NotableTalks 
​Microsoft ISV Series

Conversations with Mr. Krishna Rajaraman, CTO at Intellect Design Arena, about: Straight-Through-Processing, AI & ML, Intellect Design for Finance Sector, Data-First Strategies, Digital Transformation, Design Thinking and a variety of more hot topics.

Co-presented by: Value Prospect Consulting

Index:

Intellect Design Arena is a global leader in Financial Technology for Banking, Insurance and other Financial Services. With uniquely focused products for business, Intellect Design addresses the needs of financial institutions in varying stages of technology adoption.

How's Intellect Design enabling organisations leverage AI & ML to drive growth & become future-ready?

Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

​To start with, could you kindly brief our audience about the key offerings by Intellect Design and how you are enabling your customers to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning amongst other technologies to drive more growth and become a future-ready organisation?

Intellect Design Arena develops financial technologies that assist banks, financial institutions, and insurance companies in growing and succeeding. As a result, our solutions are currently assisting in the advancement of the banking industry. Thus, what do you mean when you say that? This is a solution that enables financial institutions to rely on it in terms of security, scalability, and performance, as the functionality is granted. And that has been the driving force behind every product we have enabled for banks and insurance companies. We are global leaders in financial technology, with a strong presence in banking, insurance, and other financial services. With this breadth of products across our organization, we have been rated number one in corporate banking, consumer banking, and so on. As a result, we believe we are an authority on vertical and integrated products that enable institutions to achieve their goals of being primary solution providers for their customers. If you look at it primarily through the lens of artificial intelligence and machine learning, our primary focus areas have been on the insurance side, where a component of our underwriting platform, the exponent platform, focuses on this.

We provide a highly automated sequence that enables faster underwriting processing. Additionally, we recently launched our icloud base AI, an artificial intelligence powerhouse for trade finance that enables the seamless extraction, validation, remediation, and enrichment of data generated by the various document-intensive processes that occur within the trade finance ecosystem. And we believe that this will significantly reduce the time and risk associated with these manual compliance checks and the native age AI engine with which we work. It combines advanced machine learning algorithms, natural language processing, and computer vision techniques to contextualize and process approximately 500 document types in 8% less time and with an extremely high degree of accuracy. That, I believe, is what we bring to our customers.

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To learn more about how Intellect Designs can assist you in preparing for the future or to schedule a discovery call, click here.

Roadblocks faced by financial sector for revenue generation & how's Intellect Design enabling them?

Intellect Design for Finance Sector

​As a FinTech company that’s ranked #1 across multiple Financial Sector categories, and with a seasoned experience of providing innovative solutions to corporate, retail and central banking institutions, from your experience, we would like to understand, that, what are the key roadblocks that organisations in these industries usually face in their growth journey, and how has Intellect Design been instrumental in enabling such organisations to not only overcome these roadblocks but also streamline their operations for optimised revenue generation over the coming time?

We believe that the most significant obstacle we face is resistance to the changes brought about by technology. And if we look at this resistance from two perspectives, we see a set of customers who are either aggressive in their pursuit of the latest, greatest variant in order to validate quickly or who are quite hesitant in adopting something that has become more industrialized and capable of handling the scale, volume capabilities they require. Thus, the critical point is to find a match between the challenge and the opportunity that has been the most significant obstacle we've encountered in our work with various customers. And another interesting challenge we see is that frequently, the leadership team's vision does not resonate clearly with the team executing on the ground, which creates a new set of challenges when it comes to actually adopting the technology and getting the most out of it. We place a high premium on bringing all parties together to ensure that the full benefits of the technology we bring to the table are realized completely. To put it another way, we always face constant challenges when it comes to requirements. As a result, there will be distinct requirements based on how the customer perceives the functionality.

