and ensuring that they do the service intervals at a time that's most suitable right and one of the challenges they gave us was well okay we have got a Telematics Gateway; this is a Volvo themselves, they have got a Telematics Gateway, they receive this data from on-board devices either from the actual vehicle itself or from ODB devices that they have plugged in and what they wanted to do was find a way to use Analytics to help improve the forwarding of information to what they call case creation support. So, this means they are seeing errors coming off the vehicle they want to know how important that error is? Is it something that we need to send the vehicle in for immediate service or replacement or is it something that we can maybe wait until the next scheduled service for the vehicle? So, that we can optimize when it needs to happen and this has a continuous loop so if there is something really important flagged; it will get past pass through the this flow which is really a flow in the middle there of we call it a directed graph streaming assisted in memory flow where the data transforms through various different things gets checked through different filters and rules and also Analytics models and then outputs value that says up forward down to the case creation support team that there's a ticket needing to be created for this to be serviced and send an email to the customer that they need to come in for a service or they need to have this part replaced before because it's fairly critical. So, it's a very straight-forward. And, this is a very high level by the way. But, one of the things that's really important is that it can continuously learn over time as the as the messages and the data coming off those vehicles changes. I just want to take you to the next one. Because, just to give you an idea of the sort of scales we're talking about here and why we use streaming Analytics becomes clear because we want to make sure that it takes the shortest time as possible to get a ticket created if there's one needed based on the current scenarios is coming of that vehicle. So, there is a sort of Customer Service Level Agreement; there is an SLA of 60 seconds to ensure that when there is a fault occurring within 60 seconds. It's been passed through the system and it's decided whether there's something that needs to be done and at this stage in the Project, we are working with about eight Terabytes of data, by now there is 71 billion plus different measures being looked at all the time through these tools through these streaming environments and you can see that over time they have detected about a billion faults or more why is that because at the moment that's actually supporting a fleet of vehicles across the US of about 350,000 and more and it gets bigger all the time obviously as they bring more and more of this online. Why have they done this? Well, one of the problems is that obviously you get errors all the time off equipment on vehicles and so on and one of the things they were doing was receiving information that something needed to be fixed. When, in fact, maybe it didn't really need to be fixed so we have helped them using something like this reduce the false positives they were receiving by something like 44% and we have also helped them improve the diagnostic time by 70%. So, that means, much quicker diagnostics, much faster diagnostics and therefore reducing the time to repair something but also reducing the frequency at which something is not available to transport product around the US. So, it's a really important to use cases and stories about using Telematics in a way that improves the ability of your assets to do the job that they need to do and obviously there is a ‘knock-on’ effect to that for Insurance, because you are talking about Insurance of parts, you are talking about Insurance of the vehicles, you are talking about if you have to replace parts, there are Manufacturers’ Warranties, there are other kinds of Insurance involved and all of those things can be impacted positively as a result of implementing something like this. So, hopefully that's a useful overview of an example of Telematics being used in a very positive way to add value with Analytics. Q. So, many things and it is evolving as you rightly said we are evolving these are some of the examples which are giving us so much of benefits so much of interesting data which we can collate which we can integrate to reduce so many things reduce human pain reduce time and efforts everything obviously it is very important to know all these things. Ans: I mentioned, that I had some examples of audio being processed so just so that people can get a sense of what that means, I thought, I would just show you. So, these are a couple of the pictures of audio signals and these are audio from heartbeats and it's just to give you some examples. So, there's a difference here between a regular and a regular heartbeat and what you can do is pass the actual audio track the sound through a streaming engine like the one we were just talking about with Volvo which will basically look for different patterns in the data and this is a visualization if you like of those different patterns and if there's an irregular heartbeat or something wrong with it in this example here they are using something called short time four year transform to help them do that detection if you can imagine that happens in real time so you could subscribe a streaming Analytics engine to the audio of a monitor detecting heartbeats maybe it's somebody in their home maybe it's someone in a medical scenario where you don't want to have to you can maybe you don't have enough medical staff to continuously monitor them and this could be useful to help give you early detection or early knowledge about something not going correctly with that person's heart. I can, if you want to hear it but it might be a bit annoying. So that's a wheezing cough and that's a picture of a wheezing cough this one is a dry cough and this one is a wet cough you can see there's I am sorry about all the cough noises. Let's come off that slide because it runs on a bit. I will stop it from running too long because it can get a bit annoying. I find but the point is these are pictures of those kinds of coughing and again if you use this as a way to help understand what you can do with live cough processing of that kind of signal you can very quickly help diagnose things and of course these are being used now this sort of capability is being used in test scenarios in Japan, where they have got those first level GP Doctors which are basically Robots and they sit there in front of you, you do something like cough and they can give you a first assessment and then they can send that assessment to a real Medical person who can then go ah we see this is correct, this is a wheezing cough that means that this could be a way to treat it. So, simple things like that but fascinating from a Healthcare perspective, but also of course fascinating perhaps from an Insurance perspective because it allows as long as it's used correctly to help people improve their Health and help people manage their Health better, then I think, Insurance is a valid place to think about how they could utilize that. Q. Before we end, just wanted to ask you that what the future of IoT is? If you may tell us more about it how it is advancing and how it is evolving? Ans: A very quick answer to that within the Insurance industry, specifically, is what you can see we focus on. We focus on helping IoT be more useful by adding Analytics to it but putting the Analytics in the right place to be of the most value. So, in other words, if you build models you can then put them somewhere maybe it's near to the device that's registering maybe it's on the device maybe it's on the watch maybe it's in the phone if it wherever it needs to be to add the most value and I think in the Insurance space that's the sort of thing that is going to change quite a lot but there's a lot of adaption to happen first and they do I think for Insurance. They are going to be and they are ready but they are going to need to think about the disruption that this kinds of Technology bring to the very way that they do things right. It's no longer a case that you can assess someone's Insurance risk one day and then a year later just reassess them you are going to need in the future to continually reassess people based on changing data and over time and but I think also people need to be accepting that that's the way that Insurance will work for them in the future. Overall, outside of insurance as a broader subject, the future of IoT is to become a sort of everyday accepted thing in our lives wearable Technology. Even embedded Technology, I mean there are companies working on contact lenses that can adjust over time without you having to have operations there are people working on contact lenses that have video screens in them. It's going to just expand massively and the impact on Society I hope will be as an optimist I hope will be a fantastic result in time if used correctly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bANxFwBy_T8

December 26, 2024, Speaker: Mr. Ioan Carpus, Managing Partner at Six Paths Consulting Interviewed by: Dr. Nitin Batra, Head of Amity Institute of Training and Development About: Mr. Ioan Carpus is an apprentice as well as a practitioner under one of the world's foremost leaders in innovation, Mr. Chan who has also links with INSEAD. Ioan is an innovation adviser and Blue Ocean Strategy, expert. He is also certified by the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute. He has experience in applying this approach very widely. He has worked with successful projects with names like Heineken, Bridgestone, Astra Zeneca, Goodrich, GSK, 3M ALD Automotive, amongst others. He has worked personally with W Chan Kim, the Founder and Co-author of Blue Ocean Strategy and worked with the Malaysian Government as well as the private sector. He is based in Belgium with his family, and he spends time in Europe and elsewhere supporting clients. Q. Tell us also about the multiple options that you had after INSEAD. Why innovation? Let's talk about you, your family, about Belgium and then why innovation? Ans:  I'm born in Romania I thought I will become a lawyer or judge, so I went to Law School of Romania and then at 23 my career plan changed. My wife wanted to pursue PhD, we moved to the UK and I already made the first switch in my career to web development, getting completely new skills, enjoyed that but I realised that and then BI would allow me to get a broader understanding of business and do something that I like. So luckily, I was accepted in INSEAD and I studied in both the Singapore and Fontainebleau campus where I met Nitin, we had good times together both in the study and in social groups. I recommend INSEAD again to everybody, it’s a great experience and it was the time when I came across the Blue Ocean Strategy honestly I never heard about it before but I was in the group of Chan Kim the author of the book and I was mesmerized by the promise and then interestingly it was the time when he got endowment to set up a think tank to advise the Malaysian public sector using Blue Ocean Strategy so I start moving in Malaysia it kind of ticks three boxes, I have in my wish list changing the country/continent, working in consulting and working on innovation. So, I enjoy the experience there and what I gained most was the practical aspect of innovation work with Blue Ocean strategy working along with some experienced consultants and applying this in all kinds of projects from working with agencies and ministries on from vocational schools to police reforms and other smaller types of engagements. So back to Belgium, in 2010 my wife started work for European Commission I decided to continue the work in innovation but setting up my consulting boutique. So from here kind of work across different industries, different types of companies and geographies but eventually I expanded from purely let's say working with Blue Ocean Strategy to filling more exhaustive needs of clients in the area of innovation management that includes helping them strengthen their innovation capabilities from depending on their innovation readiness status but that could include large projects or just supporting them with different partners we have such as AI-driven start-up scouting or a qualified business design platform and so on. But I think we should talk more about the Blue Ocean Strategy and align the expectations of people. Q. Often seems to me that there is a particular kind of organisation or a team that's ready to be challenged, that's ready to innovate and if you work with these kinds of organisations and teams, they already have a mindset that it's not just our intuition but the customer insights that are going to drive real change the more we dig into it size the more we look at insights from different perspectives we will have a better answer. A small example I was working with stopping smoking in Johnson and Johnson and one of the insights that we had for several years is some smokers don’t want to accept the challenge of quitting a cigarette it's too much of addiction but also a joy to have a cigarette. There are even 30% of smokers that are happy smokers so we looked at this insight slightly differently and said for those reluctant quitters can we have an easier process where they can smoke but they can also use alternative products, our products and feel the pleasure of cigarettes decrease so there comes a point where they shrug their shoulders and say I'm not enjoying the cigarette anymore I can just switch completely to Johnson & Johnson brand and then ultimately quit. But that was because J& J was interested in innovation and they were thinking about challenging themselves. My question to you is do you see the world divided into these two types of organisations, organisations that get you in, that want you to help them innovate are already innovating whereas organisations that need innovation may be behind or that they may not even know or may not fully accept that they need to be disrupted. What is your sense? Ans: When I started working on innovation on my own 10 years ago companies were thinking about innovation, but it was something trendy, nice to have, many people confused innovation with R&D or technology and so on. I'm happy to see that 10 years after there is a huge acceleration and more and more corporates are building their internal innovation capabilities, so they are creating the organisational structure to allow a corporate innovation team, they employ innovation processes, so we talk about the actual innovation funnel but also some front-end innovation processes tools and all kind of innovation activities from innovation labs to hackathons, designs prints and so on. But of course, you have different degrees of success. For many, unfortunately, it’s all stops at the theatre level, you would have probably heard about this expression I like it the innovation theatre where you kind of pretend you do but other companies, I think the key was the right support of the leadership, very important and the true understanding of innovation which is one part of your strategy so basically your organic growth strategy is through innovation. So, if you can understand this as a leader and create the right structure, processes, and people then you have the alignment, and you can drive innovation top down. I know people talk about bottom-up but with my experience, you can have very innovative people but if they don't have the governance support innovation fails. Q. If I'm one of the listeners here can I look at my organisation and in 3 or 4-5 minutes understand am I truly innovative, am I preparing for a future tomorrow or I am in a situation where I may be growing but I'm becoming complacent in that growth. What is the question or a set of questions I can ask myself to say I'm innovative or complacent? Ans: I think being innovative should be the purpose, it should be mean to achieve the purpose. The purpose should be to win over your competitors or to increase your revenues and profits. So, I see 2 types of drivers for innovation like a market-driven where companies have a reactive approach. Given an example of my project with a global car leasing company, at least in Belgium it’s a very mature market and over the years now it’s a consolidated market the players divided the market shares, and their value propositions are very similar, so they mainly compete on price. So, it’s a bit of a download spiral because they gradually reduce the price, they gain a bit of a market share, but eventually, they just reduce the price, so everybody loses. That's one of the great tools in the Blue Ocean strategy. I am already introducing the so-called strategy which allows you to visualise your value preposition but compared to your competitors so let's say you have the price and then other non-price value factors, but you don't just visualise them in terms of just to be done pains and gains you assign some relative numbers versus your competitors. So, let's say I don't know what the ease for signing the contract whatever I'm just making up what are the key competing factors you can say my offering is lower versus 5 of the market leaders so then when once you plot all your factors of your value proposition and you assign numbers you see where you deliver value and it's a great exercise because first, you align your team your internal team into where you are at the moment versus the competitors and this is the place to start for your future initiatives, now I'm not saying that you should deliver more value to every single factor because that brings us back to give what customers want and that was the tagline of the 90s and many companies went bankrupt because by giving more you increase your cost structure a lot sometimes companies tend to give even where customers don't appreciate. So the idea is to go through this process could be design thinking or blue ocean strategy, do all this structure analysis, validate with this ethnographic research and other types of experiments and understand what can you eliminate so