An HR professional, founder of Radian Finserv, Sumit Sharma, reveals his personal thoughts and perspectives on aligning technology and business:
Ravi Lalwani: Which technologies have you chosen to dive deeper into, beyond your role as a CEO of your kind of organization?
Sumit Sharma: When I started Radian, I initially planned to have a purely digital customer onboarding platform. However, after piloting the program and meeting with numerous customers individually, it became evident that in the lending industry, there is significant value in establishing a physical distribution presence. As a result, I transitioned to a phygital model. We are utilizing cutting-edge technology such as apps, digitization and analytics. I am particularly interested in incorporating AI, ML, cloud computing (especially hybrid and multi-cloud), and cybersecurity frameworks. I am currently learning about these technologies to ensure that we remain competitive and maintain security and compliance in an increasingly digital financial ecosystem. My goal is to leverage technology to develop new product lines that have not yet been offered to customers.
Is that deep dive driven by curiosity or opportunity or difficulty or something else?
I am driven to explore the intersection of opportunity and strategic necessity. I am beginning to learn more about AI offerings and their potential impact. I am committed to developing AI-driven solutions to improve efficiency and innovate with the customer in mind. By incorporating cutting-edge technology into our product offerings, we can stay ahead and enhance customer trust and experience. For instance, developing an AI solution to identify gold ornaments represents a significant innovation.
Briefly describe decisions that have you driven based on your tech understanding.
Over the past 2 years, I’ve been learning a lot about technology even though I’m not an expert in the field. While planning for our in-house app, I researched different approaches and decided to invest in Flutter for our mobile apps, to ensure a consistent and high-performing CX across different platforms. My growing understanding of AI and its potential applications in our products and services played a role in our decision to prioritize the development of an AI-based system for identifying and validating gold ornaments remotely. This system, currently in development, will automate manual processes, improve asset verification accuracy, and enhance CX.
Do you intend to deep dive into a variety of technologies or restrict yourself to a few?
My primary focus is on creating a technology suite that complements physical distribution and adds value for customers. Over the next 1-2 years, I will concentrate on improving the efficiency of our current technology stack and developing targeted offerings using AI/ML, computer vision and natural language processing (NLP), aiming to provide enhanced financial insights and customer interactions. We are also exploring the use of blockchain to enhance security and transparency.
These technologies will drive innovation and give us a competitive advantage in the fintech industry.
Do you deep dive into select technology vendors, or do you leave that to your team?
I trust my team to handle most technology vendor evaluations, but I’m very involved in making decisions about vendors. When it comes to AI/ML platforms, cloud infrastructure, and tools that are crucial to our core business strategy, I take the time to understand what’s being offered and work with the team to make a decision. Understanding vendors helps ensure that we’re partnering with those who can support our vision of creating next-generation, customer-friendly solutions.
As you expanding or consolidating the number of technology partners?
I intend to collaborate with a small group of technology domain experts as our organization grows and evolves. As I assess and expand our technology partnerships, especially in AI, my goal is to establish long-term relationships with these domain experts. As we transition towards AI-driven solutions, we require partners who can offer expertise in machine learning frameworks, computer vision libraries, and cloud platforms that support real-time processing. Simultaneously, we are streamlining operations by consolidating partners for more traditional like infrastructure.
Briefly describe the expansion and transformation of your technology team.
We aim take ownership of core operations and collaborate with domain experts as partners to enhance scale and efficiency. Our primary focus is on physical operations, and we prioritize fintech. Over the past 2 years, Radian has expanded its technology team. Our relationships with partners go beyond being just vendors; we collaborate closely with specialized teams on specific projects. Our in-house team is currently small due to our status as a bootstrapped organization. However, we plan to expand our in-house team over time.
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