Abhishek Bhattacharya, Director-Technology, Sapient Global Markets, talked to Pupul Dutta about the recessionary times in the West and how cost optimization and risk management had become the prime focus for investors trading in capital and commodity markets
Please elaborate on Sapient’s market offerings globally as well as in India.
Sapient was established in 1990s in US with focus on three key areas. Sapient Nitro is where we concentrate on digital marketing, brand management etc. Our next piece is government services, wherein we deal with the US government only. Lastly, there’s Sapient Global markets which focuses on capital and commodities markets.
Today, if you look at most of the organizations that offer financial services, their emphasis remains on analytical services for the greater part. Whereas we focus on markets, meaning anybody who is a participant in the commodities market works with us.
Large investment banks, hedge funds etc are participants in the capital market while oil companies and the like are part of commodity market. We work with the entire ecosystem consisting of the regulators, brokerage houses, clearing houses etc. We provide, as part of our offering, advisory and technology services to all the players. We also assist them with program management for analytics. Essentially, we provide an end-to-end lifecycle to all these players around trading applications.
What are the key trends in financial market, especially with dipping credit rate.
Due to the recession and inflationary prices in 2008, a massive amount of regulation came about. As a result of this, stricter norms have been imposed. Transparency has seeped into all areas of the financial market and more things need to be reported to the regulator. With this has come the need for data consolidation and process optimization. Secondly, there is a lot of cost optimization taking place due to increasing cost pressure, leading to newer technologies as well as integration of data with the Cloud. Lastly, the Cloud and new media and devices are coming into play.
Has the quantum of business has been affected as a result of the slowdown?
There hasn’t been any substantial impact. We have been growing at almost 20% year-on-year.
There is a massive amount of disruption happening in companies as a result of regulations. Then there is the cost pressure. Companies are looking at technology to solve these problems.
How much amount of new media is being adopted by these financial markets?
Despite BYOD, financial markets are still apprehensive given the sensitivity of data. However, in retail banking, there has been an evolution of mobile and tablet apps for basic operations. On the capital market front, people deal with institutional investors and they require lots of data. Therefore, we are seeing the iPad emerging as the preferred device for presenting rich data in an attractive format as it has sufficient processing power and capabilities to support meaningful applications where people can play around with the data.
Another trend is that lot of investors and large portfolio managers being on the road and having to remain connected for business reasons. A lot of research applications are being made available, as it provides the quickest connectivity. People are actually opening up and adopting technology.
However, BYOD is not happening in the offices of stock markets given the sensitivity of data and this won’t change.
What’s your view of the future?
There’s a lot of disruption in store. The operating models of companies are expected to change according to the changing dynamics of business. Also, the demand for transparency will increase further with shareholders in capital market becoming increasingly vigilant and pushing for openness.
Another thing that I expect is for risk management to become a focus as nobody would want a repeat of 2008. The power to decide whether or not to trade will be the prime focus area for all investors. Further, because of the increased transparency, there would be pressure on profit margins and, hence, optimization of cost would occur. Finally, new devices will play a greater role. Tablets, smartphones would drive the market, which will force the way applications are developed and implemented.