things that are pain points or are not appreciated but you invest what can you reduce and then what can you raise truly important factors and what can you create factors that the industry didn't offer so I'm already introducing you to the pattern of blue ocean strategy if you want to challenge a bit the way of thinking about strategy so that's one example of looking at your competitors see where you are and imagine where it could be. Q. The idea of winning against competitors look at what is driving your business value, what are the elements and then how do you rank versus existing and future competitors. At this point, I wonder if we can also get from our participants which areas of business they are involved in I would love to take some of the examples from there and see how different value drivers can be created but if I take another example of let's say a coffee chain, so if you're a coffee chain if I understood what you're saying you would look at customer convenience, the flavour of coffee, the food offerings, the time to serve etc. as a value driver, or location as value drivers and then you will see how you rank versus competition. Should I get that right? Ans: Exactly so actually going beyond what we talked about one difference between let's say Blue Ocean Strategy and Design Thinking it's front-end innovation process. In the blue ocean strategy, you have some principles that allow you to untap into new markets space like you mentioned the blue ocean is a metaphor for a new market space that you could create. So, in addition, to try to do better than your competitors assuming you do that let’s say incrementally innovate and you might get a market share increase of revenues and maybe profitability. But the idea is to explore the so-called non-customers so who is refusing your offering as an industry who is not even addressed right by the offering in the industry and try to create some value propositions that taps into those potential demands as well expanding the total demand just to clarify some of the jargon because I think the blue ocean metaphor was great for making this theory very popular and catchy but also is a bit of a sometimes overused jargon I think makes this whole blue ocean strategy approach not so trustworthy because you have these people always talk about blue oceans and red oceans but effect you should get down to strategy. If you do that you can be sure you're on the right path. Q. Is that what you're pointing towards that at the end of the day you must still launch from where you are rather than shift completely to new business models which don’t make strategic sense? Ans: I think it depends a lot on how you define the scope of your project. You could say I only want to improve my business so then you just look at like I mentioned your value proposition as and 2B going through an understanding of your customers, competitors looking at ways to create and then you have something fine. But the process is almost like the double diamond in design thinking so you have areas of convergent thinking, analytical thinking but then you have divergent thinking the creativity part and you cannot know ever from the beginning what you will end up with if you are more bearing it depends a bit on a company and the project sponsor you could aim at creating something more so there as kinds result could be one or more value propositions or even business models completely different from what you do daily so could be adjacent or even transformation, innovations and that's the ultimate goal but in the process, you can also improve your core business so I'm not saying that you shouldn't be in your coffee company anymore but you keep that score the kind of a cash count but then you build several revenue streams and now manage a portfolio of products and services. Q. Can I check with you here what happens next so you figured out where you would like to differentiate and then you start to think about ideas to come up with a strategy? What happens next in your experience, what’s the key next step? Ans: You start from competitors you go through customers or let's say buyers because you might have different stakeholders like in pharma have patients, you have the doctors as separate stakeholder groups you try to analyse their pain points across the customer journey and then like you said you move into the creativity parts you have this framework called the six-part framework which employs 6 creativity tools to allow you to bring potential value that you might consider building in your value proposition and then you go into convergence mode again so now you employees there's a framework called ERRC Eliminate, Reduce, Raise & Create. You go back to it as a strategy canvas and you look at all the insights from your workshops and the framework because all the assumptions should validate by customer interviews, fieldwork observations otherwise they might not reflect the reality at all. Experimentation is key so I think to your point maybe what's missing in the blue ocean strategy is employing sound experiments even beyond the customer interviews and field observations especially as you move towards like I mentioned ERRC when you build several value proposition prototypes you should employ some other experiments that bring a greater evidenced strength, think of fake landing page some subscription form even almost like a fake store sale specially for the digital solutions you have lots of tools also with Google Analytics and so where you start to measure the willingness to buy, your pricing you can adjust your pricing so now you're with this type of experiments have a greater degree of evidence so I think you should combine like what's in the book but with other tools techniques that are available over there. Q. We work with clients and talk about the agile way of implementation but in the broader definition of agile, so running experimentations teams and making alterations and changing quickly. Is that the approach you use, or do you use a version of that or a different approach when it comes to driving experimentation because that is the key part? Ans: I think being agile comes after the first part so first, we have design thinking or blue ocean strategy so once you take a challenge into a prototype level and you can move into a big deal and go to market, I think agile starts when you actually start working on the product and then you can try, learn, iterate and so on in an agile manner but what you are talking about prototype or maybe the MVP. Q. In your experience when it comes to the blue ocean you talked about the limitation around the experimentation part which I would say it's not a limitation it's an addition that you have to think about when you are implementing blue ocean. Are there any other limitations of the blue ocean in your experience? Ans: Limitation in a way that you shouldn't just do what's in the book. When the book was written the purpose was not to empower people to go and do it. The first day it started as a management theory and eventually the more they learned about a company doing it this kind of processing tool was developed but of course like in any other theory or any other tools you should combine it with other tools that help you fulfil your objectives. But in terms of limitations of the blue ocean strategy, I would say not of the theory itself but sometimes it sounds scary for the company to try to convince the CEO to employ a blue ocean strategy project they might think like you said in the notes example of the coffee shop they might think of oh am I supposed to completely pivot my business model? no like I said you should not and also when you look at your existing portfolio of products and services there's a tool called pioneers migrator setters lab. So, think of the BCG metrics the growth-share that looks at the past to think how to act now in the present. Here this pioneer migrator settler is like a way of looking at your portfolio but to predict who should be your pioneer basically because you don't attach the cash counts you want to defend and maybe notes improve slightly but you don't want to pivot them. But you can start with other products and services existing or something completely new from scratch to make them pioneer so the future growth drivers of your whole portfolio. So, going back to the limitation I think you need to properly align the expectations of the stakeholders, so I had this problem quite a few times in the past, so I had two types of potential clients. People who read the book and they are willing and excited to do that and people who were kind of negative because part of it they saw this as not for them. I don't want to destroy my existing business, it’s not for me whereas I told you can apply virtually to anything. Q. In your experience the clients that have effectively innovated, what have they had as an approach and attitude a value perhaps even other elements like geography and the competitive space that have made them more friendly towards innovation. Ans: I mainly work with large companies, I also work with SMEs and start-ups but my core is the large companies just because that the projects are larger so require some sort of resources but also for start-ups sometimes the teams they naturally order by instinct they kind of explore great things and they come up with amazing value propositions and business models but the problem is incorporating people have a different mindset, they are mainly good at what the daily kinds but first of all, they are not alliance with these kinds of objectives of creating mid-term growth even the CEO they are appointed for shorter times that their mandate would expire or reviewed so I think that's a problem in itself but you have more visionary more open-minded CEOs who are willing to adopt this kind of innovation initiatives and not just initiatives but I mentioned that many are building their strong internal capabilities which is great news for everybody. That's what we all want to do, to contribute to creating a better world not competing against each other, there's room for everybody to create and share the benefits. So, I think your question about the mindset of the top leadership is very important, in terms of geographies probably I am biased, I cannot because my examples are not related to some statistical proof but outside in North Europe companies are more open-minded so clients in the Netherlands are more likely to innovate and support the innovation not that just run training that goes for it with this objective of executing it. But then I have engagements also in South Africa in Saudi so there's everywhere there's a huge desire to innovate. So, I don't think geography plays a role, not anymore. Q. Is there something that companies can do at a DNA level which just helps innovation thrive on its own, not driven by consultants like you and I we might support them in creating the DNA but not driven by that or not driven by senior management I'm kind of going back to that idea of the first solar cell being developed by an employee in Exxon because he wanted to and Exxon allowed him space to do it. Can there be 100 such examples within companies in the future, what will it take for a company to have a DNA which just allows innovation to thrive on its own? Ans: DNA to me equals culture and to me, culture is not something that you could act upon directly that's the result of strategy actually and structure. So, if you want to have this kind of employee with room to create, to innovate then it should have a good alignment of an employee innovation team, innovation activities aligned with specific strategic objectives so eventually, you will end up with a more innovative culture. I started to give some examples of different types of activities a corporate would employ. Nowadays you have in large corporates they're building innovation capabilities, sometimes they just buy idea management platforms, and they hope that if the employees will contribute ideas some miracle would happen. I think many companies saw that after the initial excitement first having the right governance to select those ideas and make them happen is many times missing, so it was, I think a bit of a disappointment, this kind of idea management platform. But if you combine this with you know a leadership programme with internal VC so you have those people the owners of the idea forming a team of two or three and then have a process let's say like with milestones reviews every 90 days or so, guided by the core innovation team, guided with mentoring them with innovation processes and tools so they can take that challenge and go to tested prototype ready to go to market then you have a much better chance of winning at innovation. In addition, I mentioned the start-up scouting so many companies just acquire or partner with start-ups that’s a huge activity and many others. Q. Now that the age of innovation is here, it has been here but it’s here at a level where we're almost at an inflexion point a company that's not thinking about innovation will soon find itself noting the minority with a lot of companies thinking about innovation. Now I want you to put on your visionary hat, imagine 10 – 15 years from now, what is the corporate landscape that we are seeing are, are we seeing 100 Google's, are we seeing the replacement of the current biggies, is there chaos or is there smaller niche ideas. What is the world that you're seeing? Ans: I think there is room for opportunities for high growth businesses in many areas. So, if you just think of artificial intelligence the applicability is in almost any industry, in banking, in insurance in automotive, in aerospace. So, the question is whether the existing companies will resist, or they will succumb and make room for other players. If we talk about banks, I think the banks will stay because we keep talking about fintech disrupting and killing the banks, but the problem is that FinTech’s resolve a problem, but banks have hundreds or thousands of products and services so yes, they may be better in one product or service but overall, the capabilities of large banks allow them to build or buy similar disruptors themselves. So, I think of course not all banks will stay but those who know how to adapt to digital transformation will be going to win. For others, I can only imagine as you do. We imagined SpaceX 15 years ago, who imagined that Apple would surpass one trillion dollars in our lifetime we saw that company growing to create great products, but I think nobody imagined that will become the largest company in the world at some point. So, I think it will be some acceleration into treating this type of giant in different areas. Q. How sensitive do you think we need to be to this overall macro changes which are like Tsunami that is coming and second how sensitive companies are or are it lets innovate but still there is an assumption of business as usual almost. Ans: I think maybe one big driver is a bit related to what you said about changes in consumer trends in let's reuse instead of buying new. I think one of the biggest drivers is sustainability and that requires innovation. We've seen a few years ago things like CSR and so on so companies try to adopt things that they could claim, make them socially responsible. Then we have seen some governments trying to enforce some rules and regulations, but I think the real tsunamic comes from businesses moving in this direction. So, you said it very clear there's a shift in customer trends and preferences towards sustainable business models, products, and services and with that, there are investing companies so we talk about private equity and venture capital firms who prefer to invest in this type of businesses and eventually it will be like a growing effect, a snowball effect. To give an example my sister-in-law lives in New York she pooled her passion plan from an existing fund, and she moved to a fund which only invests in non-oil and non-hydrocarbon, non-military companies so also the millennials I think have a strong mindset towards this. So, things will change fast in our lifetime. Q. When you think about an innovation project, they're almost like three or four levels of innovation projects that you can think about. One is incremental more revenue for your existing business model another is opening it up to consumer trends, which is slightly higher and you are open to more change and then at the other extreme where you say I'm going to reinvent myself completely is innovation at the level of vision, innovation at the level of leave the consumer aside, leave the business model aside, leave the competitors aside, what is the change that you want to see in the world, as a company what future do you want to realise. Is that how you look at innovation as well in terms of its impact at these three levels that you and I are speaking about in the first part of the discussion the first part which is what the business wants to grow into just now we ended our discussion about where the consumer is heading is there a third party where the company ignores the consumer and incrementality and says why do I exist let's figure that out guys and let's figure out what is the future I want to create and innovate at that level. What's your take on that? Ans: I think that's mainly valid for start-ups so I think somebody who wants to put a little thing in the universe would rather start their things so I'm seeing lots of social entrepreneurs impact investors committed and by the way there's this initiative run by the INSEAD I was part of the facilitating process last year to define what would be the challenge for next time and then we chose the food because the food is like accounting for over 25% of CO2 emissions and through this, I met a lot of amazing people completely dedicated. Q. Tell us a bit more about what that challenge was, what is INSEAD trying to accomplish and what role you played? Ans: You probably know there are many clubs and movements within the huge alumni community around the world, but this one was called a community impact challenge and it's created by alumni here in Belgium, Paolo an Italian who said, what if we commit INSEAD to become carbon-neutral by 2030 is the community