Express Computer (Vol.28, No.12) December, 2017

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EXPRESS COMPUTER AN INDIAN EXPRESS GROUP PUBLICATION

VOLUME NO. 28, NO.12, PAGES 16, DECEMBER, 2017, ` 75

6 | INTERVIEW Dr A S Ramasastri, Director, IDRBT

10 | NEWS ANALYSIS

6 | INTERVIEW

12 | INTERVIEW

14 | CASE STUDY

ICICI Bank leverages iPal chatbot for customer service

Deepak Agarwal, Executive Director- IT, IOCL

Vijay Sethi, CIO & Head CSR, Hero MotoCorp

How DBS Bank’s Kai virtual banking chatbot is setting a new benchmark in customer service

How Sify Technologies transformed itself into a new age ICT services provider In the last five years, under IT veteran, Kamal Nath’s leadership, Sify Technologies has rapidly evolved to be one of the key players in the digital transformation journey of customers

Kamal Nath, CEO, Sify Technologies

EXPRESS COMPUTER | DECEMBER, 2017

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EDIT

MORE INSIDE

EXPRESS COMPUTER Vol 28. No. 12. December, 2017 Chairman of the Board Viveck Goenka Sr Vice President - BPD Neil Viegas Editor Srikanth RP* Delhi Mohd Ujaley, Sandhya Michu Mumbai Nivedan Prakash, Abhishek Raval Bangalore Rachna Jha

COVER STORY Srikanth RP, Editor srikanth.rp@expressindia.com

Why the CIO now is the Chief Innovation Officer

INTERVIEW

DESIGN National Design Editor Bivash Barua Asst. Art Director Pravin Temble Chief Designer Prasad Tate Senior Graphic Designer Rekha Bisht Layout Vinayak Mestry Photo Editor Sandeep Patil

5 | Dr Anand Deshpande, founder Chairman & Managing Director, Persistent Systems

MARKETING Regional Heads Harit Mohanty - West Prabhas Jha - North Kailash Purohit - South Debnarayan Dutta - East

Manish Tandon, CEO, CSS Corp 6 | Dr A S Ramasastri, Director, IDRBT

Marketing Team Shankar Adaviyar Ajanta Sengupta Navneet Negi

Deepak Agarwal, Executive Director- IT, IOCL

Circulation Mohan Varadkar Scheduling Ashish Anchan

7 | Satyanandan Atyam, CISO, Bharti AXA General Insurance

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4 | How Sify Technologies transformed itself into a new age ICT services provider

8 | Col . H.P.S. Bawa, CEO, Webel Technology Ltd. 12 | Sumit Singh, VP & CIO, Wockhardt Hospitals Vijay Sethi, CIO and Head CSR, Hero MotoCorp 13 | Rohit Ambosta, CIO, Angel Broking

R

esearch firm, Gartner, recently conducted a survey of Indian CIOs, which established that increasingly Indian CIOs are taking on roles and responsibilities outside traditional IT, with 51 percent of CIOs surveyed in India reporting that they are taking charge of innovation and 49 percent indicating that they are heading up digital transformation.

In 2017, we have seen this trend corroborated by real examples, where Indian CIOs have experimented

Indian CIOs are experimenting with emerging technologies for solving real issues with emerging technologies for solving real issues.

IndusInd Bank’s CIO, Mridul Sharma, has created a new revenue opportunity, by using insights from the same analytics system used for real-time fraud detection, to create more cross-selling opportunities for his bank by analyzing transactional behavior.

Similarly, Hero MotoCorp’s CIO, Vijay Sethi, has used the ‘Digital Twin’ technology concept, where the entire factory of a site has been simulated to understand how

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the factory would look after it is ready for operations.

This is a pioneering approach and will save the company huge costs in avoiding any layout or process related changes that can come at a later stage. PNB MetLife has created a virtual reality platform, where customers can talk face to face with a virtual agent and get an immersive and personalized experience using a VR headset.

Indian enterprises are also warming up to AI in a big way, and many of these enterprises have already seen good traction. For example, ICICI Lombard General Insurance’s chatbot MyRA, has been used by more than 60,000 customers since launch, and has sold close to 750 insurance policies without any human intervention. Similarly, ICICI Bank’s AI powered iPal chatbot has clocked 6 million responses till date with a run rate of 1 million chats per month, and astonishingly, the numbers are on par with the volumes hitting the call centre. Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company which introduced the Indian insurance’s first telematics-based motor insurance service called Drive Smart, has found huge success.

The service provides real-time feedback on the driving behaviour and health of the vehicle and aligns the driving habits of customers with their premium. This is the first usage-based insurance model in India, and could pave the way for more innovative models in the country.

Today, digital innovation is mandatory, and with technology being one of the key factors for driving business innovation, the CIO will play a pivotal role in the creation of new business models.

Rajiv C Mody, Chairman, Managing Director and CEO, Sasken Technologies

NEWS ANALYSIS 10 | ICICI Bank leverages iPal chatbot for customer service 11 | Godrej Properties hopes to provide differentiated customer experience using chatbots

CASE STUDY 14 | How DBS Bank’s Kai virtual banking chatbot is setting a new benchmark in customer service

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EXPRESS COMPUTER | DECEMBER, 2017

4 | COVER STORY

HOW SIFY TECHNOLOGIES TRANSFORMED ITSELF INTO A NEW AGE ICT SERVICES PROVIDER In the last five years, under IT veteran, Kamal Nath’s leadership, Sify Technologies has rapidly evolved to be one of the key players in the digital transformation journey of customers

Kamal Nath, CEO, Sify Technologies

Sandhya Michu sandhya.michu@expressindia.com

T

he year 2012 will be remembered as a watershed year in the transformation journey of Sify Technologies.

This was the time when the IT services industry was taking a turn from the erstwhile onpremise Systems Integration model of delivery to embracing cloud-based models in multiple formats. Until then, Sify Technologies, which started as the first Private Internet Services Provider in India, had undergone one round of transformation to an enterprise network and data center services provider.

