SBI is working on applications of blockchain and IoT among others to stay ahead of the curve in the digital transformation journey
MRUTYUNJAY MAHAPATRA
STATE BANK OF INDIA
We have been embedding analytics, cognitive technologies, machine learning and artificial intelligence to not only smarten our applications but to increase efficiency. Cloud computing is another area whose application has been extensively leveraged to meet our strategic objectives. As part of our continuous endeavour to keep abreast with emerging technologies, we are exploring the applications of Blockchains and IoT.
When you are the largest bank in the country of the seventh largest economy in the world, maintaining the top position is a daunting task. The easiest way to stay ahead of the curve is to be on top of the digital transformation journey and that is how State Bank of India is redefining banking experience.
As part of redefining the digital experience of the customers, several initiatives have been taken by the bank. “We have been extensively leveraging external data viz social media data and CIC data and our internal data to individualise our product and service offerings,” opines Mrutyunjay Mahapatra, Deputy Managing Director and CIO, SBI.
Customer experience, both for internal as well as external customers, has always been one of the design principles of SBI’s IT strategy and the bank’s current initiatives continue to imbibe experience as one of the key deliverable.
In view of the pace with which technology and niche players are disrupting the market, every organisation needs to rapidly adapt to stay relevant. For legacy organisations, to keep up with this ever-changing techno-sphere becomes a challenge itself. “After engaging with start-ups, I have found out that there can be one solution to counter it. The technology, application mindset and a different outlook are what they bring to the table and can be beneficial to the organisation. We can engage with start-ups to answer specific problems, our approach for engagement is more focussed on collaboration than anything else. We have the expertise and business acumen while our partners bring in their technologies and know-how which together we use to solve problems,” Mahapatra opines.
An organisation usually adapts technology to address one of the three issues - improve process efficiencies, reduce operational costs and enhance customer experience. “We have already started digitisation of our systems and processes to address all these issues. Automation leads to an increase in operational efficiencies and at the same time, an enhanced customer experience and open new revenue streams. Security and risk mitigation are two other business benefits which we are focussed to achieve. Another area of concern has been the deteriorating asset qualities and rising NPAs. By leveraging technological solutions, we are trying to address these two issues,” he puts in.
Mahapatra feels the peculiar part of the digital journey is that the end state or goal is dynamic. Technologies change, business models disrupt, market scenarios change and collectively organisations need to keep realigning to keep relevant. Instead of taking a long-term end goal, digital transformation needs to follow some basic principles to be successful.
“Agility to transform and adopt, leveraging the newer technologies, bimodal governance, omni-channel offerings, continuously improving CX & UX, analytics driven decision-making and efficiencies and an adaptive IT security framework are some of the deep lying principles of our digital transformation journey,” Mahapatra concludes.
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