and he said okay INSEAD can do somethings the people driving powerful businesses can do their things but I can try to inspire everybody through a bottom-up approach to come and contributes to that and also spiral this spirit. So the first year he proposed no single use plastic challenge basically would people sign up on this and I think there were over 5000 people who signed up around the world and for 30 days they were encouraged not to use single plastics and make sure they don't buy food with this kind of packaging and a lot of recommendations and eventually there was an application to help them make better decisions itself so then they said okay they had a great impact why don't we run each year one kind of challenge so then last year during the pandemic I volunteered to facilitate a large group of a few 100 people split in different sessions on different time zones and we started by allowing them to suggest all kinds of topics or areas where we could work on and eventually through voting we came to food and then from there we developed a set of recommendations and so on so last autumn we had the second challenge to reduce your red meat even try to become a vegetarian, try to reduce foods coming from Chile or whatever or don't eat tomatoes in the winter and so on. So, there is an increasing awareness and commitment to this in the alumni community. Q. Leadership in individual form is limited by what an individual decides to do and what impact an individual decides to have. IOAN I think it’s a great example of democratising innovation and letting individuals take charge of it. What do you think? Ans: Yes, I think you can have employees coming up with this kind of thing but remember the companies are very hierarchical and structured organisations, so I think if you want this type of initiative to succeed, you must teach those people to pitch effectively to the top leadership team so then they support the initiative. So, with the innovation, you have the tools to even support you to build a business case which eventually you can show to the CEO that there's a win so the employees’ engagement will increase and you as a company would look better because you're aligned with the development goals. Q. Any final words for what you would do or say to those of our participants that are team members that our team leaders that our organisation leaders on how they should shape their coming days. Ans: I think my advice would be to go and try to do it, you don't have to do it perfectly there's never such a thing but that's part of the spirit of the innovation you do, accept that you might fail but you quickly understand where you made mistakes and fix it and then improve. It's a bit of agile as you rightly mentioned but I think we should all innovate to address small and large challenges that mankind is facing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Utqd8XomVyQ

December 26, 2024, About: Mr. Richard Lobo joined Infosys in 2000 and has led several people management functions during his time in the Company. In his current role he focuses on making Infosys an exceptional place to work, bringing a strong alignment of the people function with the business strategy. As a member of the Company's leadership team he is responsible for several key business initiatives in the Company. He also serves as a board member of Infosys Consulting AG. He is a frequent speaker so some of us may have seen him in global industry forums, as well as Advisors Academia and Industry Bodies on global HR trends. Prior to joining Infosys, he was with Godrej in multiple roles, including sales and marketing, Richard holds a Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Management. Q. Has the moment arrived for HR to lead Organisations in navigating the future? What opportunities exist to build the future of work? What forces do you see as important in shaping the Organisations of the future? How might they impact the World of tomorrow? And are you already starting to see some of that impact? Ans: We are at the cusp of a change and there are clear forces which all of us can see; not necessarily all of us are articulated the way I am going to but if you go back to what you are thinking about and put on your own thinking caps you will find that largely what is shaping Organisations, going forward will fall in the areas of number one rapid changes in Technology and Business and that is leading to a whole series of innovations by Companies big and small which is having an impact all around us in the digital world; the involvement of Artificial Intelligence, the vast number of impact which individual customers have, so, this is the first one which the impact will change technology and business models having a shape. The second one is, that there is a growing realization that the impact we have on the World around us is very important. The impact businesses have on Climate, the impact businesses have on people around us, the impact businesses have on the larger Eco-system is becoming increasingly important and both Companies as well as people are realizing that their larger impact of business is important and they need to focus on that. The third one is, as the Globe changes rapidly and I think the Pandemic has forced us in even more rapid change what we are seeing is that there is increasing role for Governments and in terms of how the labour markets move, how people can cross borders or even things like, how the potential vaccine will get distributed. How countries react to health crisis? So, lot of activity in terms of regulations in terms of Government, in terms of Countries making decisions. This is the 3rd big force and finally, each one of us who work in Organisations or going to work in Organisations. One, to work in places which are more human where there is great attachment, where there is a room for imagination and creativity, where you are treated more as a human than as a machine and your importance is valued. So, the focus on the humans at work, so, largely these four forces of course there could be more because it is very difficult to foresee the future but largely rapid changes in Technology and Business models, the focus on responsibility and doing business responsibly the larger role of Governments and regulatory agencies, and finally the demand from humans to be more ‘humane’ at work will largely shape how the future goes over the next few years and how we respond to that will make a big difference. Q. I wonder if there is an anchor for businesses, I wonder what your view is on purpose as well as values and just wanted to explore whether clearly defined purpose can act as an anchor for a business for driving their own future forward? What is your perspective on purpose? Is it a wishy-washy word, or is it critical? Ans: It is treated both by some Organisations as a wishy-washy word but by others very meaningfully. I think how Companies use that word and more importantly communicate it to everybody involved, their customers, their employees their larger stakeholders, is very important. Because often like we use many management words sometimes it is just used for the sake of having it. But few Organisations have gone beyond and been able to explain it better. Now, if you go back in time probably in 50s and early 60s, if you ask anybody in NASA what their purpose was they would very clearly say it is to put a man on the moon and when you have a purpose which is that clearly defined, it becomes that much more easy to get the Organisation aligned or for example today some of the Pharma Companies have clearly put forward that their purpose is to get a vaccine out in the next few months. It is kind of easier for people to understand such clear purpose. If your purpose is little vague saying make life better for the larger humanity, it’s a nice purpose, I am not disputing the impact of that purpose, but how you communicate and how you stay true to that, is much more difficult. So I think purpose is extremely important and more interestingly tied to purposes is doing business ethically and doing business correctly that you do the right things for your customers, you do your right things for your employees can also be a purpose in the larger work that you are doing. The challenge to all of us as leaders as part of Organisation is to ask for a clear purpose. And if you go little beyond that example it also goes to what is the purpose I have as a human being and what is the purpose I have as an individual that makes me work in this Organisation is just because I collect my salary or am I contributing to a larger goal so I think we can look at this purpose in a very simple way but in a very meaningful way instead of the way it is often used. And, I think that explains and gives us, like you rightly put it as an anchor or as a guide to the turbulence that we are all encountering, and we will continue to encounter over the next few years. Q. How would Richard find his purpose? Ans:  That's a difficult one. I don’t perfectly do that but I think my purpose today is to communicate and give an example to the larger audience, both within our Company and outside as to how individuals can be changed. And, that's what I've been trying to do because you have the advantage of being in a point where you can probably see a little further, not very far ahead; but if you can communicate and you can get others to join and because by learning from each other can we really discover the way forward. That's what I've been trying to do over the last six months or so when we have all been forced out of our regular schedules. And, that's one of the reasons I very happily agreed to this conversation because if we can have a communication to the larger group which makes more sense. Then you have that many more people thinking on similar lines and then we will collectively add to the knowledge and the growth which we all look forward to. Q. Do values play a role and should Organisations focus on people behaviour, what is your perspective? Ans: I owe a lot of learning on this particular topic to the Founders of the Organisation I am currently associated with, especially Mr. Murthy. And I think the values he articulated at the early days of Infosys; I am not really here to advertise Infosys vs. Others but I think that the learning has been very strong, and some of them are.  But, I go back to some of the things which he did and which are stayed on with us over the years saying that we will do business ethically and the respect is more important. We will always work as delighting Customers so the huge amount on Customer focuses. The Leaders will not take away or do things which are different from a normal employee. Leadership by example was very important. The focus on Excellence and that we will deliver the best will push ordinary people to do extraordinary things. And, that no one is exempt if you do any behaviour which is not in terms of what the Company's ethics and value statements; say, then you will not be associated with the Organisation that goes for employees for vendors for third parties, so on and so forth. And, by staying true to these few simple values I think it has lasted us over the years, through good times as well as bad times. A clear articulation of values, and more importantly like anybody can articulate values is probably very easy to download things from the Internet and create your own value set but it is what you believe in, what is it tied with your value system that is so important and I go back I mean probably to use the word wrongly but in India we frequently refer to something which is known as middle class values. And, that works for almost everybody around because all of us probably have gone through the same way where our parents and our elders brought us up by focusing on a few things because we didn't grow up in an Economy which was doing great and each of us has seen the struggles our elders went through their life and they stuck to a few simple things and I think that is what is holding many Indian Companies together as they grow and become Global Companies. The simple idea is what we experienced. And, the real challenge for all of us is to as the Country grows and expands and becomes so much wealthier than it was. Can we hold on to these and can we perpetuate these values? So, that is really something I think we should all think about. It's a challenge worth thinking because if you don't do that, then we'll probably be very different and it doesn't mean we won't be successful we probably will be but we won't be remembered or acknowledged as much as we would like to be. Q. Does that DNA within our employee base, does that already encourage Indian companies, some strength in Indian companies that they can leverage, for example change? Ans: Yes, absolutely! Change and I would even put it as resilience. Let me give you an example. We take around 20,000 plus entry level Engineers every year, give or take a few and we analyse the data and almost more than half of these Engineers, come from rural India, and their parents are not necessarily Graduates, so it is the first Graduate of the family, making a migration from urban India to rural India. This story is played out in many other Companies, so it’s not unique to Infosys. This is the generation, which will not give up on hard work because hard work is what has got them there. And, of course, they have inherent intelligence, they have inherent skills and the ability to learn, but their belief in themselves that through hard work, they can succeed, is what propels them in the workforce. So when you interact with this same Engineer, say 5 or 10 years later in a different Country, because most of them would go and would work in another Country you would have seen that the same belief and the ability to do things has got them there. They may not necessarily be the most polished or totally accomplish because it does take a bit of urban schooling and experience to get there, but in terms of their work ethic and in terms of what they drive value. You can see that, and that is what contributed a great deal to India's success, especially in the services Economy is the sheer contribution from each of these individuals now if you note that we have not really made a huge dramatic difference in terms of products or other manufacturing which is probably that's a problem we need to think about but if you really look at the success story of the services industry. It is the contribution from each of these individuals which has been the success and the clients respect what they bring to the table they respect their work, and they give more business to companies and to them. And it's not discounting because others wouldn't be where we are in this. So, now we can translate the same learning to other industries like Manufacturing or Healthcare or others. I think this is where the real challenge and the chance of success lie. Q. What shifts are happening in the way people work and connect in your experience, both within the Organisation as well as probably a broader society questions and please feel free to go Global in this and not just stay with India? Ans: We need to move from India to the larger one. I will definitely look at the larger piece. Now let’s look at three dimensions which are important. When we talk about the future of work, the first of course is work itself, and I think over the last 10 years, the sheer advancements in technology, the impact of inventions, the impact of Artificial Intelligence, the impact of ingenuity which people have done in terms of building things on various platforms and the apps. The collaboration which individuals are having with each other or with machines. We are seeing that for a long time the work was more like very routine and it became a part of something which called as a factory, and now you migrated to becoming very important as individual in fact to becoming a craftsman so I think the first the entire dimension of work across the world has changed. And, it doesn't mean that the old kind of work has gone away, that is very much there. But there is lot of focus and a lot of value being given to the new kind of work. The second one, and I think, this is equally important is the workforce is changing so you have the entire Demographic shift of who is occupying the workforce, so there is new talent coming in and in most Countries, you have people who have just finished education being a very large part of the workforce. There is openness to taking work which is not full time so the entire gig Economy or the entire part time Economy is just blooming across the world which opens avenues to a lot of people to do other things. The ability to learn like for example, I am sitting in a very remote place in India could have access to the best Universities in the world in terms of learning because Technology has made that possible. Individuals are getting better and then there is a multi-generational workforce and so at some point in time in some Companies, you have parents and children working in the same workplace or you could even have a grandparent and grandchild working in the same place and we have had that experience. And, the third part is, the workplaces, in sense and so what we define as a workplace and I think we could already see signs of change, but I think the whole Pandemic accelerated that we suddenly realized that workplace, doesn't mean a place you go to. It is more important the work you do so the entire definition of a workplace changed, I think the entire Global workforce adapted very quickly to the shift which was forced not planned at all, but it was pushed and I think we gained around 10 to 15 years’ time in acceleration of what we define as a workplace. So, what that has done, it has if you put all these three trends together if you put what is happening in terms of work, in terms of the workforce and the workplace. You will find that we have been forced to an accelerated evolution process in sense it has made us better. And that benefit will hold the global workforce for at least 10 – 15 years from now, in the sense it will free us to innovate more, it will free us to network and interact better. And, it will free us from some of the constraints which