From a technological standpoint, it is various thoughts and opinions that contribute to the continuous emergence of regulatory requirements, but many of these become effectively transactional. Thus, the sense that continues to arise is inherent in the business in which we operate, and all of these issues are automatically addressed if the overall alignment at the top level with respect to technology and benefit is properly addressed. Thus, we believe that the critical factor is that we build our technology, our products, and our business with the next ten years in mind. Thus, we provide comfort to our customers by stating that if they purchase our product for the next ten years, it will be taken care of completely. Keeping that in mind, as well as the long term goal of success, everything else falls into place as these other nuances become apparent. Our solutions take care of this automatically.


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To learn more about how Intellect Designs can assist you in preparing for the future or to schedule a discovery call, click here.

How's STP mechanism enabling stakeholders from treasury & capital markets to make informed decisions?

Straight Through Processing (STP)

​With solutions like Straight-Through-Processing (STP) mechanism for the Treasury and Capital Markets, how do you enable multiple stakeholders within an organisation to make more informed decisions, and before you answer that we would also appreciate if you could let our audience know about what exactly is a straight-through-processing mechanism and how does it impact an organisation’s working at large?

Straight-through processing, as the phrase implies. There is no manual intervention; instead, a mechanism is used to automate the complete end-to-end processing of a transaction across any industry. Therefore, regardless of whether the individual is initiating a funds transfer, booking a specific deposit instrument, or attempting to invest in mutual funds or stocks, the automation of the transaction's front to back processing, from the time the customer initiates it to the time it reaches the actual system of records, should be seamless. All of that needs to be completely automated, with no human interaction. That is what we mean when we say "straight to proceed." Thus, this effectively means that we need a single system to process and control all the elements in that particular workflow, assuming it's a series of steps that must occur with multiple control points or that someone must check, is this available, is that available, is our fund present? Is this individual authorized to engage in this activity? Multiple checks, balances, or enrichments may occur. And all of this must occur smoothly. And that is something on which we place a high premium as part of our system. As you've mentioned our treasury and capital markets space, you typically have three layers of systems in that space, which we refer to as the front office, the middle office, and the back office. And it simply states the general ledger. Right. This means that any request from a customer flows directly through these layers, eventually hitting my system of records, and ensuring that everything happens automatically becomes critical when we say we enable full STP processing. How is this actually beneficial? Right. The critical point is that you utilize STP processing, which ensures that my orders are processed, confirmed, cleared, and set in a timely manner.

Which means it is more cost effective due to fewer errors and manual interventions, as well as compressing the overall clearing, segment time, and so forth. This effectively means that my entire system becomes more adaptable, creating space for the business to expand through real-time processing and expand into other areas. So, you're referring to our Treasury and capital market products, correct? They adhere to commercial bank requirements. They are compliant with the requirements of central banks, non-bank financial companies (NBFCs), brokers, stock exchanges, custodians, portfolio and fund managers, and others. Our product actually meets the needs of a diverse range of entities, each with its own set of rules, expectations, and solutions to offer our customers. What is treasury and capital markets? That entire spectrum, that breadth of capability. Contributes to the table. Everything. If I have to add anything else, the primary focus will always remain on the manual process. When it comes to additional transmission, or STP, we believe that we should view digital transmission from two perspectives. One is what we refer to as the digital outside, which is what your end customers perceive, see, and how they interact with you, and the other is what we refer to as the digital insight, which is what happens inside your house, within your systems, and how the entire request customer initiates is actually processed. And that combination, the digital inside, has as one of its primary goals the facilitation of straightforward processing, which we believe is a strength of our product. It supports a wide variety of asset classes in a highly configurable and scalable manner, with a high capacity for SDP processing. That is the key. What do you refer to as a value proposition.

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To learn more about how Intellect Designs can assist you in preparing for the future or to schedule a discovery call, click here.

The use cases and blueprint design roadmap of data-first strategies across insurance and BFSI industries.