Sify Technologies recognized the emergence of the cloud model and the impending digital transformation. The company set up its most significant transformation journey from an enterprise network and data centre services provider to an integrated ICT solutions and services provider.

And, the person mandated with driving that change was veteran digital transformation evangelist Kamal Nath from HCL Technologies. During his 17 years stay at HCL Technologies, Nath has front-ended various transformational engagements with large enterprises, incubated new business services, created innovative

business models, and spearheaded new and highgrowth vertical customer segments.

In the last five years, Sify has consistently grown in revenue and profitability under Nath’s leadership while transforming Sify into the most relevant ICT solutions and services partner for enterprises, public sector units and Government organizations.

Ushering in the cloud era Sify has been bullish about the growth of cloud and managed hosted model in India. “From 2012 onwards, we re-oriented our business strategies, incubated new business lines, invested in cloud data center infrastructure and services, created SMAC Net(work) platform for the cloud era, incubated business outcome based ICT services model, augmented our applications portfolio and adopted a vertical go-to-market strategy. This has not only resulted in consistent and predictable quarterly growth in revenue and profitability but also has built a strong foundation of our future growth,” elaborates Nath.

Nath believes that the new age cloud providers are in a better position to be the partner of choice in the cloud and digital age as against the traditional IT services players whose model is predominantly

based on “more hardware, more people and more licenses.”

Breaking new grounds Over the years, Sify’s products and services have been endorsed on multiple fronts. The company’s capability to deliver multiple large format projects has validated its unique proposition in the market.

Talking about the new opportunities, Nath says, “The new era of Hybrid IT model is helping us to deliver new and differentiated services. By embracing the flexibilities of Hybrid IT model, customers can choose the right mix of public or private cloud and managed hosted solutions, while deploying workloads on platforms they are best suited to be run on.”

Today, Sify has cemented its positioning in the market as a new age ICT partner for its clients. The company feels the emergence of the Third Platform based on SMAC (social media, mobility, analytics, and cloud) has triggered a much wider acceptance of productized (or commoditized) services business vis-a-vis a systems integration model. The core focus of the company centers around the data center, cloud and network designed for the cloud. The company’s emerging applications and platform business also

centers around the cloud model. “We help customers to move their applications workload from an on-premise model to multiple formats of cloud platforms based on relative merit. The cloud model enables customers with a flexible and agile platform supporting their digital transformation journey.”

Sify is very optimistic about the potential of the Indian market and has invested significantly in data centers, cloud, and network infrastructure. These investments were in line with the company’s thinking of build-before-they-come. Going forward, these investments will continue with made-to-order data centers and networks.

Winning customers trust Sify currently generates over 95 per cent revenues from customers in India. As the company transformed into an Integrated ICT solutions and services provider, the initial opportunities were to expand its portfolio with the existing 8500+ enterprise customers who were mostly subscribed to network and hosting services.

Hence, the major task for Sify was to engage with these customers for cloud services, managed services, security services, and application services. In parallel, Sify has also signed up significant number of digitally born companies in their customer

The new era of hybrid IT model is helping us to deliver new and differentiated services Kamal Nath CEO, Sify Technologies

list. “Our aim is to be the partner-of-choice for our customer’s data centre and network transformation journey while they adopt digital models,” opines Nath.

Going beyond co-location services in the data center Sify claims to be the only service provider that offers both cloud and on-premise services directly to the customers. For Sify, the data center business is promising, although it's a difficult business to be in, as the initial Capex is high. Both the global companies and Indian enterprises demand global standard data centers for running their IT. Talking about the trends in data centers, Nath explains,

“In this business, if you only sell co-location as a service, there is no leverage with the customer. What is crucial for any data center player is to go beyond co-location and maximize the services revenue from the customers who have hosted at the data centers.

And, that is why the thrust is on building a versatile eco-system of managed services around our data centers.”

Minimum Capex, Opex and maximum RoI Sify’s business model is based on the theme of “less hardware, less licenses, and less people”. The company encourages customers to go for a subscription or businessoutcome based model vis-a-vis a “Build” model. The right mix of public cloud, private cloud, and on-premises solutions, allow customers to run their business more effectively. The new business-outcome based approach has helped Sify to attract more customers in verticals like BFSI, Energy and Utilities, Manufacturing, Education and Healthcare. “We are winning deals against the Indian and MNC IT giants as the customers have recognized our integrated approach being more relevant than the traditional IT Services companies,” says Nath.

Vertical go-to-market strategy In the beginning of FY 17-18,

Sify announced a vertical go-tomarket strategy across all its business segments. This mix of vertical strategy and its unique positioning as an ICT services provider and integration partner for its clients, has resulted in sustained growth in order book, revenue, and profitability. Nath believes that its business-outcome oriented usage models for key verticals, complimented with its services capabilities, will be a significant differentiator in its growth journey going forward.

For Sify, BFSI, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Education, IT/ITeS, Media & Entertainment, Government, and PSUs are the major focus verticals. Nearly 20% of its business comes from the government.

Moving forward The company feels that there is a lot of untapped potential in the Indian market for their digital business model. The undeniable signs are the pace of cloud adoption by enterprises and automation thrust by the Government of India which have moved into high gear. Time and the recurring results have proved that Sify’s transformational journey is on the right path. As the new business touches the maturity cycle, the company is all set to scale up the business with new services and making more investments around applications, security, and IoT.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | DECEMBER, 2017

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INTERVIEW

Digital Transformation is a big opportunity for the Indian IT sector DR ANAND DESHPANDE is the founder Chairman and Managing Director of Persistent Systems and is responsible for the overall leadership, strategy and management of the company. A technology visionary, Dr Anand Deshpande discusses with EC’s Rachana Jha, some of the key trends in the industry, and shares his perspective on the growth of the Indian IT industry Some edited excerpts

How do you see the fast evolving Indian IT sector?

And, how are these changes impacting Indian companies?