previous view of work imposed on us in the sense that we have to go to a particular place spend long hours on the road, commute, travel across long distances, etc. But, this, we are not realizing that it has freed us it has given us more time and if you add the developments which are happening for example this seminar which you're now seeing on video will definitely get better one year down the line with the new Technology being available. And, we will have much better quality and there is Innovation happening and that there are so many new ideas which are coming on in terms of virtual reality, in terms of how we interact with teams, so on and so forth. While we will all regret, or we will want to go back to the world it was six months back. But, what we will inhabit is a better world. It's a world which will make humans better; it will augment our capabilities and it will help us do more, while giving us more time to ourselves so a long answer but, this was an interesting question. Q. My question, first off, is if I look at Companies of today; what structures may we need to destroy and what structures may we need to create and by structures? Ans: If you look at very fundamentally there are three areas which any owner or a person who runs a Company should focus on. First, of course, is Customer because without that nothing else is required so if you don't take care of that World, then the other world won’t exist. The second is, of course, the World of the Employees; they are your biggest contributors to create value for the first said i.e. your Customers. The third one is, of course, which people forget is that we all operate in a larger Eco-system in the sense that we inhabit a world we deliver an impact and that is the third one so if you balance these three is what we have to do and it's not a trade-off you cannot lose focus on any of these three because all are equally important like if you do not have products which Customers want or they do not service on you which they have or you don't give them a great experience then they will go elsewhere or you will get replaced by some other product. Same with employees. If you cannot take care of your Employees and attract the best for your purpose then they will go elsewhere again and that will again lose your ability to compete and most importantly and I don't think Companies spend enough time on this when we do the 1st two and when we take care of customers and we take care of Employees, we often forget that the impact we have on the larger social system around us so are we creating an equitable society, are we giving back enough because we are drawing resources from the larger pool around us. To give you an example, like, most Companies would hire fresh Graduates who have been through School and the College system but are Companies doing enough to build that system for the future, are they investing enough in this kind of things or in Company which is having a certain impact on the Environment, are they working on renewables, are they putting back things into the groundwater these kind of things and we have to be called to account for all three parameters on what are they doing for our customers, are we doing it while taking care of Employees and at the same time what are the impact we are having on the larger Society around us and holding this three things together is the culture of the Company and that is the most important thing because if you have the right culture you will focus on all these three areas and not lose your way. If you do not build the right culture then you can easily lose use your way by focusing on anyone of these or maybe half and not fully well and then you will be called to account at some point in time and then some other Company will replace you in the future. I'm not saying that that is bad itself I think that is just like you have a forest you have new growth replacing trees which are old that’s normal course of things but you don't want to have it happen earlier than nature has made that as per it’s schedule. Q. What is perhaps not really an overall map of how to establish culture or what do you think are imperatives when an Organisation, Company, a start-up perhaps is thinking about culture? What should they definitely think about either in terms of outcomes or in terms of imperatives that they should put in place? What is your perspective of that? Ans: Just keep the trend of thought and the chain of thought, so, it again starts with having a clear purpose; once you have a clear purpose, you also have your values and your goals which drives you towards that purpose and more importantly, it is more like a gardener who goes around weeding the garden all the time and then you take out the weeds and you allow the plants to flourish, you allow the nutrients to go under the soil. Bad example, but it’s something like that you keep doing to ensure that you don't get lost and lastly I think it helps to have an outsider perspective all of us who works in an Organisation should need to listen to the outside view we don’t necessary have to agree with the outside view but I think listening is a very important part because somewhere your shareholders or your well-wishers or I would even say ill-wisher will point out certain things which you need to correct and it takes a lot of courage to listen to the outside world and learn from that and by doing that you sustain your culture, because culture is not static, it is something which you need to build to something you need to evolve as you go along and things change and you have to always question am I in the right direction and makes changes as you need as you go along. This is how you build, it’s not a very complex thing but you need to have your heart in the right place to do it and many Companies get it right; it's not that examples are few, there are enough examples where Companies have got it right but sometimes lose their way too, but it’s okay, it’s a question of post correction as just like you lose your way and you come back, it’s fine, this is how you build Culture for the long term. There could be alternate ways. But this is what I could think of. Q. What is your advice on reducing risk? How have you seen risk being reduced and yet growth happening? Ans: I am not an expert on risk but I will try and give you an answer based on our experience that Infosys follows. Now, there are two kinds of risk to be; the one is the risk which you cannot foresee which are large Global things which happen which you just cannot see; it is like for example, nobody one day before could foresee what is going to happen on September 11. 8 - 9 months none of us could foresee that 2020 would be a very different year from 2019 and many of us were busy with making plans. So, these are risks which you cannot foresee and you have to take them as they come in the sense that you need to have a few things going, you need to have the right Organisations, you need to have resilience, you need to have enough Knowledge and Learning and the ability to take quick decisions, so, basically an agile Organisation which reacts very quickly to the forces of change which it makes. So this is a total unknown. The second is, of course, the risk which you can avoid and control, the known risk, your financials, your investment decisions, and there it is easier to control because it is more a question of allowing data to speak for itself rather than people making impulsive decisions being ready to decline an opportunity because you foresee, your data shows that is not the right one to go and also taking some very prudent measures like, for example, maintaining a healthy cash balance, keeping your debt equity ratio at a reasonable level and so on and so forth and so this is the controllable risk so if you do well on the controllable risk you can always meet the ones which you do not foresee by just having better Organisation Culture in terms of how resilient you are and how you will you beat it. Now this doesn't mean that it works every time. There will be shocks which are simply too large and which might need to take provisions but some of the things which have happened in this current situation you have seen Governments come in and help out Companies in the short term so some of these things larger things will happen because if there are larger interests of the Global growth model, Governments are also prepared to intervene so if you can handle the risk, you can control, you can handle the events which you cannot foresee and then probably come back stronger. It also helps if you have a diversified business model that you're not dependent on only one particular generation of revenue but then if you are an Airline what will you really do so you will some of these challenges so these are all types of risk but just like in any other situation I think doing well on ones you control, helps you to prepare to the ones you cannot. Q. If I were to ask you to weigh these two costs, external risk cost as well as the internal cost which one do you think is more important and much more urgent to deal with? Ans: I would again put it as the internal one is more important to deal with because that's something which can control. The external one is not something which is within your purview. Like for example, you would notice that when times are good most Companies add up things to the Organisation which we often preferred to as the Organisation cholesterol which inhibits progress and you have lot of people with fancy designations and whose chief output is PowerPoint slides but you can in a difficult situation you find that you can live without many of these things. If you have added too much of this, it makes you very difficult to turn around when times get difficult but whereas if you always kept a focus lean Organisation you can do it easier. For example, one of the things which we do in Infosys and which works well for us is that when we take any decision to spend money, we see how much money would this cost us over five years. For example, even if you're going to spend a certain amount of money on say particular cost when your Organisation goes and you add 100,000 employees; the cost structure becomes totally different so very careful usage of data and commitment when you can easily afford it, we can afford to invest so many things but you do not lose the seriousness of the database decision-making, it is what helps you when you're faced to the situation outside. For example, if you have the cash balance and you have the ability to deal with it you can weather a storm for a much longer time it's same thing as a household like you are faced to the hurricane and you are stocks vs. somebody else who hasn't bothered to keep it. Sometimes, these lessons are very minor and I think all of us remember the ‘Story of the Ant and the Grasshopper’. It’s not different from that. Ant spent all the summer working very hard and the Grasshopper was idle and when the winter came you know which one survived. So I think it's not different some of these stories have larger meanings than we think they are. Q. If you think of Organisations how can they prepare for those tough times you gave one example of thinking about a long term perspective for any Project are there any other things that they should keep in mind? Ans: Absolutely! You have to invest in two key parts of the Organisation; one on the Customer side and on the Employee side. Let's talk for the Employee side for a change and this is something which we do not realise that we need to invest on. How much Learning do we put value in, are we creating a Company of life-long Learning , are we training people for things which might be needed in future rather than what they are doing now. Are we investing in an individual so that they have a longer career span with the Organisation than just a few years, are we investing in the kind of office space or the kind of technical equipment which we give them. This investment in the Employee is the first part. The second part is of course on the Customer side. Are we forcing Innovation? Are we very comfortable that the product we have, or the service will last forever and will continue to buy the same thing and pay the same amount of money how much are we putting into innovation or are we this calling R&D just to have a nice Department where very little money goes into? Are we prepared to disrupt our business model to see what something else could happen, are we experimented with the start-up world to see what else the new trends which would totally make us irrelevant today? So, these two things are I think the responsibility of Leaders to force investment in both these areas. Because if you don't, there is somebody else out there in the world who is doing it and they might succeed; they may not succeed but you're not, you're no longer having control over it you have just ceded the control to somebody else and then that's not a good place to be in because then you become a follower and followers don't necessarily do well in today's situation where is the time span is much more constrained than it was. This is what will help us deal with these situations which continue to focus on the Employee and the Customer and invest when you can, versus waiting to do it when you're forced to do it. Q. Should we be enabling performance or managing performance, what’s your quick perspective? Ans: Enabling performance absolutely! Because I think what we have learned and what we do is a stupid idea of doing things that you allow a person to work for a year and then go and tell them how they've done. It's pointless that you should look at what he's going to do in the next one year or what he or she is going to do and enable them to do that rather than come back a year later or say you did very well or did not do well so I think entire one has to shifts so enabling no doubt. Q. Does that mean this idea of job description has reached it’s time and we should move on to something else which is more flexible and on a larger contract? Ans: Many things which we do have reached the end of their time. Just like the office spaces and cubicles have reached the end of their time. We now have to look at things, what will hold for the future, so, your job is what your Customer wants you to do in the future rather than what you hold because what you hold is a very internal one, which probably sounds nice and looks good but that's not really what will get you to tomorrow and tomorrow your job description should be to do what the Customer wants to do and we could keep it very dynamic, that it would change I'm not saying we don't need job description but I think we should keep them much more dynamic and much more specs into it. Q. Which one would you prefer? Ans: I would put well-being as a larger context. Well-being is both you as physically and well-being as you as your ability to contribute your ability to do well, your ability to learn. Valuing is a larger holistic one to meet which encompasses your skills, your Health as well as your Learning and I think that keeps you going for a much longer division so I've seen people who spent many years in the Corporate World still going very fine and fit even after they moved out of the Corporate World whereas many others are very tired at an early age and I think there is difference there and I think you have to keep yourself alive both mentally as well as physically. Q. If you were to imagine the new person joining your Organisation fresh out of University, what do you wish they had thought about introspected or built as capability right from pre-school, school level or University level that would enable them to be less tired when they are 40? Ans: The one single ability which they had done through school and college is I think using their time better. It’s a very odd thing to say but I do see people who can finish a task within a certain time frame and some others will take longer is because they handle the way they approach work differently they handle the way they solve problems differently, so they end up being very busy and they confuse busyness with accomplishments. If they learnt in college, that they could finish a Project or they could finish their studies and then also have something else to do, I am not saying necessarily it’s a Project; it could be anything that would carry the same forward to the work World. You ideally have 8 or 9 hours which you need to spend at work. The rest is yours. But most people can't do that and you end up spending 12 to 14 hours and say that the companies are overworking me. But it is not the Company who is overworking; it is you yourself who is overworking yourself, because you're not handling your task better. There is one thing which perhaps all of us could learn and that is how to handle our time more efficiently, be more stingy with the time, so that we have more time to ourselves and accomplish that much more in our life and sorry to sound little philosophical on this but I think if I had one thing they would do differently, it would be this. Q. Bureaucracy or sense of control or Self-managed Teams that the teams go ahead and manage themselves? Ans: Self-Managed teams. Provided they are given direction to where they need to go and what they want to achieve because if you just have self-direction teams, you could be lucky and end up getting a very good team, also you could get a team which goes nowhere. So, self-directed teams with adequate direction, is where they need to go or what they want to achieve is probably be right. Definitely not Bureaucracy; that’s out. But, yes, self-managed teams with directions. Q. And here, just want to explore a little bit more about how do you encourage innovation in the Organisations that you supported or you may have observed? Ans: The way I handled my team, allow them to fail so I say you go and try it out and if you fail, I will back you. If you succeed, the success is all yours. There is no other way to drive Innovation. Give people the power to fail not because they did not work hard. If you allow lazy people to fail, then you are not going anywhere. So that’s not the point. The point is to allow the people who are genuine, the people who want to try, allow them the permissions to fail