Data First Strategies

​Technologies such as Big Data, AI and ML are now widely used across multiple industries including insurance and BFSI as well. With your demonstrated track record as a leader in the data-first strategy mapping for the Commercial Insurance sector, we would be interested to learn more about the use cases and blueprint design roadmap of data-first strategies that could create a significant impact on the day-to-day business operations of the insurance sector. Also, we hear a lot of buzz about blockchain and other Web 3.0 assets to be securing more credibility in this sector. What do you think the future of the insurance sector looks like?
That is an intriguing question regarding the insurance industry's future. If you examine it closely, insurance has historically been a document-driven and risk-based industry. Thus, one of the keys, which by their very nature implied technologies such as AI, machine learning, and big data, became the obvious choice for resolving the challenges faced by any insurance provider. Thus, our exponential insurance of intellect, which we refer to as our excellency, provides an excellent data-driven strategy for commercial insurance. Now, what are you referring to? Thus, consider a typical commercial insurance provider that receives requests for proposals for insurance coverage, etc., from commercial institutions. It entails the underwriter within the insurance organization determining the level of risk that needs to be evaluated prior to underwriting for the exact value of the cover. Thus, the evaluation is typically weeks long due to the volume of data they must collect, the number of documents they must validate, revalidate, and whatnot, and the fact that the numbers that come up are quite large. As a result, that process used to take weeks. And one of the key contributions we made was the ability to apply our algorithms from a machine learning, computer vision, or other perspective to a particular insurer or underwriter, for example.

Inform me of any risk updates or dangers that may arise as a result of this particular proposal from this particular commercial company. And that is accomplished through the ability to assimilate data from hundreds, and in some cases, thousands, of data sources, combining them, triangulating, and identifying the correct data. Assume I transfer data from one data source to another.

They may be at odds. How do you know who to believe? Thus, we have algorithms that attempt to identify and prepare or evaluate, that provide a more trustworthy representation for the same data attribute, and so forth. Additionally, we provide confidence levels for individual attributes, which most of our competitors do not. We provide this on a per-attribute basis and ultimately assist that particular underwriter in making a decision not in weeks, but in days. Technically, it would most likely be within hours. However, the typical human intervention required to revalidate those data points and then make a call effectively extends the time period to days. However, this is the type of impact that having a comprehensive AI, machine learning, or data-first strategy for commercial insurance brings to the table. 

Your second question concerned the use of Blockchain and Web three dot zero assets for security. What effect does this have on the insurance industry? That is an intriguing question. We believe that Blockchain will undoubtedly have a sizable impact. Why? Due to the requirement for data sharing between insurance agencies and potentially other participants, as well as the customer, for a variety of purposes. And we believe that would actually reduce or eliminate some of the industry's complexity. It's likely that it will take some time for those use cases to mature into viable solution offerings on their own. We believe that has a sizable impact or a sizable outlook on the insurance industry.

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To learn more about how Intellect Designs can assist you in preparing for the future or to schedule a discovery call, Click here.

Roadmap for Digital Transformation that could enable organizations and the end-users to make informed decisions?

Digital Transformation

​During the pandemic, it has been proven that cloud is the key performance accelerator for finance companies to scale operations quickly and effectively. As Intellect Design, being one of the leading fintech companies, providing cloud platform services, what roadmap would you suggest to companies to start with their digital transformation journey and create an ecosystem that could enable both stakeholders within the organisations and the end-user customers to make informed decisions with an experience of more transparency?
Yes, the Pandemic had a sizable impact, particularly on cloud adoption. Thus, if you look at the last two years, the amount of digital transformation that has occurred is probably equivalent to nearly ten years' worth of transformation that has been accelerated. And banks have accelerated their adoption of digital technologies for their customers and employees, which is critical to ensuring the continuity of business and the service levels they wish to provide to their customers, even over digital media, which ultimately boils down to digital transmission. Additionally, digital transformation is not a one-time event. It is not something that you can say, "Okay, I picked this up, I did this, and here I've transformed myself," because that is not how it works. It is an adventure. However, the critical point is that it is not a journey that you discover along the way, as this also creates.