In the last two years, there has been a significant change in the way people are using and building technology. We have observed a few trends as a result of this change, which has impacted the IT sector, not just in India but on a global scale as well. As a result of new technologies, the effort required for the same work is going down – software and technology productivity continues to

improve rapidly – the Indian IT’s traditional business model of effort-based billing, has limitations.

The market for new technology continues to be healthy or even robust. Every business wants to compete with digital natives and must become flexible and responsive. Digital Transformation is the essence of this change. This is a big opportunity for the Indian IT sector.

What are some of the key challenges for Indian IT companies?

As mentioned earlier, due to new technologies in the market, it takes less effort and less time to get the same things done. As a result, a significant portion of today’s business in the IT sector that focused on helping their customers run their business, will be consumed differently. There will be or we are already seeing the shift away from long term and larger deals to a greater number of smaller and shorter deals.

This is a challenge for IT companies on how they sell and how they deliver profitably in this environment. However, the work/opportunity for the Indian IT industry continues to grow and the technology landscape is overall quite exciting.

How can India prepare its workforce for a tech-savvy India?

In the same way that businesses must become more agile to compete with digital natives, individuals must take accountability for their own training and career development. In a fast-evolving environment, continuous learning and unlearning is crucial in any field, and not just in technology where it is most visible today. India is well-poised for technology progress as a nation and a career in software development remains promising as ever or more. Not just as a technology backbone for major global companies, the buzz about Digital India is real

and will create huge demand for a tech-savvy workforce.

The academic and social infrastructure must calibrate itself to the current and future demands of the industry – and I expect a continued collaboration between industry and academia to bridge this gap.

For example, last year, we organized the “Smart India Hackathon” where we partnered with 25 government ministries and departments to solve their problems using technology.

Around 3 million students all over India participated to develop innovative solutions to solve real world problems.

This demonstrated their ability and potential to use technology to fix existing problems innovatively.

Digital and IoT, along with enterprise data integration are today defining the move for every company to become a softwaredriven business.

This nexus of technologies will continue to shape customer demand and our business

What are the main areas you are focusing on?

Digital and IoT, enabled by enterprise data integration, together defines the building blocks for a software driven

business and are the main pillars of the growth strategy for Persistent. Software 4.0, which came out of our focus on the how of digital, brings

together the tools, techniques, and methodologies to build a software-driven business. This initiative is defining and putting into practice the ways of born-digital companies and it spans across everything we do.

Digital and IoT, along with enterprise data integration are today defining the move for every company to become a software-driven business. This nexus of technologies will continue to shape customer demand and our business. We are also looking at a continuous wave of new and emerging technologies that include Blockchain or Machine Learning, along with new practices, tools and methods that will shape software-driven businesses.

How do you want to span out your journey in India and globally?

Talking of India, we have been focused on what being software-driven means to Government and Public Services. There is an urgent

need and drive to make governments or public services more accessible, transparent and efficient. For example, we implemented the first ever multilingual digital platform for content discovery and integrated analytics for the UP Vidhan Sabha (The Legislative Assembly of Uttar Pradesh) to transform their state legislature proceedings. The state of Madhya Pradesh has been the next to adopt this solution.

And, while India is our headquarters and where we have the majority of our employees, we are today a more global company with development centers across 10 countries and 20 locations.

Just in the last year, we launched new centers in Guadalajara, Mexico; Rehovot, Israel; Ottawa, Canada; Edinburgh, Scotland; and most recently in Munich, Germany.

Our latest acquisition of PARX, a Salesforce Certified Platinum Partner, has strengthened our presence and commitment to the European market.

AI is amplifying human potential THE INDIAN IT services sector is in the midst of a huge transformation, and automation is completely changing the way IT services are delivered and consumed. Manish Tandon, CEO, CSS Corp, tells Express Computer’s Srikanth RP, on how his firm is preparing itself for a new world where automation is the norm

How do you see the impact of automation and artificial intelligence on the IT services industry?

While Automation has been around in some shape or form for ages, Artificial Intelligence is pushing the envelope on what machines are capable of doing and bringing in an entirely new wave of automation.Till yesterday automation was focused more on reducing “manual labour”.

Today, with the advent of AI, it is focused more on reducing “intellectual labour”. Therein lies the crux of the fear, anxiety, angst that this combination is causing in the society today. It is changing the way we live in fundamental ways.

I believe AI and automation is unlocking and amplifying human potential, not replacing it. People will be able to focus much more on value added

work and less on tedious and repeatable work. They will be able to unleash their creative potential better. The challenge for businesses is not to ignore or deny the impact of this technology but to provide a more robust, customized and engaging way in dealing with their customers. AI and automation have created the path for companies to increase productivity (which has been stagnant in the developed world for some time) and enhance end user experience.

AI is rapidly becoming a global economic engine for new experiences, business models and jobs. Companies that embrace AI will be able to create the modern experiences their customers expect, connect with them on all their devices and be able to anticipate and predict in order to better serve them. With AI and automation, there will be nothing called as “mass market”, there will essentially be micro markets with N->1.

AI also plays a key role in enabling productivity, improving customer service and enabling businesses to become more agile. This will trigger a new wave of growth in generating newer jobs. The key for individuals is their ability to be flexible and reskill to develop and succeed.

According to MIT Sloan Management Review study, 72% of respondents in the technology, media, and telecommunication industry

expect AI to have a significant impact on product offerings in the next five years. In addition, Financial Services, Retail and CPG industries are expected to benefit from AI-based improvements in Business Process Management (BPM).

In sync with the above trends, the IT services industry is leveraging AI and automation in a big way and will be able to deliver better value and solutions to their customers, which will in turn lead to a better customer experience for their end consumers.

How has CSS Corp aligned itself to this new world where automation is the norm?

Our vision is to build a new age services company and we have started moving aggressively on that path by adoption and investments in customer-centric technologies like AI, analytics, and digital.

We are trying to break the stereotypes in services industry through adoption and implementation of new engagement models that would help our clients build better customer intimacy and more revenues.

In this context, we have built automation platforms like Contelli for IT Operations and Yodaa for customer engagement. Our platforms promote symbiotic convergence between AI, analytics and automation at

different junctures to drive effortless engagements.