and then they always delight you with what they accomplish. Q. Diversity or similar companies or similar teams? Ans: Diversity. But not for the sake of diversity. Diversity with purpose because they make teams better. If you just force Diversity on a team, it does not achieve something. So you should have a larger process to create Diversity because it’s important and not for sitting on teams. It’s a little vague answer but I think Diversity is a little larger one you should have people around you which are diverse and from where teams form and then the team will automatically be diverse. Q. What’s your sense of discussion on Diversity within Indian companies? Ans: The West is burning up with that discussion right now and we have seen that in news everyday there is lot of focus on not just Diversity but making sure people of different faiths, walks of life, sexual inclinations etc. are finding a place in the Organisation as equal members. Q. Where is India in that discussion and are we behind? Is there a need to start that discussion? What do you think? Ans: Different Companies in India are at different stages of this journey. Some are at fairly advanced stages and some have not realised the importance of it. We, also in India, have realised the different nuances of Diversity or what it means for this Country particularly. We have largely left it to the legacy of the reservation system and what happens in the Public Sector and not paid enough serious attention to what we can do to make a difference. I am very happy that the discussion has started but I think the spectrum is very broad and we should not just blindly follow what is happening in other Countries and just follow the same path it has very different meaning and I think we should develop a view for ourselves in India. The most important point is that many companies do not know the data. They do not really know the Diversity, I really do not mean in terms of how many men and how many women you have? What are the different distributions in terms of Demography, where do people come from, do they belong to a particular classification. We need to get that data. We need to set clear goals as to what we want to do. If we are going to hire so many people from certain backgrounds, then you need to have clear goals to make that happen. And, then, most importantly I think we have to lead by example. There is no point in saying Diversity and keeping it to the lowest part of the Organisation. We need to spread it out across the Organisation to show by example it is possible. And the interesting part, and I don’t think we observe it enough, I know people have tried collecting data, if you find that you will have Diversity example spread across the Company, just that we do not know enough about it to make a case out of it, and realise it’s importance. That is where we are. But, it’s a great point to start the discussion and I think it’s important that we take it forward. Q. What are the three things if you were to talk about three and I am not going to limit you to two to three that have led to your success as a leader? And these could be beliefs, or these could be values you hold? Ans:  I have been very lucky and I would put it more to luck than anything else that I happened to work in two great Companies in India and learnt a lot from the chances and opportunities which they provided to me. I was lucky. To start with, but, of course, I did the following that is that I put in the work to learn, to understand what is going on and more importantly, use the opportunities which were provided. The other aspect is of course, I have benefitted a lot from interacting with a huge amount of people with whom I have worked. I have learnt a lot from each one of these interactions, especially, from my earlier role in the sales field as well as the current role; we do get a chance to learn from many others. And, I think that has benefitted. If you really ask me, it’s a result of the collaborations over the years which has made this possible. Not to take away the fact that I have also benefitted like many others just by working in India which is changing and working in the World which is also changing. We have got much more opportunities to imbibe and to learn. That has been the story but not very interesting. The other questions might be more interesting to the audience. Q. I just wanted to check that with you, if you had a blank sheet of paper and you were to redesign C-suite priorities versus the way it's been done today, how you would redesign the C-suite? It could be the structure of C-suite, it could also be the kind of discussions that the C-suite has? Ans: I don’t want to be presumptive and redesign C-suite, but, I will look at some areas which could improve the C-suite more than redesign. One is, I listen to the lower levels of the Organisation more. So you need to provide a channel for getting ideas and thinking below to bubble up and most often than not, C-suites do tend to get cut away for various reasons. Sometimes, because of design and sometimes because of just there is too much to do. They miss the thoughts and I put this very simply, you need to be at zero distance to your Customers and to your Employees. You need to understand what is happening there because if you do not understand what is happening there, you cannot get the best ideas, you are cut away from that. So, that’s the first one, The second one is, definitely on the earlier question, definitely more Diversity in the C-suite but people who are capable, people who have gone up through their own hard work, add a lot of value. So, that is the second point both in terms of various areas of Diversity that we spoke about. The third one and, this is the most important is to have people around you who can tell you when you are going wrong without fear. So, allowing the dissent, and if you find either in terms of Countries or Companies which go wrong, you don’t have enough people telling the Emperor that they are not wearing clothes and that is the third one. These are few of the changes, if you do; I think we are in a good place. And of course, the importance of the C-suite probably will decline. You have Companies who do not distinguish between C-suite and the others. That is another interesting change in ARC design which is going to come, is that you will have more and more Companies who treat every idea as important, every person as important and this board room way of working will slowly change as newer ideas and newer Companies evolve. Q. In the last 60 seconds that we have Richard, are there thoughts or ideas in your mind that we have not perhaps covered that you would like to share? Ans: We have covered a wide group of ideas and I am grateful to you for bringing out such an interesting conversation. I thoroughly enjoyed myself but I would like to close with a few thoughts to the audience and I think we can see this current situation both as a very interesting challenge or as one with a great amount of difficulty. It is how we view the World. How we view the World, is going to make a difference to each one of us no matter who is watching this. And, it’s time for all of us to reinvent and re-question many of our assumptions because many of our assumptions do not hold the way they did short while back. If you look at this as a great opportunity, if we build on the learning which is available and if we share and exchange ideas with each other, because none of us have solutions to all that we are seeing, I think we will all contribute to make the World a much better place, more humorous place and like I put it up to my team very often, we will focus on the humour at work and making work more humour and that’s really what we should try and do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-V4Z1KMCw4

December 26, 2024, Speaker: Mr. Sandeep Joshi, Country Head, USV Pvt. Ltd., Myanmar Interviewed By: Brig. R.K. Sharma, Director, Amity Institute of Training and Development (AITD) About: Mr. Joshi is the Country Head in Myanmar in USV Private Ltd., which is among the top 20 Pharma companies in India by value. He has more than 15 years of experience in marketing, commercial and operations in cardiac, diabetics and OTC and nutritional brands. He has headed marketing for emerging markets at USV. He has deep understanding of Regulatory landscapes, Policy regulations and its implications across Countries of Operations including South East Asia, emerging and rest of the World markets. Sandeep is adept at launching new brands, handling mature brands, and planning Sales promotion activities. Q. Could you help our viewers understand what are the different categories of markets in International Markets? Could you just explain by giving examples of a few Countries of each category? Ans:  I think this is a very pertinent question to start with because you will hear a lot of talk going on related to the emerging markets or International markets. However, on a broader level, we need to understand, how the market is classified. So, there could be three lenses - one is a classical lens, which is based on the various research organisation and the market research companies. Second, could be from the point of view or the perspective of a company. And third, would be based on the various regions. So, let me tell you if a market research agency must divide it, so classically, they have divided into developed nations which mainly consists of US, a large part of Europe and Japan. Then there are BRIC countries which popularly are known as emerging markets. So, in BRIC countries, we have Brazil, Russia, India and China. And then, they have rest of the World, where they have various other Southeast Asian countries and Africa. If you look at them from the lens of the companies, a company, which is there in US or Europe, for them, the emerging market would probably be big countries. But a company which is operating in India, having operations in various other countries, they can have their own definitions. So, we might call Southeast Asian Countries as the emerging markets or French West Africa or MENA countries. When I say MENA, which is, Middle East and North African countries, they could be part of their emerging markets. Now when we are talking about the classical classification by the various market research agencies, what they have done, they have done, based on the per capita expenditure which is there on the Healthcare system. So, Pharma emerging is basically divided into developed and emerging sectors and with a per capita threshold of 25,000 USD. Countries classified as emerging, were then subdivided using market data forecast from the rigorous evaluation of key events, impacting the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare industries worldwide. The latest and refined definition, which ranks Pharma emerging markets based on their minimum anticipated added value to the total Pharmaceutical market. So, based on this, they have further classified them as Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 countries. So, in Tier 1 countries, they have kept China. In Tier 2 countries, it is Brazil, Russia and India. When it comes to Tier 3 countries, again it is sliced based on the Healthcare expenditure. So, if per capita Healthcare expenditure is more than 85 USD, you put them in one bucket and if it is below, then you put it in the second bucket. So, in Tier 3 countries, there are around 21 countries, which include Poland, Argentina, Turkey, Mexico, Venezuela, Romania, Algeria, Thailand, Indonesia and a few others. So, this is the second classification. Now, the third classification could be based on regions like Southeast Asia and Australasia. Then another one is Latin America, third is Africa, fourth is Middle East and the fifth is CIS or the Russian and neighbouring countries. So, coming back to your question, it all depends on which lens you want to use it, but broadly, this is what the classification is. I hope I have answered your question. Q. Which is about the different models of business. The Indian companies are employing different models of business. Could you tell us what these models of business are and how these are being employed by Indian companies in International markets ? Ans: I think it will be relevant to add one more caveat to the last question, which you asked me. Now, increasingly there are companies who are dividing it into frontier markets as well. So, first is a mature market, second is Pharma emerging and third is frontier market, where they are putting countries like Chile, Tajikistan, Peru etc. Now coming to your second question, what are the different business models which are existing in the Pharma emerging markets or International markets. So, we need to keep one thing in mind that there are two kind of products for which normally trading happens or the business happens. One is API, when it comes to Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical products and second is finished good products. So, when I am saying API, it is Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients. So normally, Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients will always fall into B2B business (business to business). So, it is like if a manufacturer is manufacturing APIs, they will sell it to another company, so that they can further add value and convert it into the finished dosage form. Now when it comes to the finished dosage forms, there could be a variety of business models and it all depends on what the strength of the companies is. So, within the formulations, we can haveB2B business, where the company does not have the feet on the ground. What they do is, they appoint an agent or a distributor in any country, they are going to transfer the stock, finished goods at a decided pricing. And then the responsibility of creating demand is not on the principal company. It is all on their partner, whether it is a distributor or agent. This is typically a B2B business. And then, there are various other technicalities involved in that. We will address that later. Second could be B2C (business to consumer) when companies have their feet on the ground. That means, they are going to the consumers also and promoting their own products. But we need to keep in mind that even for B2C business, you will still require an Importer. So, either Importer can be a local person, somebody who has a very strong presence in that Country or a company decides to have their own front-end model where they can set-up their own distribution. Let me give you an example, like some time back, CIPLA had their feet on the ground, in the form of distribution as well as their own team in Sri Lanka. Glenmark, for example, has their own distribution in Kenya. So, you have B2B, you have B2C and within B2C, you can have a direct presence. For example, as I said that CIPLA had a direct distribution in Sri Lanka or Glenmark has a direct distribution in Kenya, they can have various partnerships. So, the partnership can be there with a local player and the local manufacturing. And normally, this happens in the Countries where there are restrictions on the Import of the finish formulation and therefore, the company tries to do either a joint venture (JV) or technology transfer or low licensing. So, another such example is Bangladesh. So, there is a certain kind of local protectionism which is there for the industry in this Country. So, we have a company like Sun Pharma, who has a JV there and they have established their own manufacturing there. So, possibly, it is the only Indian company which is operating in Bangladesh. Now, we have something like a front-end partnership. So, all operations including the product selection and branding, marketing, talent requisitions and training will be done by the Principal Company (PC), but the local partner, which typically happens in various Countries, let's take the example of Africa. So, the local company will take care of the regulations, regulatory submissions, distribution, sales, and promotion. So, let me quote one example. CIPLA has one such arrangement with a company called MetPro or Lupin has an arrangement with Pharma Dynamics in Africa. Similarly, you can have a backend partnership; also, whereas the PC may hold a minority stake in an African company or any other region and has limited control over the operations. But it transfers the product license and markets it’s product through the partner. For example, Dr. Reddy’s has a tie-up with a Pharma Plan in Africa. So, depending on the need and how the regulatory landscape is there in those markets, it is ever evolving; I would say, a scenario where people try to find out what is the best possible partnership. Q. How do you understand where to go, how do you carry out the environment analysis to understand the opportunities ? Could you give us some examples? Ans: People will consider two factors. One, is external parameters or external factors and second will be the internal parameters. So, when I am talking about external parameters, there will be four or five major criteria. So, one will be the Market Potential and the Growth in that particular market, which will involve the various therapies which are present in the Country and how they are shaping up, how has their performance been over the last few years, what is their growth, what is their CAGR and what is their Growth Potential (GP). They will also investigate the disease pattern in that particular Country. So, somebody who is having a very strong presence in anti-malarial. So, you will find, for example, company like IPCA. They have identified the Countries, where the Malaria prevalence was very high. So, you talk about the African Countries where traditionally the Malaria prevalence is very high. You will find that some of these companies who have a very strong anti-malarial portfolio, they are present there. If you talk about USV company, you will find, that we are equally strong in the chronic segment as well as the acute segment. So, chronic segment, wherever there is a high growth, chronic market, we will be present. So, that talks about the external parameters. Then, there is geopolitical scenario, whether the country is stable or not, how is the business climate, whether