If you do not have the bigger picture or the bigger plan in mind, ripple effects can affect what you have already covered as part of a journey. Therefore, one of the most critical aspects of moving to the cloud, if we must make a suggestion, would be to clearly define a final endpoint, a final goal for your digital transformation journey, and take incremental steps toward it rather than a big bang sequence. Because there are numerous factors that influence, and something that we have discovered is that a factor that is likely under-discussed as part of digital transformation is the culture of the team that will be working with the systems.

Thus, a change in additional transformation cannot succeed in the absence of a cultural shift. And the leadership team must concentrate on how they will spearhead the changes and lead by example in terms of bringing everyone on board with the transmission journey, which we believe is a critical factor and a key focus area. A second area of focus that we would like to suggest is the partner selection constraint associated with this challenge. That is a critical point because you do not want a technology provider who says, "Okay, I brought this ABC conference, dropped it in, and hey, I'm done." That is a person who is likely providing utilitarian value, but not a partner who is walking the journey alongside you, which we believe is critical. To have a partner who understands not only your current state requirements, but also helps you flesh out that future state by developing a thorough understanding of how your organization operates, what its key values, fundamentals, and what you hold sacred, and ensuring that those alignments are implemented, ultimately ensuring that your business is future-proof. You require a technology partner who will accompany you on that journey, not someone who will come and go like a visitor. And I believe that is another critical factor that we would recommend organizations consider when embarking on this digital transmission journey. That's primarily two points that come to mind that I'd like to collect. 

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To learn more about how Intellect Designs can assist you in preparing for the future or to schedule a discovery call, click here.

What is design thinking and how to achieve better UI & UX experience for both internal and external users?

Design Thinking

​The word ‘Design Thinking’ has become a buzzword today. Behind anything successful, which has sustained the ever-changing market dynamics, lies a great ‘design’ going into the genesis of it. What exactly is design thinking and what suggestions would you like to offer to your industry peers and growth phase organizations to achieve better UI & UX experience for both internal and external users?
To begin, design thinking is not limited to UI and UX. To be fair, that is probably a simple area in which everyone attributes design thinking to UI and UX design, but is that truly the case? Design thinking is much more fundamental in its focus. Thus, one of the central concepts it espouses is the importance of developing empathy for your customers. And a very interesting or unique way in which it approaches problem-solving is to say, do not leap to a solution without first ensuring that you are asking the right questions. Indeed, as our chairman is constantly emphasizing.

He spends significantly more time assisting us in determining whether we are asking the appropriate questions. Because he asserts that this is more critical than finding a solution. Because if you ask the right questions, the answer will automatically appear in front of you and, by the way, it is not just an interesting aspect that we consider. It has become ingrained in our organization's DNA. We believe that good design is the foundation for a more successful business. Therefore, whatever we do, can we apply design thinking in a way that helps us connect to not just the technology aspect of it, or to say that it's applied only to UI and UX as a field, but to all three key pillars of a bank or insurance company, the business, the technology, and the operations, in order to engineer solutions that provide you with that kind of unprecedented value while also providing a positive collaborative experience? That, I believe, is the fundamental shift in thought that design thinking brings to the table, rather than simply looking at something as a problem to be solved through technology. Because you solve something, there is an impact that spans the business, technology, and operations, with each individual having their own impact and perspective on how all of this comes together to create actual value. Thus, there are a few design thinking rules or laws. If I have to emphasize something specifically, right. The first law, which we emphasize frequently, is that less is more. Thus, what we are saying is that you should avoid adding excessive detail or attempting to do something new. Avoid over engineering and excessive time spent on a single task. Rather than that, eliminate redundancy and concentrate on what truly matters to users. Thus, complexity is effectively reduced. Maintain simplicity. Now, we're all familiar with the infamous keep it simple sequence. However, you take a step back and consider how to apply that universally. Then you require additional laws to assist you in achieving that goal. And the second law follows from that, which states that your final 2% is worth 200 percent. Thus, when you go to buy a car, you are confronted with a plethora of companies and a plethora of models. Why would you choose one vehicle over another? Because a car is merely a vehicle designed to assist you in driving.