These are not generic platforms but contextual platforms built around solving specific problems in customer engagement and productivity.

We are investing heavily in new age technologies to simplify customer technology ecosystems and bring clarity to chaos. These solutions are helping enterprises to move from traditional models to new age service models that helps them identify new revenue streams. We continue to see good traction for these solutions amongst customers and prospects across various industries.

On the talent front, we recently recruited 30+ Data Scientists and Data Engineers to augment our platform capabilities. This team is instrumental in building AI, machine learning and automation solutions.

Our Digital Career Progression Framework, “Reimagine” has been specifically built to fast-track employee reskilling initiatives within the organization. We recently won the NASSCOM Digital Skills 2017 award for having one of the best digital reskilling platforms in the Indian IT industry. The framework facilitates an innovative approach to employee up-skilling and cross-skilling in new age digital technologies.

Can you give us specific examples where automation has made a big impact?

One of the successful use cases is the customer support industry where AI enables convergence of human and machine intelligence. This results in improved business agility, operational excellence, and resilience, and brings about better customer experience. AI offers personalized and contextdriven support, with a humanlike interaction. The ability to respond instantaneously and accurately to customers’ questions and helping them in the decision making processes, has made AI an integral part of the brands’ customer experience ecosystem.

To fuel the growing needs of our customers, CSS Corp has built an AI platform Yodaa that aims at bringing together various technologies like AI, automation and analytics, with pre-built vertical assets, 360degree customer context, intelligent process guidance, and actionable insights that enhances customer interactions. Yodaa integrates with all customer channels like voice, email, chat and website, and provides a seamless and consistent omni-channel experience. It offers predictive intelligence, automated queuing, routing and channel allocation. Yodaa can offer personalized recommendations based on customer analytics. It can

indicate customer emotions, intentions, and other signals during real-time conversations, thus improving customer satisfaction levels.

The other use case that we have implemented using AI and automation is to simplify hybrid IT ecosystems. Early in 2017, we launched Contelli, an intelligent automation platform that combines advanced analytics and machine learning capabilities to prevent problems before they affect the customer.

Contelli helps enterprises mitigate hybrid IT challenges with intelligent automation.

The solution hyper-charges the enterprise IT operations ecosystem, predicts incidents, threats and business opportunities and assists in faster decisions. This platform, provided with a single-view dashboard, is powered with capabilities that eliminates problems before the environment is impacted.

Every year CSS Corp invests a significant portion of its revenue in building its innovation and research capabilities through our Innovation Labs. We continue to invest in building modular and niche solutions to simplify clients’ complex technology ecosystems.

How has this focus on automation helped CSS? Can you give us some measurable statistics During Contelli’s evolution

in the last 9 months from a basic automation engine to its use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for automation, we have been able to help enterprises mitigate their IT Infrastructure challenges effectively through context driven solutions.

For instance, today we manage 4 million networking devices across 85,000 stores for a large retailer through Contelli. We integrate capabilities of AI, machine learning and deep learning to predict network related issues and proactively manage complex ecosystems effortlessly resulting in 40% reduction in TCO, 30% productivity improvements, 97% availability of network connectivity and 98% resolution rate.

For a railroad and locomotive company, CSS Corp deployed predictive intelligence capabilities to pre-empt equipment failures, optimize daily operations and field resources. We constantly monitor the customer’s sensor based IoT devices and enable ideal failure prediction analysis with the use of real-time intelligence, image data analysis, acoustic data analysis and operational intelligence. The company observed reduction in operational cost by 30%, improved technician productivity by 18% and increase in Mean-time-torepair (MTTR) by 35%.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | DECEMBER, 2017

6 | INTERVIEW

AI has great potential to study patterns and locate unusual events AS AN INDUSTRY body, IDRBT has taken a series of initiatives to enhance the security posture of the ecosystem.

Dr A S Ramasastri, Director, IDRBT, shares his perspective As an industry body, what steps are being taken by IDRBT to create an ecosystem for enhancing the information security of the Indian financial sector -especially given the increasing digital footprint of firms in this sector?

As you may be aware, IDRBT is an institute established by the central bank of the country, Reserve Bank of India, exclusively for research and development in the area of banking technology. Over years, the Institute has worked with RBI and banks in implementing infrastructure like The Indian Financial Network (INFINET) and Structured Financial Messaging System (SFMS) required for critical payment systems of the country like RTGS and NEFT. During the past few years, the focus of the Institute has been in building the necessary ecosystem to help banks in ensuring security of the IT systems. It is exactly for this reason that the Institute formed the Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) Forum. The forum meets periodically to discuss security related issues. The meetings have been helping the banking security professionals in exchanging knowledge and intelligence.

The Institute has also designed and deployed a platform in the form of IBCART for sharing the information regarding security threats.

Your views on CERT-Fin and how will it co-ordinate in keeping the financial sector at a heightened level of Information Security awareness at all times?

CERT-In has been playing an important role in cyber

There are two distinct ways in which AI can help banks. One is the application of AI techniques to identify the abnormal transactions and alert as the transactions are getting effected.

The other use of AI is in building security systems themselves

defence for the country. There have been discussions about setting up sectoral CERTs. In view of the potential threats to financial sector, the idea of CERT-Fin has assumed greater significance. CERT-Fin is expected to help the financial sector in providing necessary intelligence, to provide guidelines to the sector and help individual entities in assessing their defence strengths and strategies through regular drills. It is expected to act swiftly when there are attacks on the financial sector systems. In all these activities, CERT-Fin can coordinate with similar sectoral CERTs of other countries in addition to CERTIn in India.

What are some of the international engagements / partnerships formed by IDRBT, in order to tap into international expertise for the benefit of the Indian BFSI institutions?

As an academic institution, IDRBT works closely with other academic institutions across the globe. There are collaborations with University of Buffalo, USA; Ghent University, Belgium; and University of Groningen, The Netherlands.