the business climate is conducive for the Indian companies or Pharma, in general. Then, there will be Political stability. Then, one of the important factors is the regulatory factor, Within the regulatory factors, people will try to analyse whether there are bioequivalence studies required, what kind of dossiers are required, what format is required, whether there is a plant inspection, or a factory inspection is required, what are the approval timelines and which are the kind of drugs which are easy to get approval because time to market is also very, very important. So, typically if somebody wants to get vaccinated)? At a very fast rate, they possibly will pick up something like Nutraceuticals or Multivitamins where the time to market and approval timelines are short. When it comes to internal parameters, I think, the single most important factor, is that the company's ability to win in that market, how much is my readiness as a company. If I know that I am strong in, say, X, Y, Z therapy area and in a particular Country X, Y, Z, therapy areas have a huge potential, so, as a company, we will first try to enter that particular Country. Of course, we must consider, as I said, what are the regulatory requirements and what is the Political stability, the Political scenario. Let me give you an example, like Venezuela used to be a very big market when it comes to (latem)? but, all of us know what has happened in Venezuela in last 3-4 years because of the currency volatility, people have lost their money. I mean, people have supplied the products, but they were not able to recover the money back from the countries. So, that is something which is very, very important. Q. We all know about Covaxin and other therapies which are due to come. But what are the other opportunities in therapies and there all in which geographies, will Indian companies be able to seize opportunities ? And are Indian companies ready for these opportunities now for what they have been preparing to wait for this moment? Ans: I think, a very pertinent question in today's scenario. So, as we know that in the past also, we have seen the strength of Indian Pharmaceutical industry, and it is because of the Indian Pharmaceutical companies that India is known as the Pharmacy Capital of the World. Now, coming to the part of your question which says – which are the other therapies which are emerging. So, as you rightly said that antivirals and vaccines, they are on the platter,like hot cake. But we have witnessed that there has been a significant amount of buying in the chronic segment. So, possibly, at the start it was because of the panic buying where people thought that these medicines, the chronic medicines will go out of stock. So, the chronic therapies will continue to grow. But, at the same time, the preventive medicine has also come on the front stage. So, when I say, preventive medicine, I would like to refer to Multivitamins, Vitamins like Vitamin C, Minerals like Vitamin D. Q. I wanted to know whether they are ready for this opportunity? Ans: India is starting a huge movement to vaccinate lot of people in India. So, within short span of nine months, Indian companies would develop the vaccine, and this has showcased the strength of Indian Pharmaceutical industry at the World stage. So, I think Indian Pharmaceutical industry is ready to seize that opportunity, whether it was a case of say hydroxychloroquine at the start of the COVID Pandemic, when the uses of hydroxychloroquine had gone up or Azithromycin. Immediately, Indian Pharma companies could boost up their manufacturing strength. So, I think, we are poised very strongly. Q. What has been your experience in this area to understand? How do you understand competition and how do you target the right customer ? Could you tell us a little bit about that? Ans:  I think that, when we are doing a Competitor Analysis, there are two level analysis which we should do – one, at the level when we are entering into a market. When I say market, I mean a Country, a new Country. And second is when within the market we are introducing a new product. When we are entering into a new Country, you must see that how strongly the competitor is present, what is their distribution strength, what is their people strength, what is their pricing strategy. Is there a technological superiority in their products? This is what broadly I will investigate. I will also look into how their customer engagement model is. And, based on that, we can decide our own strategy. But, I think, we need to consider and act up very strongly which is that - how aligned is the team of a competitor. So, I believe that in any market regardless of what is the potential that market is offering, the key factor for me to analyse, will be, people along with their distribution, pricing, product and technology. This is how I would, at a broader level, benchmark my company or my product against other company. Q. We could have a test in a smaller town and then enter the big cities or you could have a domestic venture with a domestic company to develop business opportunities. So, there are different types of models for market penetration. So, what has been your experience; can you tell us about some of the good and not so good experiences that you have had? Ans: Typically, when we are getting into a market, we will have, I would say, two access metrics where we will put one side, the new market, and the existing market and on the other side, we will put new products and existing products. So, whenever we are getting into a new market, I will try to see whether I want to enter into a new market or begin in an existing market; we would like to have more product lines on more products. And, of course, it has to be backed by the product development and diversification. If you are getting into a new market with the existing product, then, possibly you have to get into the market development strategy. If you are into existing market and existing product, you will try to go deeper into the market, you will do more market penetrations and that can be done either through the pricing strategy or through the enhanced promotion or you can have a mix of both, a hybrid model. You also need to do the pricing titration, based on what the competitor or the market demands; you may require doing the investment in the channels to strengthen your distribution and possibly you will try to have a partnership or acquisitions to strengthen your market penetration. But, in summary, I think we have to keep in mind that we have to decide whether we want to go for new product development or a market development and based on that our strategy will be fine-tuned. Q. We believe that mini companies find it difficult to survive in the global markets due to complex regulatory pathways and regulatory issues, among many other things, Political and other issues. But Regulatory issues are also very important. So, what has been your experience as an Indian company in these foreign markets? Ans: Our experiences are not very different from the other Indian companies where we have to make sure that any product which you are putting into the market is market compliant and we follow the local guidelines of the regulations. The regulatory requirements are less stringent, but the price is good. And, let me give you an example. And this I am telling you because there could be various requirements from Country to Country which will differ. So, for giving the particular dossier or the regulatory submission, different Countries will have different requirements. So, for example, within Africa, if I talk about the three Countries which is Tanzania, Kenya, and Ghana. So, Tanzania and Kenya will pass you for the Product Development Report, whereas the Ghana will not pass you for the Product Development Report. So, as a company, then, I have to decide if my product development report is ready, should I go to Ghana first or should I wait for my regulatory process to complete and the documents to get ready and then get into Tanzania or Kenya. So, again, this is something which a company has to modify and titrate based on the countries where they want to enter. And, I think, since you asked me about regulatory requirements, it will be pertinent to mention that there are a group of Countries, which has a common regulatory approval process or a similar regulatory approval process. There are organisations like PIGS. So, there are 53 companies which are attached to PIGS. So, if your plant or factory is PIGS approved, getting into any of these 53 countries becomes easier. But, at the same time, there is so much of clutter in the emerging markets when it comes to the regulatory scenario. Now, take example of South Africa. South Africa’s regulatory requirement will be very stringent as compared to say French West Africa, Senegal, or Ghana. So, again, from the company perspective, you have to see how ready you are, and then decide in which countries you would like to do your filing first. Q.  What has been your experience in employing these technologies in emerging markets and other International markets, where there is a low level of penetration of these technologies in Internet and other problems may be there? So, what should be the digital strategy of companies for both B2B and B2C entities? Ans: I think, I would like to slice this question into two parts; one is, as a company, what is our experience and what should be the strategy. So, as a company, I think again, our experience is not different from the other companies where we have to go through the rigorous training of our field force because adopting technology by your team is the single most important factor to make sure whether your digital strategy is going to be successful or not. Because ultimately you are the company and driving your own digital strategies. So, when this COVID Pandemic started, I think, immediately everyone started to find alternative channels to reach out to the customers. This is where I feel, the training of our team or field force has been of paramount importance. So, today if you see our team or for any company, the skill set has graduated from, I will say, you are on a scale of 10 on the technology or the digital scales from say 4 or 5 to 8 or 9. Earlier the companies or the team were not very hands on using Zoom or Cisco but if you ask today people are using it very frequently. The second part of the question is that what should be the strategy. I think, though we are saying that there is a great technological or digital transformation which has been triggered by COVID, but still, the one-to-one interaction with your stakeholders and with your customers cannot be substituted only with physical to be ‘Phygital’ that means physical + digital put together. Phygital is where you will seek out digital solutions but at the same time, to have a strong connect, physically you will reach out to your stakeholders and in some of these markets, you will find that various technological platforms are existing which will differ. So, like in India, if somebody is using WhatsApp, possibly in Myanmar they are not using WhatsApp, they are using Viber. If people are using Google in India, in some of the emerging markets, Facebook is a kind of Google for them. So, all the businesses, whether it is a big business or a small business, they are present on Facebook. The way we use Google in India, people use Facebook in some of these emerging markets. If I want to search for any Pharmacy shop, here we will go on Facebook, we will not go on Google because I know that particular business is definitely present on Facebook. So, a lot of customisation is required which will differ from Country to Country. And the future is definitely going to be completely digital. Is it making sense? Q. What are the kind of risks that Indian companies are facing in International markets and how these risks are being addressed and mitigated? Ans:  I would say that when it comes to the risk, one of the key risks, is the volatility of the currency. It is a major risk in emerging markets as I was mentioning about Venezuela, here what has happened to the entire Venezuelan market, because of the devaluation of currencies. Similar thing we have witnessed in Nigeria. So, I would say that is something which is very important and therefore ensuring that your payment, your company's payment remittance system, you have to make sure that you use certain financial instruments through which your payments are secured. Like you try to hedge it, you try to mitigate by doing the business on LCs - we call it ‘Line of Credit’ or ‘Letter of Credit’, so, which ensures that your partner, if he is importing medicines, he will definitely make the payment. Similarly, then depending on the trustworthiness of the partners, people either do on the 100% advance payment or on 50% advance payment. Gradually, we are seeing that companies are not working on something called TA which means that the product has to reach in the Country first and the payment will happen without LCs. So, these are some of the ways through which companies are trying to mitigate the risks when it comes to the payment, because payment is of course one of the most critical factors for operating in these countries. And, I think, some of the other factors which has already been a part of Pharmaceutical culture or Pharmaceutical manufacturing and marketing culture that you have to be compliant in every sense. When you are manufacturing a product, you have to make sure that the product is as per the guidelines. And, if you are ensuring that the product is of high quality, you are working out in a very compliant manner, you can easily mitigate those risks. Q. What type of cultural issues have you faced in other Countries and how have you addressed these issues ? Ans: I would say that when you go to any new Country, , you have certain preconceived notions, because, of our cultural practice and the kind of upbringing we have. So, you have certain notions but let me tell you being an Indian gives you a lot of advantage, because, we know in India, we have always been into a multi-cultural atmosphere which makes you easy to adapt. So, as such I think Indian managers are pretty resilient in adapting to the new culture and that's the reason; not only Pharma, but, otherwise also, whether it is FMCG, whether it is Software; you will see a lot of people at the CEO levels also are from India and they are leading their own companies. So, I would say, that, culturally it all depends on your resilience. And there is a popular saying, I am sure you must have heard that ‘When you are in Rome, you have to speak Roman’. So, you have to adapt to their food, their language and I am sure, we are very well accepted. As such, it's a great learning experience when you go to the new Country, adapt to a new culture. So, I won't say that these are typical issues. These are, basically, an opportunity to learn new cultures, new business atmosphere. But, as you rightly said, that there could be different notions of time, but you have to make sure that you spell out your expectations and align your people. Q. Which Countries you found most welcoming of Indian Pharmaceutical products and how has been your experience in these Countries ? Ans:  I think all the Countries which you have mentioned have always welcomed Indian companies or Indian people very well because, there was a time when the local industry was in a very nascent condition in all of these Countries, in any of these emerging markets, whether we are talking about Asian Countries or European Countries. They have also learnt a lot from the Indian Pharmaceutical industry and the professionals. In fact, you will see a lot of Indians, who are sitting in some of the local companies and leading those companies. So, I think, they have welcomed Indian professionals very well, Indian products very well, except some exceptions, I would say where some local protectionism takes over. Q. What future impact to such Indian vaccine is due not only for COVID but is going to `affect’ Indian Pharma ? So, how do you think this scenario is going to help Indian Pharma growth in the third World market and in the International markets ? And are we ready to seize these opportunities? Ans: I would like to pick up something which you said at the start of the session, that it’s a blessing in disguise. The entire Pandemic has been very unfortunate for the entire humankind. However, when it comes to Indian Pharmaceutical industry, I think the industry has showed and led the path that we are capable of developing, whatever it requires, to fight a Pandemic of this scale. This has also strengthened the overall image of Indian Pharma across the World. There are various Countries which were not very welcoming of Indian Pharma companies. Traditionally, they had a dominance of various European or American companies or multinational companies possibly because of their previous experience of not so good companies that possibly the product quality has not been very good. But this has again strengthened the fact that, the quality is World Class for all the Indian Pharma companies, even when it comes to something like a COVID vaccine; we can maintain the quality and deliver result in the shortest possible time. So, you will be glad to know that you know there are a lot of companies who have their knowledge process outsourcing units in India. We know that India is a big manufacturer. But India is also opening knowledge process hubs for various multi-national companies. So, I think, we are only going to gain from this, and the future is bright for the Indian Pharmaceutical industry. Q. How do you look at the future of Indian Pharma and especially with reference to International markets ? Ans: I think, here we have to keep in mind that though we have been saying India is Pharmacy of the World but we are getting challenges from some of the smaller Countries like Bangladesh & Pakistan who have developed their manufacturing capabilities and who have strengthened their Healthcare system. For example, if you take the case of Bangladesh; because, Bangladesh has got some favour under WTO; they are still able to manufacture some of the drugs, which you cannot manufacture in India, those which are patented drugs. But the Bangladesh companies can manufacture and are giving a strong competition to the Indian companies in various emerging markets. So, this is something which the industry or the various stakeholders can think of collectively, that how do we make sure that we gain from a competitive atmosphere. Second thing is, I would like to conclude with, that for Indian Pharmaceutical industry or any other Pharmaceutical industry or company to succeed in emerging markets or International markets, we have to build our capabilities continuously; we have to have proper Governance when we are operating in various Countries. There has to be a lot of resilience which is required, there has to be a fast decision making, but, in a compliant manner. I would also like to put that we have to also work on our Portfolio; all the companies have to continuously keep on adding their newer products. Regardless of what is the size of the market, we should reach out to even the niche diseases so that we can further strengthen the image of Indian Pharmaceutical industry. And, of course, strong stakeholder relationship is the key to success in all of these markets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb8etY7v9Io

