Apps, WFH, VPN & VDI save the day
Additionally, AI & ML deployed for sales and service:
Shriram Transport Finance Company has played a credible role i n financial i nclusion of millions of First Time Buyers (FTBs) and driver-turned owners (DTO) by offering affordable finance on pre-owned commercial vehicles. Established in 1979, the company is an asset financing NBFC with pan-India network of 1758 branches, 831 rural centres and partnerships with 500 private financiers.
Shriram Life Insurance, also part of the Shriram group, has an overall customer base in excess of 19 million, having more than 75,000 employees across 3800 offices, with net profit of `22 billion and AUM in excess of `1.50 trillion.
P. Sridharan, Joint Managing Director, Shriram Transport Finance Company and Manoj Kumar Jain, Managing Director, Shriram Life Insurance, discuss ways of tackling the changing needs of IT services for their respective group companies amid the uncertain times of the pandemic.
Mehul Dani: How have requirements for IT services changed during the pandemic times compared to earlier periods?
P. Sridharan: Usage of mobile platforms has significantly gone up. We re-imagined customer journeys and introduced an end-to-end frictionless experience platform ‘Your Mobile, Your Branch’ for our customers to simplify on-boarding and servicing. Most of the new business activities, which are usually done at the branch can now be done on mobile. We have been fairly successful due to the ease of use of our customerfacing applications that can be seen in the quantum of business and collections/ payments sourced digitally.
Manoj Kumar Jain: Lot of changes have been made in IT services, operations and in sales too. WFH (work from home) enablement started with key people and extended to all levels of all key functional departments. IT services and support are also happening remotely now.
Has the response from IT companies changed in any way?
P. Sridharan: No. The IT companies quickly moved to the work from home model.
Manoj Jain: Our technology partners changed a lot and supported us based on our requirements. Suddenly, we changed our working environment from offline to online.
Have you changed your IT service partners or mostly continued with the existing partners?
P. Sridharan: No. We have engaged Novac Technology Solutions, our IT services arm, as a technology partner. We have automated our major business functions viz lead management, loan origination, customer service solutions for lending businesses; policy generation, claims management and customer support for insurance businesses through digital technology platforms.
Manoj Jain: Mostly, we deal with internal group companies and limited outside vendors. So, there was no need to change the partners. Existing partners adopted and supported in our efforts to move to WFH model.
Has the number of outsourced people for IT services gone up or down during the pandemic?
P. Sridharan: We already had our mobile and digital solutions for some time now. Our digital platforms are also in place. While we saw a significant uptick in adoption during the lockdown period, we didn’t have much need to scale up the team, though certain strategic hiring continues.
Manoj Jain: We have a strong IT team supporting our group companies. We have limited dependency in IT with outsourced employees. So, there is no up or down in the team during this pandemic. Our vendors supported us well.
What new IT services were outsourced during the pandemic?
P. Sridharan: The focus was more on mobile and digital solutions.
Manoj Jain: No IT services were outsourced during the pandemic. Our internal teams IT, admin and operations planned together and supported during the pandemic. WFH / VPN (Virtual Private Network) / VDI (Virtual desktop infrastructure) connectivity helped us for business continuity plan (BCP) during the pandemic. Our IT team’s size is 50+. It consists of infra procurement, s upport, r e q ui r e ment, pr i o r i t i e s , project management, UAT support, MIS (channels, regulatory, IIB), audits (Internal, ISO, CISA & Security), etc.
Which IT service do you think will increase and which will decrease?
P. Sridharan: Technology has always been our focal point and the company has been enthusiastic about the potential of technology to improve customer experience. We are always at the forefront of adopting new technologies that can help companies in acquiring, retaining or in servicing customers effortlessly. We have adopted Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) driven solutions both in sales and service and this focus will increase.
Manoj Jain: Pandemic forced most of the companies to go for digitization. Digital/online sales, paperless services and mobile app (B2C & B2B) usage have increased. Customers have started using mobile apps and preferably using online modes for their services. Offline services have decreased. Customers are offered with a range of digital options for payments towards premium renewal. More than `3.2 billion of renewal premium has been collected through non-cash and non-cheque modes. Overall digital adoption was in 55% of branches in 2019-20, which increased to 79% for branches in FY’21. Nearly 2000+ sales personnel have been trained through video conference in a 2-way ‘Shriram Life Digital Payments Paymathon’ to promote digital payments.
Nearly 100,000 plus PDF copies of policy bonds have been sent through bulk SMS based bitly link to our customers over and above physical dispatches in these pandemic times.
Highlight how IT services have contributed to the increase in your business and customer base in 2020-21.
P. Sridharan: With ever-increasing customer expectations, customer centricity has become more important than ever. We deployed digital technologies to reduce the need for the physical presence of customers at branches, providing internet, mobile touchpoints and extending AI capabilities into process automation. This has involved augmenting the digital channels viz internet, mobile and social networks with guided experiences for enquiries, services and payment. Currently, about 60% of the new business transactions are happening through mobile.
Manoj Jain: Mobile apps are enhanced to support front-end salespeople. Leads are supplied to sales officers for cross-selling during the pandemic period. Connectivity, security systems required hardware, OTP authentication for customer consents have been enabled.
More than 108,000 customers downloaded our ShriMithra app, the customer service app, as against just 20,000 in the previous financial years. 22 unique, essential customer services options are enabled in the ShriMithra app. From less than 1% in the previous years, more than 10% of the total customer services have happened through this app. We have focussed on our distribution in the non-urban and rural markets. We are doing the difficult job of reaching out to these centers and are working on developing our distribution rather than focussing in the highly crowded, competitive metro markets.
Astra is a mobile based app helping the sales team to digitally onboard the customers, for which we have more than 25,000 users. Close to 100,000 policies are issued through this app. More than `2.15 billion new business (NB) has been sourced from 96,000 proposals in FY’21 through this app. 61% of our total NB is from app & other digital modes as compared to 19% in the last FY.