Further, the Institute works closely with Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC), USA, a setup similar to IBCART of IDRBT. In addition, the Institute

has collaborations with Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN); BITS - the technology and policy division of Financial Services Roundtable, USA; Open Group; USA; Cloud Security Alliance; USA; etc.

IDRBT conducts regular CISO, CIO, IB- CART, CAO and Fintech forums. What are some of the trends in terms of the points discussed especially from a CISO perspective?

CISOs forum normally meets every quarter. Just before the quarterly meeting, IDRBT conducts security drills, where about 25-30 banks participate in turns. The results of the security drills get

discussed during the CISOs forum meetings. Another important item that is discussed is the intelligence collected through IB-CART and other sources.

Besides the above, there will be invited talks from academic institutions and industry on the developments during the quarters in cyber security.

There are detailed discussions on major security attacks in the banking sector. As these are closed room meetings, exchange of information is relatively free and frank.

In addition to the quarterly meetings, members of the forum interact among themselves through various channels on a regular basis for immediate information,

assistance and action.

How do you encourage more start-ups to be part of the overall ecosystem and contribute positively to improve the information security posture of firms in the BFSI sector?

IDRBT is at the intersection of academics and industry. The institute works closely with technology companies, not necessarily only the big.

In order to bring innovative solutions to the fore, IDRBT conducts innovation contests, which are open to individuals, academic institutions, banks and tech companies, including startups. The innovations are presented to CIOs of banks for possible adoption. Booklets giving details of innovations

are printed and circulated.

To bring fintechs closer to each and other and to the banking industry, IDRBT has recently started a FinTech forum. The forum focusses on several areas of fintechs, including security.

Do you think AI helps in security in banks?

Artificial Intelligence has been helping banks in several of their functions. It has also been playing an important role in establishing appropriate security systems.

There are two distinct ways in which AI can help banks.

One is the application of AI techniques to identify the abnormal transactions and alert as the transactions are getting effected. It is particularly necessary in digital banking as transactions pass through the systems in large volumes without human intervention. Such alerts help in stopping doubtful transactions. Financial loss in some of the recent breaches could be averted because of such alerts.

The other use of AI is in building security systems themselves. AI has great potential to study patterns and locate unusual events. As the systems in use in a bank increases both in number and complexity, it has been becoming necessary to implement Security Operations Centers to manage the overall security in organizations. Most of the SoC solutions use AI based methods.

Any warning system is as useful and effective as the quality of warnings. Frequent false alerts is very likely to make the system unusable. As AI techniques get improved, the rate of false alerts gradually decrease.

‘The digital assets at IOCL have grown multifold’ INDIAN OIL CORPORATION LIMITED (IOCL) is the country’s flagship Maharatna national oil company. Express Computer speaks to Deepak Agarwal, Executive Director- IT, IOCL to understand how the oil behemoth is driving digital transformation and focusing on cyber security measures. Few edited excerpts....

Please tell us about the digital journey of IOCL ?

The digital assets at IOCL have grown multifold and are worth more than they were before. They include customers’ personal, financial and transaction information.

Obviously, the security around these assets varies greatly depending upon the financial and strategic value to the business, as well as the effectiveness of the security technologies and processes in place.

In your view, how has the dynamics of cyber security management changed, post the cloud becoming mainstream?

Although cloud is becoming an important delivery platform in the cyber security stream, we don’t see a very rapid transition from conventional on-prem model to purely cloud offering, specially due to the lack of complete trust on the cloud entities and the maturity of technology on the user side.

But yes, surely over time this is going to be mainstream. We at IOCL are gradually moving

to the cloud. Our large part of critical applications are still residing on-premise. We have our doubts on cloud becoming a main driver of digital change in the public sector. Cyber security is not solely a digital problem, it is a multi-layer challenge, one that involves the whole organization when creating a management strategy. Organizations need a risk-based management approach that implements an all-inclusive strategy to avoid and lessen risks posed by cyber threats.

How important is the role of the CISO at IOCL. Can you share your thoughts?

The CISO post is a must now as per the Government of India, being in a public sector company. With the recent advisory from Department of Electronics, each public sector organisation should have a designated CISO. IOCL comes under the critical infrastructure industry for the Government of India, we are directly monitored by CERT-In. They also have their security operation centers across India. For all the traffic from

The CISO post is a must as per the GoI regulation.

With the recent advisory from Department of Electronics, each public sector organisation should have a designated CISO international lines coming to India, they have identified some critical infrastructure companies in oil and gas. IOCL is one of them. Most of the times, CERT-In keeps us informed about the identified threats. Hence, they become our first source of information.

Over and above this, CISO, is a first line of information at IOCL for cyber security, mitigation and taking care of any emergency situation. He

plays a significant role, but to meet the digital challenge, you must understand what is expected of you and what you aspire to.

What are the key concerns of a CISO ?

We have to protect our IT infrastructure from ransomware and phishing mails. Any cyber security attack brings bad reputation to the organization. Additionally,

as more and more companies go on open platforms there is extensive technology integration happening on the business front. Investing in new technologies come with a challenge of securing these platforms across the fronts, be it hardware, software and end points.

Are you ready for the next plunge into new technologies like Artificial

Intelligence and machine learning in security ?

AI is certainly a buzzword nowadays and is also running a risk of becoming only a marketing gimmick - some are already labeling AI as tech marketing’s ‘pixie dust’.

Technology sellers want the customers to believe in the powers of intelligence, which obviously no one doubts, but the fact is that the current systems are nowhere close to what can safely be called as AI system.

In true sense, we are yet to experience even prescriptive cyber security systems - AI enabled systems would be a natural progression from these. I think the very nature of problem in cyber security domain makes prescriptive systems difficult to implement.

As in the case of metamorphism and polymorphism of malware, every malware looks different and therefore this variation in data becomes difficult for the current lot of cyber security systems to catch. AI as of now is not able to adapt to this variance. Today, AI isn’t perfect and can be fooled, but it

is certainly making rapid progress. Even, attackers are using AI tools to counter these AI tools.