December 26, 2024, Speaker: Mr. Priyam Alok, Executive Vice President & Chief - Business Banking at AU Small Finance Bank About: Mr Priyam Alok is Executive Vice President & Chief - Business Banking in AU Small Finance Bank, which is among the largest Small Finance Banks in India, focusing on retail and MSME loans. He is an MBA from BIM, Trichy and graduates from Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. He has over 18 years of banking experience across retail and commercial lending and liabilities and wealth management. He has worked across India and has worked with Kotak Mahindra Bank, Citibank, ING Vysya Bank and now he is in AU Small Finance Bank. He is currently the National Head for Business Banking at AU Bank, where he was instrumental in starting this business, catering to working capital requirements of MSMEs, which is the most important sector in banking and at large Indian economy. Q. The emergence of innovative financial technology has revolutionized financial services in India as well as the banking sector. The rise of FinTech companies, Internet Banking, Mobile banking payment banking, are some of the classic examples of emerging trends in the banking sector and financial services. A recent innovation in the Indian banking structure has been the formation of a new banking institution called Small Finance Bank. These banks are expected to penetrate new financial inclusion by providing basic banking and credit services with a differentiated banking model to the larger population. In this context, the new Small Finance Banks have multiple challenges coming out with a new differential business model, and the challenges include building a Low-Cost Liability Portfolio, Technology Management and Balancing the Regulatory Compliance, On basis of these Mr Alok I welcome you on the show and ask you, my first question on this context is what according to you are the latest trends in banking and financial services in India, that are changing the entire economics scenario of the country. Ans: Well, too many things are happening too rapidly in the Indian banking space in the last, I would say in a decade or so. I think the focus of financial illusion and all the efforts that are being made today are in line with our objective of financial inclusion. A big leeway was when UIDAI came up with the Aadhaar card. The Aadhar card was used and, as we talk around 120 Crore Indians have the Aadhaar card today. And this Aadhaar card is being used for various banking transactions, so then we created the India Stack. India stack, obviously, Aadhar KYC is one of the main things there. Digi locker, UPI we came up with the United Payment Interface in 2016, Bharat Bill Payment System, the Bhim App. All these things happened in the last seven, eight years or so. The first step of PMJDY is which around 45 Crore accounts have been added. That coupled with the India stack, increase the banking penetration significantly. As we talk four out of every five adults have a bank account with them. And there is immense penetration. Now that was backed with certain other initiatives taken by the Government of India and RBI. In 2015 applications were invited for Payment Banks, Small Finance Ban. It was a new concept for financial inclusion. There were some 11 Payment Banks, with the objective of ensuring that payments are made easy and digital. Small Finance Banks had the objective of higher priority sector lending targets and financial inclusion support these were born then. 2016-17 lot of them started their operations and this was in the backdrop, he was after I would say 2014, a lot of action has happened from the Government of India and from the RBI since 2014-15 when India stack was created, and a new set of banks, Small Finance Banks, and Payment Banks were given licenses, and in 2014 IDFC first, Bandhan Bank was also given license. Bandhan Bank was also a microfinance institution, and such licenses were encouraged in Small Finance Banks space, apart from AU, 8 banks and got the licenses were microfinance institutions, and they were made banks. And in the payment bank space, a lot of big corporates also took part, and they, ended up getting the licenses and that was to encourage digital payments. Now, this was in the backdrop of PMJDY, 40 crores accounts have been opened to date. And, in the backdrop of internet penetration going up. So, as we talk, the Internet penetration in India has gone up to 45% from around seven odd per cent some 10 years back. And if I talk about the real-time digital transactions that there, India was ranked number one in 2020. Some 70 billion odd real-time transactions were done and out of those some 25 million odds was done in India. So, that coupled with the increase in the number of smartphones. I think some 50 Odd crores in the country have smartphones 50 odd crores have feature phones. So, internet penetration, mobile penetration, coupled with India stack and a new set of banks for financial inclusion has given a very good architecture for Financial Inclusion. More steps are being taken. In Jan 2021, RBI announced the creation of this payment infrastructure development 45 Crore funds to boost digital payments in the North-Eastern States and in tier three and tier six centres. And that will also encourage deployment of, point of sale infrastructure. Open API would be accepted in the banking space. So, artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, data, big data analytics, robotics, process automation, a lot of these things are happening in the landscape and in that backdrop, I think it's a very exciting time to be in the Indian banking space, and see so many things happening so rapidly. Q. What are the major differentiators between Small Finance Banks, Payment Banks, and other Scheduled Commercial Banks? So, I mean, we would like to know more about the differentiator between them? Ans: So, Small Finance Bank is akin to a Universal Bank as we call the other banks like SBI, ICICI and the likes. So, the other universal banks and Small Finance Banks can do all the things except that the targets for various parameters are different. So, for a Small Finance Bank, the priority sector lending target is 75% as against 40% of Universal Banks. Payment Banks, on the other hand, cannot lend they can only take deposits and that to up to one lakh. So, any individual can keep deposits only up to one lakh, they can distribute mutual funds and insurance, but they cannot lend. So, their model in terms of profitability becomes a little longer because banks do earn money in lending. And in terms of other parameters, Small Finance Banks are 82 banks so there are some limitations to do forex transactions. The other universal banks are 81 banks, so the forest transactions are easier to be done. PSL I already mentioned 40% was 75%. And last but not the least, we have a target that 50% of our loan book must have an average ticket size of less than equal to 25 lakhs. Now that's a big differentiator because the regulator is promoting retail loans and saying that you need not go on the corporate side in a big way, your average ticket size has to be 25 lakhs or lesser for 50% of your portfolio. So, these are the main differentiators. That three kinds of banks have, and as you rightly pointed out, RBI has been reducing the PSBs is the public sector banks, they have brought it down from 27 to 12 now, and 10 PSBs were merged to 4. So, as we talk, we have around 12 public sector banks around 21 private sector banks and 10 Small Finance Banks, and some 7 to 8 Payment Banks which are operational although 11 got licenses, some of them backed out. So, 7 to 8 Payment Banks. Q. The major one which I could understand is the priority sector lending, which is 75% in your case, as against 40% of other commercial banks. And another thing which is important is the ticket size is 25 lakhs or less. And from that perspective, I see you are handling a very important portfolio of MSME because the major economic upturn and downturn depends on the MSME sector. Now, how has been the journey of AU Small Finance Bank so far. What is the vision and its desired future because what I could understand is what I have read and what I have understood is that you are among the top banks which are doing pretty well in the MSME sector? Ans: We have had a very great journey this bank was earlier NBFC first-generation entrepreneur Mr Sanjay Agarwal started this and we grew to this level and got the license. As we talk, we have a lending book of around 35000 crores. And our average ticket size is 5 lakhs which I was mentioning you know; the task is to maintain 25 lakhs for 50% of the portfolio we are at five lakhs at the core of portfolio level. 85% of our book is classified in the Priority sector in PSL and around 84% of our book is a book of retail loans. And again, retail term deposit and retail casa contribute to around 43% of the book. So, it's everything about us as retail lending to the micro and small enterprise segment, lending to small businesses. That is our forte and that is where we want to grow. We now have 22000 employees when I joined this bank five years back, we had some 7000 employees. So that's gone up to 22000 now. And our vision is to be the world's most trusted retail bank and a coveted employer, and we want to be admired as the epitome of finance. We are a set of people working for the financial inclusion drive of the government and the country, and we want to be a bank that the customer trusts and has confidence in. And we also want to be known for customer delight. So that's the vision with which we drive ourselves. Going forward, yes, we would want to graduate to a Universal Bank, and that provision was also there with RBI when they give the licenses, they would be monitoring us for five, six years and then they might choose some of us to become a Universal Bank. Q. How digital banking has brought innovative products and services to India and what are the key elements of change in the Digital Era? I would say why it's important since you are a new bank and digital space is so rampant and you must compete with different business models. So how do you think that what innovative products and services digital banking has brought in India? Ans: I think the first set of digital transformations happened when we got the core banking system, there was a time when the banks had to make prepare a trial balance all the branches had to make the trial balance send it to their higher authorities and consolidation of that used to happen, that got changed. So, this type of banking happened 20-25 years back. With the advent of the core banking system, and later IMPS, NEFT etc. I think it got expedited in the last few years in the backdrop of two things. One was demonetization, and two is the pandemic. In the backdrop of both these items happening last 4-5 years. I think the transformation has been immense smart enough to create the India stack. This is not a borrowed stack it is our own stack, which in fact we have sold to a few Southeast Asian countries. So that is a big achievement, because of which a lot of transformation has happened. I would say that coupled with internet penetration, distribution of mobile phones. So those are the drivers because of which the digital banking story has got. Now the customer expects all kinds of right experience on the mobile app on the Internet bank the platform on the IVR on the phone, and he wants everything to be very-very seamless, be it, additional payments, be it his transactions online and at the same time we have to ensure that it's full-proof, that there is no data leakage, the data security is intact. And if I say, in terms of innovation, WhatsApp banking has happened with video banking has been approved by RBI recently so video KYC can now happen in the backdrop of the pandemic, that was approved. Those are great enablers because one can now open accounts without meeting the client on the video, one can talk to the client and do that and I think that’s the better happening, going forward, I must also highlight that some 2100 odd FinTech companies are there in India, out of it some 350 odds are into lending 400-450 odd are into payments. There is insured tech today, investment, insurance, everything is happening through technology. This is all technology-driven, but 2100 is a huge number for a country to have. Already pointed out that the real-time payments that happened in India were around 25 billion last year. There is an ecosystem that has been developed which is helping FinTech’s, Neobanks, New banks. And one must keep pace with the changing technology. Banks like us also will have to ensure that the customer is demanding, you must ensure that you have to match the technology if you won’t match, somebody will replace you. So heavy investment goes in that direction all, but that's the future. That's an investment that you make for a long term and that's something which you can't evade anymore, you have to spend money on technology, and ensuring that the whole digital transformation process happens for the company and the customer gets a very enriching experience in terms of digital interface. So, the banks like us will have to have a twofold. two-pronged vision. Obviously, there is a set of customers who is still figuring out the way to go digital. In the rural and semi-urban areas there is a set of customers, which still wants the physical branches. At the same time, there is another set of customers, where he expects a very high quality of digital. So, both are important. And innovation in this space is extremely important. Q. You also talked about customer experiences. Now, we are talking so much about digital transformation, so how does this transformation achieved major business goals of improving customer experiences and operating or rather operational efficiency in the banking sector because these are two very, very important aspects. Ans: I think digital transformation helps in saving time, saving the resources of the workforce coupled with the fact that it can help the bank scale up at a very fast pace and scale up the operations also in a big way. So, the banks become more and more economical due to digitization as we go along, scalability improves drastically. And digital transformation presents enormous opportunities for innovation and improve operational efficiency. Traditional operating models are being replaced by consolidated back-end processes. Now with integrated core banking systems being made available in real-time on the cloud. Banks are saving a lot of time effort and cost obviously. Apart from that the omnichannel approach ensures that the customer experience is uniform and customer is offered solutions on the basis of big data analytics, on the basis of customer behaviour and a lot of that is now happening in real-time, a geolocation mapping also happens and on the basis, that customer has given options, chatbots, the artificial intelligence side, chatbots are helping and also ensuring as we are going along and customer's onboarding journey is becoming simpler and servicing is becoming faster. So now if WhatsApp bank is allowed, a lot of servicing happens thru that. And chatbots connect with the customer in a big way. So, I think digital transformation is the top priority for all banks today. So that's the future of banking and with her diminishing margins or deposits ever-increasing competition in the space and an evolving mindset of the consumer, digitization is a necessity for the banks and the businesses of the banks, at the same time. Q. What is the Omnichannel approach to marketing per se, selling, and interacting with consumers. Though you did mention certain aspects like chatbots and other things, leading to a seamless and cohesive way of transacting. So, these are certain irrespective of the consumer touchpoint or device because today it is no brick-and-mortar banking, it is more on the device. So, once again I would like to ask you is what is the omnichannel approach to marketing, selling, and interacting with consumers, leading to a seamless and cohesive way of transacting, irrespective of the consumer touchpoint or device. Ans: An Omnichannel coach takes up a customer-centric view instead of a bank-centric view. And that customer-centric view is to ensure that customer has a positive and consistent experience on each channel. Now the customer engages with us on multiple platforms, be it internet banking, mobile banking, brick, and mortar branch. And the idea is to ensure that the customer journey is consistent and enhances customer experience, which should be uniform, and experience must be integrated and seamless and keeps the overall comprehensive end to end customer journey top of the mind. So, by focusing on the customer and not on the platform. that companies can drive more sales and better retention rates better customer retention, also having a seamless strategy across channels means that your brand is easily