Bimodal IT is the practice of managing two separate modes of IT delivery, one focused on stability and the other on experimentation and agility. Edelweiss has created two separate teams to take care of digitization (automation) and digitalization (new technology) needs.
The Bi Modal approach to IT is not just about having two separate teams. It is about providing a comprehensive approach and services to business teams that helps them automate the core and backend and at the same time provide the front end digital technologies to enhance customer and partner experience. Both our business solutions and digital solutions team engage simultaneously with business to provide this combined offering. Abhishek Raval speaks to Kalpana Maniar, President & CIO, Edelweiss Financial Services
Edelweiss is following the Bimodal IT approach. What’s your thought process behind having two modes of IT?
We have teams that support business as usual (BAU) and other teams that work on digital, new technologies and the innovation initiatives. However, to my mind Bimodal is not a structure. Bimodal is an approach because even in BAU, there are ways of doing things differently. For us Bimodal is a philosophy that we want have adopted – besides just two separate teams working on BAU activities and Innovation initiatives.
How is Edelweiss applying the Bimodal philosophy on the ground?
We have a Digital solutions team, which works on initiatives related mobility, analytics, IoT and other innovative technologies. The Business solutions team provides automation solutions to business. For e.g we have a new business viz., Agri Services and Commodities. This new business needs a core solution to carry out its operations. One team is working to automate the core and peripheral systems to carry on the operations and the other team is working to leverage new technologies to enhance productivity, mitigate risk, drawing insights from use of data. Both the business solutions and digital solutions team are working together to provide technology solutions.
How is Edelweiss translating the benefits of BDA, Machine learning and Artificial intelligence into the various businesses that the company is into?
We are using Analytics for our retail businesses to build, cross sell and customer churn prediction score cards. Cognitive computing along with Big Data is being used to collect and process information related to stocks, companies and individuals. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence based solutions have been developed to convert speech to text for some of our businesses. Geo – tracking technologies are used for field force productivity enhancement.
Enterprise mobility initiatives
On the B2C side our mobile trading app Edelweiss Mobile Trader (EMT) is a leading app and it provides industry-first features such as live feeds for all visitors and access to SGX Nifty. We expect mobile trading to be a key growth driver for customer acquisition and revenue in future. Besides we have just launched customer app for our Retail lending business. On B2B side we have developed mobile enabled CRM to improve sales productivity.
Edelweiss has launched ‘Edelweiss Springboard’ to tap into the academia’s tech talent. Tell us more about how has been your experience?
Edelweiss Springboard is an engagement platform for students from leading engineering colleges to put forward their ideas to help the Edelweiss Group solve business problems through innovative ideas and solutions. Students are invited to propose technology solutions that can positively and measurably impact Edelweiss businesses. The ideas are in fields ranging from AI, Robotics, Analytics, Biometrics, etc .
Through a process of rigorous selection we identify groups of students who work with us to develop business solutions using cutting edge technologies. Students are assigned mentors to guide them in technical and business aspects. Through this program, students benefit via industry exposure as well as our reward structure. The best ones are provided with a certificate on successful completion and placement opportunities.