What are the top three trends you envisage in the next calendar year ?

I would like to see a single security solution, be it end points, internet, email gateways and APTs . Multivendors solution approach for security needs has to be consolidated. The second trend we see is a sharp jump in the IT budgets, and the large chunk of this budget will be spent on cyber security, at least 15-20% of the budget will be earmarked for cyber security as more and more customer services will be digitized. Public sector companies will be investing more on creating digital awareness through services like chatbots. Last but not the least, inroads in AI and machine learning. At IOCL,we will upgrade to SAP HANA that will allow us to explore new areas like AI, VR and supplier relationship. Lastly, we are preparing ourself for the future now.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | DECEMBER, 2017

|7

INTERVIEW

There is a need to have a very robust information security risk management framework BEFORE THE SCAR of the previous cyber attack heals, another starts haunting the cyber world. The factors influencing cyber attacks are constantly changing and hence it’s becoming difficult for information security and risk management professionals to manage the risks. Satyanandan Atyam, CISO, Bharti AXA General Insurance, in a conversation with EC’s Rachana Jha, speaks about the biggest security concerns in the insurance industry and how Bharti AXA General Insurance has taken a holistic view of its security policy. Some edited excerpts…

How do you see the present scenario of digitization in the insurance industry?

In the insurance Industry, digital is the way forward to tap business and to provide superior claims service experience to customers. The ball has started rolling and the insurers are joining the bandwagon to go digital.

Is cyber security a major concern for an insurance company? Which are the major risks?

With the adoption of cloud and digital as the way to do business, cyber security has come to the forefront as a control for the risks emanating from these interventions of technology in the digital world.

Every insurance business collects, processes and stores personal data of the customer.

The onus to protect the personal data of the customer lies with the insurer. In light of regulations and the increased deliberations on data privacy and data protection, the investment in information security controls become relevant for businesses. With ever-increasing cyber-heist of personal data, the risks of data breach, across the digital

Every insurance business collects, processes and stores personal data of the customer. The onus to protect the personal data of the customer lies with the insurer

footprint, become the top risk for the insurers.

What measures do you take to mitigate these attacks?

What are your strategies to combat such security threats?

There is a need to have a very robust information security risk management framework. The investment in protection technologies at the network perimeter would not be

the right strategy. The security baselines need to be designed and the investment needs to be directed toward response and recovery methods.

Today, insider threat is an important concern for CISOs as insiders have more access to information and their activities can go undetected longer than external threats.

What kind of processes do you have in place to prevent

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unauthorized use of information?

Insiders as the threat vector have always been acknowledged in the risk frameworks. The investment in technologies and processes to detect/protect/monitor the data leakage vectors for insiders is something we have seen in last few years. The DLP/DRM/DC solutions have become baseline controls around detection and

GPS Pendatns

Safety Device for Students & Working Women

prevention. Machine learning based solutions can do realtime monitoring to prevent data leakage and prevent the intrusion of malware or compromise of machines.

How can emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) be useful to the insurance industry? In which areas do you think AI can be useful in security?

AI is a software that

GPS Vehicle Trackers

perceives its environment well enough to identify events and take action against a predefined purpose. AI is particularly good at recognizing patterns and anomalies within them, which makes it an excellent tool to detect threats. Cyber threats have become more and more complex. The amount of data and events generated in corporate networks are beyond the capacity of human experts.

The new approach is to monitor a wide number of factors and identify patterns of what constitutes normal and abnormal activity, without looking for specific traces of a particular malicious activity, but for spikes or silent moments. Staying a step ahead of hackers is increasingly a need of the hour.

For security analysts, what is the approximate amount of work that will come down by using AI? There is a growing shortage of cyber security specialists, and the mix of L3 activities and routine tasks should be divided between man and machine.

With advent of AI, computers are expected to automatically perform daily tasks like

analyzing network traffic, granting access based on some set of rules and detecting abnormalities, while the cyber security specialists can work on designing algorithms and studying emerging threats.

This will reduce the requirements of cyber security specialist for L1 Tasks.

Does AI have the potential to segregate false positives from the suspicious traffic. If yes how?

Removing false positives is one of the main tasks that require human assistance and one of the reasons why AI is not ready to take over security completely. Can we say machine learning(ML) algorithms is a cybersecurity silver bullet? .ML could be the way forward. To build reliable and strong cybersecurity defense posture, organizations should opt for a solution offering with multiple complementary technologies with high detection rates and a low number of false positives.

In other words – I would like to use the home metaphor to explain this – one that catches thieves but doesn’t react when a neighbor’s cat walks across the lawn.

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Safety Devices for Vehicle & Personal Safety

Smart Transit Box

ADD Technologies (India) Ltd. No. 16, Apple Villa, 3rd Floor, Lalbagh Road, Bangalore - 560 027 Tel: +91 2211 0461/62/63, M: +91 94489 99804/816, E-mail: query@relyeon.com l Website: www.relyeon.com

Always with you

EXPRESS COMPUTER | DECEMBER, 2017

8 | INTERVIEW

WTL is the State Nodal Agency (SNA) and the State Implementing Agency (SIA) for all e-Governance initiatives: Col . H.P.S. Bawa, CEO, Webel Technology Ltd. UNDER COL. H.P.S. BAWA'S LEADERSHIP, Webel Technology Limited, has shown tremendous growth in the last five years. In an interview with EC, Col HPS Bawa shares the key differentiators of Webel Technology Limited, and the key projects that his organization is involved in.

Some edited excerpts from the interview: Please tell us something about Webel Technology Limited (WTL) as it has been recently demerged from West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation Limited, WBEIDC (Webel) and given the responsibility of spearheading the-Governance initiative of the Government of West Bengal.

Webel Technology Limited (WTL) was incorporated under the Companies Act 1956 in 2001.

Based on its performance in the last few years, WTL has been demerged from the WBEIDC and the Department of IT & E in February 2017 and given the responsibility of spearheading the e-Governance initiative of West Bengal under the P&AR and e-Governance Department, WTL is now the State Nodal Agency (SNA) and the State Implementing Agency (SIA) for

all the e-Governance initiatives.