identifiable across multiple touchpoints and channels, and the brand strategy is more comprehensive, which will result in better brand loyalty and more targeted messaging. So not only that I would say these increased and diverse engagements across platforms at each stage of customers journey happen simply is the revenue as I said earlier, and there was a study by BCG that in such cases, the customer who deals with the banks at multiple touchpoints and get the right customer experience, there tend to be 30% more valuable in terms of revenues. So, to sum it up, it must be a client-centric view against a bank-centric view. It must be interaction with the customer versus transaction and the shift must be towards the interaction with the customers, and then relying on the big data versus the service-oriented architecture. Big data throws a lot of insights into customer behaviour and the Omnichannel approach is innovative and helps in that. Q. What is the importance of customer relationship management in Small Finance Banks? How do they see and how do you see customers relationship management in AU Small Finance Bank? Ans: I think it's of paramount importance and we in fact we changed our CRM systems the moment we got the license, and we got the best-in-class system which was being used by a lot of top-class banks. CRM helps in effective sales management from the generation of leads to the onboarding process with a sales module. It helps in retaining the right customers it helps an increase in productivity in a very big way and helps and establishing customer relationships, the right kind of communication. Overall, experience is enhanced drastically if you use the right CRM tool and it gives a complete 360-degree overview of the customer and gives a very good insight on the customer behaviour if all the details are rightly captured and the process is duly followed. This tool throws a lot of data to give insights about the customer. So very important for us or for any bank I would say. And we did spend on this and went for a bigger, better tool. Q. Governments across the globe view retail banking as a key to achieve complete financial inclusion and the basic genesis, or the premise on which or the foundation I would say for Small Finance Bank is financial inclusion, which is the top priority of your bank that will shape the future of retail banking in India, which is a very crowded space and everybody's buying for that. Ans: First and foremost is the objective at which we are born, is to cater to the small businesses marginalized, farmers to micro enterprises, small enterprises and be the preferred bank in that space. We do have certain products, which are very niche products and unique products. The other banks were unable to emulate. And we had those products even on the NBFC platform. And we improve those products in the product suite as we became a bank. So, the first and foremost is to ensure that we are the preferred bank in the semi-urban and rural areas where we operate in and that's a big market for us, that's a market where we have a fantastic brand recall. And at the same time parallelly we also want to become a very good digital bank now. It might sound like two different countries, but the fact is that today you must have that phygital model you must have a model where you are working, for rural and semi-urban areas, it's just a matter of time when they will demand digital banking. A lot of them are already demanding that and doing that. So, one is working on their products to ensure that inclusion happens to ensure ease of banking happens. In fact, we did come up with a few innovative kinds of stuff like we had done away with the default slip requirements, a lot of times, villagers, or people who are not literate, they find it very difficult, they find the banks very difficult thing. They must enter they have to pick up a deposit slip, they must ask somebody to fill it for them then deposit the money so the bank for them is a big thing in the old of Avatar. So, what we did was with the advent of the AEPS - Aadhar Enabled Payment System, we said we don't need a deposit slip. There is no point in keeping some mundane exercises still and we said you just come show your thumb we will do the Aadhaar link verification and deposit your money or withdraw your money. You need not go and search for an educated guy for a pen and paper and start writing so. So, we want to ensure that in that space will create more and more innovation for ease of doing business, ease of transacting, ease of banking transactions, and come up with some good lending products also to ensure that the gap, because a lot of experiments happened in the past like Regional Rural Banks, were also formed and RRBs are there and a lot of banks. Banks are always given targets on PSL, but a particular segment was always ignored because they didn't have the papers, they didn't have the requisite papers and nobody wanted to take that effort of doing the assessed based analysis, assessed income model, go and sit and figure out from that customer how much he earns because they don't have papers, they don't have balance sheets etc. So, there we came over to get a new innovative product and is still innovating, and we have captured the space and we want to increase that space, and the portfolio is very well, unlike what the traditional thinking goes that, a particular segment doesn't behave well. You must just start to assess them right. So, there we have our forte we want to continue with this forte and for classes and the set of people, and that's a big set of people, 75 crore people use the internet in this country out of 135 odd crores use the internet. Now there is a big chunk of people that require digital banking. So, therefore, for that sort of people again we want to become a very classic digital bank and a lot of efforts are happening in that direction. And a lot of investment has happened in that direction. So, these two would be our, key items being the flagship bank in semi-rural areas be a world-class Digital Bank at the same time. Q. What I could understand that your focus areas small businesses marginalised farmers, and you have come out with several niche products which other banks, find difficult to emulate. And that is the key to success also talked about the phygital model, yes, we agree that as the pandemic doesn't seem to be ending it will be more of phygital model and has given a big boost to a phygital model it has to be blended it has to be phygital. And that's the order of the day and the very interesting thing which you also talked about is that you have done away with the deposit slip. And believe me, I have also done a lot of banking training and when we go for induction and see mystery shopping into banking and trying to understand the consumer behaviour and particularly in rural areas these guys find it so difficult, and they just look forward to somebody helping them around to deposit by filling these forms and slips. So that's a very very innovative and very interesting thing which you talked about. I am getting some questions in the chat, but I will take it later. I will come to a very-very important question now which must be very close to your heart because you are looking after the business in the MSME sector. So, what are the key initiatives taken by Small Finance Banks to boost financial inclusion in India keeping the critical MSME sector as the primary focus? And I am talking particularly as far as AU Small Finance Bank. Ans: Despite getting the banking license we ensured that the segment that built us the bank should be properly catered to, and innovative products are made for them. So, you need one product where our trade officer goes to the small-time shop, small-time traders, small-time wholesalers sits with them, understands what the cash generation is happening there. And then assesses based on what he sees and then he stipulates that for the month, then figures out from the diaries how much he is earning and then lends him money. Obviously, that profile that they do not have papers so that is one, where we went an extra mile and we have a bigger team in smaller stuff towns where we do this exercise and with great success, we know that book is around 15000 Odd crores for us. Then comes the templated product so we also thought there is a segment, which is banking already, and which might be a segment that is filing returns. So, based on GST returns, we are giving loans we are lending we are saying that we don't want a balance sheet, GST returns are good enough. Similarly, in the cases of banking credits, we give working capital facilities to somebody who is already banking, and one can see those credits happening in the bank, we consider the credits to be the turnover and on the basis of that, we lend. So some templated surrogate products have been devised, even if the customer is having the balance sheet it is highly mismanaged either because of the customer's ignorance or because of the lack of attention of the CA dealing with but the customer is wealthy or the customer is having enough money and maybe he's not getting money at the right price just because his balance sheet is not in the right shape. So, for that segment, we have these surrogate products for the segment which is not having anything at all we have this assessed income model where we go and assess the income. And as I mentioned ease of banking transaction, is something we are constantly, there is a particular team that is into innovation and constantly keep on thinking as to how what better we can do to enhance customer experience. So, these are some of the key initiatives that we have taken. And we continue to do so and expect that there will be more innovations coming in the banking space through us. Q. How do you think Small Finance Banks can prioritize upskilling and reskilling their employees and develop operating models which are capable of responding to changing demands of the customer, economic conditions and position themselves at the forefront of future-proofing the workforce because it's an uncertain time you don't know how things are. How do you think your bank is upskilling and reskilling employees to get over demands? Ans: You rightly pointed out because again digital banking is a new concept not many bankers forget the customers, many bankers are also not too skilled about it or skilled about the technology evolution which is constantly happening. So, I think the multiple training programs that we have started, we have also tied up with certain online learning platforms like Coursera or Udemy as similar platforms where we have tied up with. Employees have access to those platforms to upskill on a particular item. And if it is required for his job bank sponsors it. On certain items on the adoption of technology or app, we have to do a lot of training exercises because we talked about the CRM thing earlier. If you bring the best of CRM but it's not properly used and adopted and all the parameters, all the fields is not properly filled in or front line is not adopting it, operations are adopting but the front line is not then it will not give you that kind of result that anticipate. So, for that also we do a lot of training on the ground with the ground staff. And now training is a very continuous process, the team in fact has certain menace we also target for some menace. We also are upskilling our senior management on certain items on digital transformation. There also we do a lot of upskilling thereby again registering for certain courses from people who know the subject. So, I think there is a constant thing now because the dynamics are the levers that keep on changing fast. So, one needs to constantly be abreast about what is happening on the ground and change or improve our skill sets that's a continuous process and that will remain. Q. What he is saying is most small finance banks are NBFCs or microfinance institutions that have asset portfolios funded by banks loans and borrowings but not low-cost deposits. So, what are your thoughts on building a liability portfolio and offering a wide range of liability? Ans: SFBs are working towards, and you are right out of the 10 SFBs (Small Finance Banks) 8 are microfinance institutions. We were a diversified assets-based finance company. And one of the local area bank capital local area banks of Punjab. And the transition that we made was also because of the kind of trust bank generates. This conversion from an NBFC to a bank is a costly affair, you have to spend on technology, the operational cost of putting up with branches, the core banking system is a costly affair. So, the cost of operations, over a period your cost of borrowing goes down. So, we do come up with some innovative products some, certain products are there in yesteryears offered by certain large banks on the sweeping sweep-out facility to FDs if you are having above a particular threshold balance of say three lakhs above two lakhs the banks used to transfer that to the FD platform and that would fetch you better rates. So, as we talk to generate to mobilize deposits the SFBs is selling more money viz-a-viz Universal Banks. So, at an average SFBs sell-out 8 and 8.5, 8.7%, as compared to 4.5, 4.7% even lesser, including FDs I am talking not just saving account rates. So, we are good at 300 basis points higher so that is a big incentive for anybody to open accounts with us because we give the higher rates on balances on the savings account. We give higher rates of FD, and that's been consistent. Now, why so. So earlier as pointed by Brig Sharma that NBFC is to borrow money from the banks and that money was to the tune of 12% 13%, 11% in the best-case scenario. By becoming a bank that cost goes down to 8 to 9%. In the very first year operational stage it would have gone down to 10%, so there was saving for these companies in terms of cost of borrowing. And over a period of four years, five years now we are four years old. The cost keeps on going down further. Right now, for all the SFBs put together it's again around 8, 8.5. Eight MFI went at a much higher rate because in MFI rate is very high. So, the why is the cost is higher by 300, 400 basis points cost of borrowing. And so, as the cost of deposits, you end up lending at a much higher rate of interest, so your cost of returns is also, very high. It's 10% more than the average bank because you are in that segment. So, initially this issue of investing, but over a period it's a very profitable thing for any MFI because the cost of borrowing keeps going down with the scale of operations. And innovation in liability production is a constant process as all of them are trying to obtain with good rates for senior citizens good rates for even normal customer in ICICI and HDFC all these big banks their saving rates is uniform it's very less. We give 5 to 6%, so does Universal Banks like IDFC or Yes Bank, people who have fewer deposits end up giving you more in terms of, innovative liability solutions with high returns. Q. Small Finance Bank from the compliance perspective. I mean, tight rope so there is another question which is on that basis is with the RBI being strict on not relaxing the CRR and SLR norms for Small Finance Banks. How difficult will it be for Small Finance Banks to maintain a good net interest margin or lower the cost of funds? Are regulatory costs too big a burden for Small Finance Banks? Ans: Things are totally different because of the pandemic. The banking system at on average has surplus money of six lakh crores. So, the surplus a bank has is supposed to be parked with RBI under the reverse REPO rate which is 3.35%. So, six lakh crores today of the banking system has been parked with RBI at 3.35% and therefore you would have seen that the bank's interest rates on home loans and all kinds of lending products have gone down drastically because if you are borrowing at 8% and keeping the 3.35% with RBI because you are not lending enough you are actually having a dent of 4.65%. So, it's better that you lend money at 8-9% than keep it with RBI. So right now, the liquidity situation is such that because of the pandemic. The last year it should not be how it is there should be more lending happening. And I don't think the structure for banks has to be uniform. Why we are talking today about some banks going down the fact is some banks have gone down and therefore it's so important to have a robust compliance architecture robust control architecture and they should not need to create if we have to keep a certain SLR for that which is 25%. We should have enough money to safeguard the interest of the depositor and that regulatory framework is perfectly fine and banks who went for the license were very much cognizant of this not just the cost even the compliance is from an NBFC to a bank the compliance goes down drastically. But that's how it should be. That's how it should be otherwise nobody wants another PMC to happen in this country. Q. What are the final words from you on the entire discussion Mr Alok? Ans: I would say we are living in very interesting times where we are seeing a sea change in the way people bank and a lot of innovation is happening in this country. I think we are leading right on innovations and on the FinTech space on the banking space and that would continue so I think my only request is that everybody should adopt the technology not refrain from it. Trust your regulator, your money would be saved we have seen a few banks, facing different troubles but nothing happened to any universal banks, nothing happens to the deposited and money and all banks take care of everybody’s money. Use the digital platforms, when you use it, you understand it, and then you adopted and then you also have to become more demanding for better services, which is what we should aim for I feel that going forward while we say that the banks are synonymous with trust, I would say going forward technology will be synonymous with the trust and 10 years hence, we will have a very different game to play with a lot of technology angle to banking. So, thank you so much for having me here. And it was a pleasure to talk to you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMKOjKOAp8s