Nippon India Mutual Fund is driving into newer customer segments by leveraging voice and vernacular as the drivers, reveals the company’s Chief Digital Officer Arpanarghya Saha:
Smriti Pandey: Since when are you a Chief Digital Officer?
Arpanarghya Saha: I have had the opportunity to work as the Chief Digital Officer for Nippon India Mutual Fund (NIMF) since 2019. It has been a 100% learning and entrepreneurial journey with transformation and Unit Economics at the Core.
Briefly describe your first major project as CDO?
My first major project as the CDO for the organization was a project by the name of ‘Conversational Commerce’ that was executed on our Simply Save mobile app. The Simply Save app promotes one click, impulsive saving habit for investors by offering a superior alternative for managing idle funds vis-à-vis a traditional savings account. Since the masses of this country perceive mutual fund investments to be complex and difficult, the app provides need based, packaged solutions which consumers can invest in and plan for their various life-stage and life-style needs like corpus accumulation, tax saving, child education, retirement, gold-buying, etc.
The new-age Conversational Commerce interface was a pathbreaking innovation that was designed to let investors transact in mutual funds using the most natural, simple, easy and intuitive medium – the human voice. Developed in partnership with Google, this cutting edge, AI enabled solution, helped customers do mutual fund related financial transactions with the ease and convenience of voice commands. Its biggest USP was its transaction-oriented interface, and thus commerce enabled via conversation/voice.
NIMF was the first organization in the Indian BFSI industry and across APAC to create a digital asset that helped customers transact – purchase, withdraw and make a balance enquiry – via voice in Nippon India Mutual Fund through the Simply Save app.
This service paved the way for increased market penetration of mutual fund products and enabled our business to ride the next wave of digital adoption. In the first 6 months of its launch, we saw over 1 lakh new downloads of the voice-enabled app. Nearly one third of our active app users experienced voice, of which about 54% initiated an action on the services we offered.
Briefly describe one experimental/innovative project that you have recently completed or are in the process of completing, that is associated with a new technology or new financial products. What is its expected impact?
India is one of the most diverse countries in the world where dialects change every 15-20 km and the language changes every 200 km. Hence, the next wave of growth is being powered by people who do not converse in English. A Google study reveals that 90% of internet users prefer to use their local languages to search and carry out tasks.
With these insights in mind, we are currently working on a very innovative, yet simple-at-heart fintech solution that focuses on localization and building for Real Bharat. With voice-based, vernacular experiences at the core, our aim is to build a scalable, multilingual platform which simplifies investments in mutual funds for the masses. The platform will not only have lucid interfaces and journeys but will also come embedded with simplified investment solutions optimized and appropriate for the needs of that audience. We will also focus on creating engaging & locally nuanced content, thereby erecting a comprehensive Vernacular Digital ecosystem to usher in the next phase of growth. When this initiative is rolled out, we are hopeful of delivering simplified & seamless investment avenues for investors of unserved and under-served markets of Real Bharat.
While digital transformation engages the digital natives effortlessly, is there any project that you have worked on that has made a significant impact on the digital non-natives? If yes, please describe the project and its impact.
As a mutual fund house, while managing and growing our assets is core to our business, we also must imbibe a very distribution centric approach for our sustenance and growth. As such, the individual advisors called Mutual Fund Distributors (MFDs), play a very vital role in helping take our financial solutions to the market. Therefore, digitally enabling this ‘not-so digital savvy’ sales-force has been one the key focus areas for us. This has resulted in our industry-first Business Easy 2.0 suite. Comprising of multi-platform enablers on web, mobile app and WhatsApp, it is a full-spectrum, business-enabling digital solutions suite, that serves as a full-fledged tool for MFDs. It is now widely acknowledged for assisting distributors in providing complete client servicing and converting the outdated FOS (Feet on Street) to the more contemporary FOS (Fingers on Screen).
We also acknowledged a need to develop a digital mindset amongst them and upskill them to conduct business digitally. We have a whole capability building framework that comprises of training and refresher sessions for distributors and our sales and branch office employees, live demos and walk-throughs of digital capabilities and features and byte sized content, infographics, presentations and videos which help understanding & acumen amongst our salesforce.
With consistent efforts, we have been able to get the contribution of the AUM of the B.E suite (to overall digital asset AUM) to cross ~15% this year, with overall AUM growth of 36% in the first half of this FY as compared to AUM of last FY.
The strategy at many financial organizations is shifting towards platform adoption. Briefly describe 2 upsides and 2 downsides associated with platforms that you have experienced in the recent past.
We understand that when we serve a heterogeneous mix of customers, their expectations as well as their state of digital evolution and comfort with technology will also be different from each other. While on one hand we have the new age millennials & zillennials for whom everything is ‘do it yourself’, on the other end are the longstanding & experienced investors who find comfort in assistance and guidance.
We at NIMF have put in place a robust ecosystem of digital assets and platforms that are diverse, ahead of the curve and intelligent at the core while being congruent with the ‘mobile-first’ aspect of Digital India. With the core ethos of ‘Platforms of Choice’ we have built a diverse digital assets ecosystem that is ‘Frictionless, Friendly and Futuristic’. From different apps to m-sites & websites, from chatbots to dedicated WhatsApp transaction & servicing modules, from voice based, conversational interfaces to one-click transaction initiation and completion modules, we are geared to serve all kinds of consumers – individuals, financial advisors, brokers, intermediaries, distributors or digital partners.
The advantages of having an acute platforms focus are as follows:
- Expanded reach and direct connect with investors & partners, enabling them to engage with us effortlessly and securely.