The Company has shown a stupendous growth in the last 6 financial years under the present management. The Company has executed various prestigious projects for the State

Government and has also followed a 'Look Outward' policy and has successfully executed prestigious projects in other states also. The Company has increased its turnover by nearly 7 times and its profits by over 37

times during this period. The financial performance for the last 6 financial years is as under: With the improvement in its financial performance, WTL has been actively carrying out its Corporate Social Responsibility

(CSR) and has contributed to various institutions looking after specially abled people.

Also, WTL has received two National Awards - the "Express Intelligent PSU Award 2016“ under the category of

Financial Performance of WTL (` in lakhs) Year 2010 – 11 2011 – 12 2012 – 13 2013 – 14 2014 – 15 2015 - 16 2016-17 Increase w.r.t. 2010-11 Increase w.r.t. 2015-16

Total Revenue (Income)

Profit After Tax (PAT)

3098 5208 11184 11030 15423 14347 20938 675.86% 145.94%

26 181 580 352 638 485 971 3734.61% 200.20%

A Government of West Bengal Undertaking

An ISO 9001:2008, ISO/IEC 27001:2013 & CMMi Level 5 certified company

The Premier Government Agency for implementation of IT, ITeS and E-Governance Projects for the State of West Bengal

One of the fastest growing Government Undertakings

Following a “Look Outward” Policy and is doing a number of National Projects and Projects in various State Governments which includes Odisha, Jharkhand, Tripura, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi

The State Nodal Agency (SNA) and the State Implementing Agency (SIA) for all the e-Governance initiatives

WEBEL TECHNOLOGY LIMITED Plot - 5, Block - BP, Sector V, Salt Lake, Kolkata, West Bengal - 700091 Ph: 033-23673403-06, Fax: 033-23679418 Visit us at: www.wtl.co.in

EXPRESS COMPUTER | DECEMBER, 2017

|9

INTERVIEW “Enterprise Applications" and the "Fastest Growing Indian Company Excellence Award" from International Achievers Conference in 2017.

As a Government of West Bengal undertaking, what are some of the major opportunities you see in e-Governance?

Both the Central and the State Governments have taken major initiatives in e-Governance and West Bengal is one of the leading states in this field. The State Government is taking major initiatives for providing G2G, G2B and G2C services and WTL is proud to be a part of this initiative.

It may be noted that WB was the first state to have successfully implemented the Integrated

Financial Management System (IFMS) wherein all payments are made online. The major opportunities at this juncture are as follows: (a) e-district (b) e-Office (c) Ease of Doing Business (EODB) (d) Expansion of the State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and providing MPLS links for redundant connectivity (e) Expansion of the State Data Centre (SDC) (f) IT enabled examination system for better transparency (g) IT enabled recruitment system for various agencies like the West Bengal Police, etc. (h) Online reservation system for

various State Transport Corporations (STCs)

WTL’s PRESENCE ACROSS INDIA

Compared to other IT services firms, what would you say is your key differentiator?

In addition to the financial credentials like turnover and profitability, WTL though being a public sector company has the following credentials which ensure that its service quality is at par with other top private IT sector firms. (a) ISO 9001:2008 (b) ISO/IEC 27001:2013 (c) CMMI-Level 5 Moreover, WTL follows best practices that ensures proper project execution and builds customer confidence in the

Company, which are as under: (a) Close interaction with the Department at the time of envisaging/designing the project requirement. (b) The project team is given responsibility for the life cycle of the project. (c) The Departmental representatives are involved during the tendering process to ensure transparency of the process. (d) In-house periodic reviews with the project team along with the WTL Departments providing support services. (e) Periodic reviews at all stages of the projects with both the service provider and the

customer. (f) On-site visits by the project team periodically. (g) The SLAs are designed such that it is fair to all stakeholders What are some of the landmark e-Governance projects that your firm is involved in?

Some of the landmark eGovernance projects are: (a) IFMS (b) WBSWAN and MPLS connectivity all across West

Bengal upto block level (more than 970 blocks have been connected) (c) Incident Response System for the Disaster Management (d) End-to-end recruitment (e) Online reservation system (f) Central server systems (for various revenue earning Directorates of the State Government) (g) Biometric attendance system for various Departments (h) Hosting and maintenance of

web servers and mail servers with live update Which are the major technology areas (Analytics, Cloud, ERP) that your firm is seeing an uptick in demand?

In Cloud Computing and Business Analytics What are your plans to expand beyond West Bengal?

The Company WTL already follows a 'Look Outward' policy and

Major awards and certifications

Col. H.P.S. Bawa, CEO, Webel Technology Limited receiving the "Express Intelligent PSU Award 2016" from the Honorable Deputy Chief Minister of Telangana, Shri Mohammad Mahmood Ali and Dr A S Ramasastri, Director, IDRBT, under the category of 'Enterprise Applications'

Col. H.P.S. Bawa receiving the “Fastest Growing Indian Company Excellence Award” from the Honorable Former Governor and Union Minister, Dr. Bhishma Narain Singh at 'International Achievers Conference'

has its presence in a number of states as shown above.

What will be some of the top initiatives that your firm will undertake in the coming fiscal?

In addition to the ongoing projects, our main focus will be augmenting the SDC facilities, strengthening of the e-District initiative and strengthening of the connectivity throughout the State of West Bengal.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | DECEMBER, 2017

10 | NEWS ANALYSIS

ICICI Bank leverages iPal chatbot for customer service ICICI BANK’S AI POWERED iPal chatbot has interacted on the bank’s website and mobile application with close to 3.1 million customers, addressing 6 million queries with nearly 90% accuracy in eight months (Feb – Sept 2017)

Abhishek Raval abhishek.raval@expressindia.com

I

CICI Bank has implemented the AI powered iPal chatbot. It has clocked 6 million responses till date with a run rate of 1 million chats per month. “Interestingly, the numbers are on par with the volumes hitting the call centre,” says Madhivanan Balakrishnan,Chief Technology Digital Officer, ICICI Bank. The chatbot, now on a learning curve, handles customer queries on the website and mobile banking application, and offers instant resolution. ICICI claims it is the only bank in the country to offer chatbot services on its mobile banking application, iMobile. In addition to offering

instant responses to queries, the iPal engine on iMobile undertakes financial transactions as well – an industry first feature. It enables customers to undertake financial transactions like bill pay, fund transfer and recharges. iPal is also available on Pockets, a digital bank on mobile phone, which also incorporates an ewallet.

