'Product-led solutions are key to unlocking potential of any organisation'

Today customers are demanding software that's more user-friendly, more intuitive, more powerful and more affordable than the tools they used before. The product-led software companies are helping organisations achieve higher operational efficiency along with strong risk management controls compared to worksheet-based methods by automating company's various processes. "One must be always ready to the changing market conditions and be agile with digital transformations," says Debashis Roy, Director, Infomatics Services, in an exclusive interview with Bizz Buzz

How a product-led software solutions company can focus on improving business efficiency?

Today, knowledge of business processes combined with technological expertise results in products that can be tailored to fit the needs of customers. Customers are demanding software that are more user-friendly, more intuitive, more powerful and more affordable than the tools they used before. Software companies using their extensive domain expertise and technical prowess have been able to transform enterprises through technological innovations and improving their business efficiencies. Therefore, companies that have stayed true to their niche have succeeded in building and scaling their products over the years. This is the cornerstone on how knowledge and technology of product-led solutions help businesses improve on their efficiencies.

How product-led software solutions can help a bank's cash settlement with their customers, correspondent banks, and cash logistics companies?

For a bank to provide quality cash management service, it needs to bring in efficiency in their cash flow visibility, quicker collection settlements for their customers, plugging revenue leaks with accurate calculations of service charges that are payable to their partners, and last but not the least, have a prompt resolution of reported issues with real-time dashboards, which can provide outstanding customer experience.

To achieve this, product-led software companies have been helping in the transformation by automating processes for better team collaboration of operations, seamless integration with third-party accounting systems to achieve higher operational efficiency along with strong risk management controls compared to worksheet-based methods. Moreover, banks have been able to achieve, up to 70 per cent reduction in the time spent by their employees from moving their manual data transformation, validations and reconciliations into automated processes where product-led software solutions have been deployed.

Why and how do product-led software solutions help in efficient operations?

Currently, operations are confronted with three major challenges. One is the rate at which things are changing. As long as you added resources, you could keep up with change. Adapting to a changing world and anticipating change is vital now that the change is happening fast. You have to offer something different in order to win customers on a global market. Global competition among big brands is fierce, so it's imperative to offer something unique. Managing a growing team is the third challenge. Staying ahead of the curve requires integration and centralization of business processes.

However, running a business in today's digital age requires more than just a solid idea and a workable product. Companies need to focus on efficiency, and they need to do it is now. Inefficient operations waste time and money. This is similar to a ray of strong light passing through a prism that splits up based on its wavelength. Every department in an organization has its own wavelength. In order to have a strong solution, which brings efficiency to the process, you need a prism in the form of a product. Product-led solutions are a key to unlocking the potential of any organization. Digitisation allows organisations to fix inefficient operations. One must be always ready to the changing market conditions and be agile with digital transformations.

What are the growing importance of a customer-focused strategy and the role of product-led software solutions?

When you are customer-focused, you strive to set yourself apart from the competition, create something worth caring about, and constantly refining your customer service so that your customers return time and time again. It's vital to remember that you are playing a very specific role in the lives of your customers as you plan the changes ahead in business. Business models and technology are constantly evolving.

Organizations must remain relevant by thinking beyond what they currently offer and evaluating how their resources can be utilized more effectively. Otherwise you are almost certain to move slowly and become unable to move quickly to win. Moreover with bloated staffs to meet customer needs, one suffers financial losses. Since product-led software companies continuously adapt their offerings to better match the ever-changing business dynamics of their customers, they are in a better position to customize their solutions for customer specific need.

How changing pattern of workloads along with Covid impacted the industry?

Life-changing events leave both a positive and negative impact. As a result of the Covid pandemic, work patterns have changed significantly. Today, more people are willing to work from home than ever before. In addition, some people have changed jobs simply because they don't want to commute each-day. In reality, many people are forced to make this transition. Earlier the company's location used to matter, but now with high-speed internet, it is possible for companies to operate from anywhere, especially for the technology companies.

Having the freedom to work from home has reduced commuting times which has reduced stress for many people. Technology has made it possible for employees to work from home, and companies have realized it can be an effective way to attract and retain talent. Some of the benefits include increased productivity, more time with family, and better work-life balance, but on the flip-side employees do miss on the physical social bonding that existed earlier that helped build better cohesion. As work-from-home had become a norm during the pandemic, Infomatics assisted many customers with their digital transformations. We quickly found that customers were adopting automated processes and norms to replace the manual ones that required human interaction. After they digitised, the fact that they were remotely connected did not hinder their operation. Having no disruption of operations was a positive sign for our customers.

What are the solutions and services currently available in the Infomatics portfolio?

Currently, Infomatics is focused on two key areas, namely helping financial companies automate their processes to manage their cashflows and on compliance for adhering to the market regulators' guidelines to manage risk.

Infomatics Trillium: Over the last decade, Infomatics provides solutions to money managers managing trillions of rupees in investments, who have implemented our products for cash-flow management. Our solutions are currently being used by leading mutual funds, NBFCs, retailers, service providers and corporates in India. Trillium is a trusted name for integration, automating cash flows, reconciliations and liquidity management.

Infomatics Velox® - Compliance: Good compliance practices require adherence to the law and also a company's code of conduct policies help mitigate risks wherever possible. Compliance managers in over 30 plus financial services companies rely on Infomatics Velox® - compliance to automate their processes on Sebi policies related to prohibition of insider trading, UPSI, and structured digital database.

What are the GTM strategies followed by Infomatics and how Trillium Suite and Velox Compliance are helping businesses?

It is no secret that 90 per cent of software products fail. To succeed, we have found that staying within the focus group of sectors and companies that we wish to be associated with has helped Infomatics. Secondly, we have always listened to what our customers really need and how does our software products adapt to our customers' changing business dynamics. There is no secret sauce to our Go-To-Market strategies. We prototype, try to fail fast and iterate on our learnings. Our relationships with customers is another key that helps us better tweak on our products. Being in the business for decades has helped us build a solid knowledge-base that reflects on our product offerings.

Trillium Suite was built to address the gaps that many of our customers faced in their daily lifes on integrations, cash-flow challenges, reconciliation problems and their need for an accurate liquidity management. Similarly, Velox - Compliance does a brilliant job in helping compliance managers manage their work flows better by simplifying the automation of Sebi regulations on prohibition of insider trading, UPSI and structured digital database.