- Puts the control in our own hands to fashion, re-fashion and optimize our assets & journeys as and when required based on signals like data & analytics, customer voice, heuristic assessments and build for perpetual beta to give the best CX to our audiences.
The two downsides that promptly come to mind are:
- Outages and glitches that can disrupt user experience at critical moments and leave a bad taste. This is innate for any technology and even the biggest global tech giants face such issues.
- Rapidly shifting landscape & fast evolving technologies which carry the inherent risk of going redundant or obsolete faster (as compared to older times). This propels our investments to be future ready and changing regular stances under the Build – Shift – Buy – Operate – Repeat.
Briefly describe the most significant business model transformation at your organization and the impact achieved/expected.
Our digital strategy is the north star that needs to be followed loyally & consistently to build a high growth and sustainable business. Our strategy, which revolves around creating a future ready, digital-centric business model, has 3 core pillars:
- User Growth focuses on building strong online presence to acquire & engage investors across the digital geography, developing sharper customer understanding, and creating comprehensive campaign frameworks to drive engagement & business outcomes.
- Virtual Distribution is about developing & nurturing strong relationships by being the partner of choice in the distribution & fintech ecosystem, exploring green-field opportunities with first-mover execution, and building digital acumen amongst conventional salesforces.
- Digital Products & Platforms strive to create differentiated & impactful digital experiences & journeys that are geared up to onboard and serve multitudes of investors.
Riding on the back of this proven and time-tested strategy, our digital business continues to excel, contributing 70% of NIMF’s New Business Transactions as of today (Lumpsum Purchase + New SIP Registrations). In FY2023-24, about 55% of new SIP registrations came from digital channels and we also saw a remarkable 2X increase in digital transactions as compared to the preceding FY. As we speak, we have already surpassed last FY’s tally of total transactions in the first 6 months of this FY.
Also, till last FY, our Average Assets Under Management (AAUM) from digital grew by an astounding 33% yearly since FY2018-19 whereas the overall Digital AAUM has grown 4x since the same year.
Our Digital Business Channels have yielded consistent profits with last FY’s profit figures standing at 7.5X of what these were in FY2018-19 while growing by an astounding ~50% every year!
Customer loyalty is diminishing in the digital ecosystem. There were many non-product drivers of loyalty in the physical world, such as branch location, friendly and helpful staff, personal rapport with customers, branch decoration during festivals, home visits, etc. What do you see as the key non-product drivers of customer loyalty in the digital ecosystem. Give 1-2 examples of what you are driving at your organization.
The whole embodiment of digital technology, with its innate characteristics of facelessness and self-driven interfaces, does tend to get non-human and hence, unempathetic. The more virtual a business gets, the greater the risk to lose real-world, human connections with customers. Therefore, organizations have to find ways and means to keep alive the ‘human touch’ in all the interaction points across their digital ecosystems.
While our aim has always been and will always continue to bring alive the best of cutting-edge digital experience, our digital ethos will always remain ‘Human at Heart’. Our endeavor is to build experiences and models that have empathy and engagement as their bedrock. In this era of facelessness, we strive to empower them to make the right choices and take the right decisions in this Information First Economy
While there may be many a driver of loyalty in the physical world, we at NIMF are exploring and experimenting to put in place such equivalents in the virtual realm. Here are a few pegs through which we are attempting to digitally drive customer loyalty:
- Build frictionless, lucid and people-friendly digital experiences with inclusivity at core
- Simplification and ease of use through intuitive, people-centric design and contemporary UI & UX principles
- Empowerment of people with focus on providing a completely self-serve environment that aids in quick discovery and faster & better decision making
- Driving personalized omni-channel experiences across various touchpoints with e-empathy based, instant and intelligent assistance through prompts, alerts, nudges and interventions during critical junctures and moments of truth
- Serve relevant, simplified & lucid content that builds awareness and drives relevance for investments, and helps people participate wisely
- Develop a deep, AI/ML and data-backed understanding of the investor base and define sharper segments with precise product-market fit and engage investors through compelling and non-intrusive outreach.
An AI system can be designed to maximize intellectual capabilities and also to have a balanced humane perspective. What has been your experience in setting both these goals for AI/ML systems and training them? Briefly describe some lessons learnt.
At Nippon India Mutual Fund, leveraging AI/ML has been a crucial step that has enabled us to sharpen our retention campaigns. The systems are trained using historic investor data which enables us to build propensity models that better predict investor behavior and patterns.
With AI we have been able to create systems that help us with product affinity of an investor, best time to send them business communication as well as draft copy for the mailers which is personalized. Due to faster turnaround of target bases, using this AI backed model we have increased our monthly propensity campaigns by 2X.
The question of maximizing intellectual capabilities while ensuring a balance human perspective in AI/ML systems presents significant challenges. One key issue that could arise is the misalignment between input metrics and the expected results. When this is coupled with the aim to achieve a balance humane perspective, the challenge simply intensifies. AI systems can help in maximizing business outputs but adding the humane perspective to these results is currently at a nascent stage.
Since current AI models primarily learn from human-generated data, which inherently reflects human biases and limitations and keeping accountability, compliance and regulations in mind, some level of human intervention is required. As we advance, fostering genuine human-like understanding in AI remains a daunting but essential challenge. And most important, this requires Time, Investment and Patience.
As they say, Rome was not built in one day, but got burnt in just one night. Thus, Ethical AI and its usage will be the prima facie responsibility for any industry especially BFSI, to garner the right offering and the best service to its consumers.
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