Be it a manual or automatic transmission. It merely assists you in driving and moving from one location to another by bringing other passengers together at a high level. However, what motivates a person to identify with a particular model or a particular feature offered by a car or a carmaker that enables them to relate to it and obtain the final 2% of the connector set? And without that final 2%, every other card becomes effectively identical. And this 2%. We believe in the world of technology. It is not the technology's intelligence. This is not to say that technology A accomplishes this in a particularly cool manner in comparison to technology B. And if the end-user isn't concerned with what the end-user truly cares about, how is it going to solve my problem? Is technology assisting me in empathizing? Not always. Thus, what are we attempting to accomplish in terms of empathizing with the user? To comprehend their unspoken needs? And how are we going to accomplish that? Thus, numerous examples exist to demonstrate the difference between the last two individuals, to demonstrate how a particular product actually occurred, to comprehend the last two individuals who have truly provided them with that 200 percent gap or difference in their ability to create differentiation in the market.

And the third rule, which aids you even more in the lessons. This must include a prioritization system that maximizes your effectiveness by a factor of ten. As a result, you typically make prioritization decisions. Everyone says to make it small, medium, or large, or to say 12345, six in a linear growth fashion, and so forth. Right? Thus, this is a common approach. However, if you truly want to identify the critical item, you can alter your prioritization leavers to provide you with ten X benefits. Thus, we approach it by establishing three distinct levels of prioritization. We prioritize ten grams, one hundred grams, and one thousand grams. Thus, my best idea or the area in which I should focus my energy is on my 1000 grams items, as they provide ten times the effectiveness, efficiency, and water value benefits that I'm looking for as opposed to the second-best idea, which can only provide 100 grams benefits. Furthermore, 100 grams is more effective than the third concept, which is ten grams. Thus, the conventional method of evaluating or prioritizing as 12345 or whatever does not really help evaluate the impact of the scale of impact, the scale of effectiveness, of the particular option or solution to which you are jumping. Thus, this has clearly assisted us in determining which of the options we are evaluating provides us with a 100-fold increase in effectiveness or a 100-fold increase in the value we provide to our customers. And that these three laws are something that we have discovered to be extremely valuable and that we employ frequently in our dealings with nothing, flex.

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To learn more about how Intellect Designs can assist you in preparing for the future or to schedule a discovery call, click here.

How is Intellect Design leveraging Microsoft to optimise end user experience?

Leveraging Microsoft For BFSI & NBFC

​How is Intellect Design leveraging Microsoft to optimise end user experience?

If I have to put it that way, see Microsoft and be more focused, Azure is our cloud service provider, correct. As a result, Azure is a significant partner in a number of markets. As a CSP in those markets, we've observed a high level of comfort among our customers, the banking institutions. The nature of services, and not just the services themselves, the nature of support availability, and my ability to rapidly enable these various services and deliver the actual benefits that a customer seeks from a cloud-based solution offering. That has been a consistent preference expressed by multiple customers, and our overall experience with Azure in North's market has been unique. Okay. We believe it's a very strong contender in those markets, particularly in the banking sector, which is highly regulated, has significantly more requirements for security and other factors than other industries, which may find it a little easier to bolt on to a cloud-based offering, and is in a highly regulated, highly scrutinised industry.

Okay, so various banks are expressing a preference for Azure as a cloud provider, stating that they are comfortable with this individual product and the services Azure provides, and so forth. I believe it also speaks to the level of effort and vision demonstrated by Azure in addressing the financial sector's needs as part of offering. And I believe that is one of the things that we leverage wherever we provide solutions on top of our customers to accomplish the typical request of "give me a good scalable solution," "I need this hyper-scale," and so forth. Take it for granted, but I'm providing all of these additional capabilities that banks are typically familiar with. From that vantage point, I believe Azure serves us well and enables us to succeed.

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To learn more about how Intellect Designs can assist you in preparing for the future or to schedule a discovery call, click here.