“We have taken a few initiatives in the AI/ML space, which will be scaled up from two perspectives - customer experience and efficiency and productivity improvement of the employees. Thus these technologies will help both the customer and the bank,” says Balakrishnan. iPal was rolled out early this year on two of the primary

applications- ICICI Bank website and iMobile application. The iMobile app is used by 6 million customers with a high ratio of active usage.

iPal was rolled out early this year on two of the primary applications- ICICI Bank website and iMobile application

Besides the funds transfer and accounts view, the most viewed features, the next biggest is the iPal chatbot used for services.

The bank is also working on a

Siri like Natural Language Processing (NLP) query resolution mode. The customer just has to speak out the query, which will be understood by the iPal engine. iPal is almost like interacting with a live operator with an option to switch over to chatting with a live operator.

The best part of the process is, the chat bot learns from the live operator and applies it when a similar query arises the next time. Going forward, additional services will be added in the chat and NLP mode. The bank is building a much better responsive website. Every search query by the customer is taken over by the chatbot, which collates it, learns and takes the customer at the destined location with fewer clicks. This is being done

with a fair amount of accuracy, which keeps on enhancing. “iPal has three primary modules. The biggest value lies in the core engine of the iPal chatbot,” says Balakrishnan.

As it evolves, the engine will give greater capability to add more customer services on the iPal engine. The first, is the FAQ module. It helps to build the existing repository of knowledge and structure such that the chatbot is able to pick the relevant query and pick responses based on the questions asked.

API is the second module of the iPal chatbot. Query resolution also requires the chatbot to interface with the right system at the right time because the effort is to make the system completely open.

APIs are specifically driven at

fund transfer, bill repay, recharges, etc. “As more and more services are build, I do not see any difference between separately designing an application with an API gateway and automating the entire process, as it is being done, currently,” says Balakrishnan. It’s important to understand what the customer wants, zeroing in on the problem resolution and then the backend picks up the necessary APIs or triggers the necessary process flow and gets it rendered. A big chunk of API rendering, configuring is managed in house by the bank.

The feature discovery module is the most interesting.

Wherein, the chatbot itself is helping to navigate through the huge reams of data with the bank and forcing to think about patterns, tracks, which then pushes the bank's team – be it products, services or operations to think about solutions based on the tracks and patterns e.g. queries regarding GST and demonetisation are lined up on the upper deck even before the usual and frequently asked queries, after the events occurred. The live operators or the call centre handle these queries for the first few days. Thereafter, the iPal takes over based on the learnings.

ICICI Bank has roughly 200 services on iMobile and close to 350 in the Retail Internet banking (RIB). The services that are the most conducive to an AI based logic are segregated and given to the Fintech companies / internal teams to work on them. Post that, an RoI story is build around it. There has to be a minimum number that has to be established. The 80 / 20 rule works most of the times.

Twenty percent of the features have eighty percent of the relevance for the consumer and thus for the bank.

The iPal engine sits on the server side. All the security provisions that applies for the iMobile app also applies for the engine.

iPal has three primary modules. The biggest value lies in the core engine of the iPal chatbot Madhivanan Balakrishnan Chief Technology Digital Officer, ICICI Bank

iPal chatbot 6 million queries Handled 6 million queries in eight months ( Feb – Sept 2017) Queries processed on bank’s website and mobile application, iMobile.

1 million queries 1 million queries handled on a monthly basis 3.1 million customers Interacted with 3.1 million customers with nearly 90% accuracy iPal engine sits on the server side

EXPRESS COMPUTER | NOVEMBER, 2017

| 11

NEWS ANALYSIS

Godrej Properties hopes to provide differentiated customer experience using chatbots is very expensive, since it requires a 24x7 call centre setup, which is not economically viable. Also it may not be effectively utilized, if the adoption rate is low. Chatbots can certainly provide a big cost saving to provide 24x7 human like chat experience without having to setup the backend call center. It also helps in standardizing the responses for the frequently asked questions which is not possible in human driven chats. Godrej Properties is also looking at options of using similar chatbot functionality for the internal customers where they will be able to get answers to their policies and procedure related queries in an automated way effectively without any manual intervention.

GODREJ PROPERTIES plans to implement chatbots over frameworks, atop which the inhouse teams can design the chatbots as per the requirement. Abhishek Raval speaks to Vineet Bhardwaj, Associate VP – IT, Godrej Properties Abhishek Raval abhishek.raval@expressindia.com

T

he real estate industry is transforming at a rapid pace and witnessing a sharp decline in the average age of home buyers who are well-

travelled and extremely techsavvy. Thanks to easy home finance options and other socio-economic factors, homebuying is no longer an option for people who are above 40 years of age. A large amount of young and successful women home-buyers are also entering

the market. The dynamics are really changing and this means an ever growing percentage of Gen Y buyers in the customer profiling matrix. This generation is extremely tech savvy and wants everything at their fingertips which makes it absolutely necessary for all brands to be available and connect with prospects at a time and place of their choice.

In this backdrop, Godrej Properties is exploring using AI in the form of chabots. In recent times, there is a spurt in the use of chatbots mainly to handle frequently asked queries. While the live chat feature has been in existence for some time now, having a 24x7 live chat feature

Role of chatbot in real estateis different from most other businesses To begin with, the chatbot will be designed for customer centric functions and will be used in functions such as marketing, HR processes and IT helpdesk. The company will design the framework and the platform for the chatbot . The strategy is not to buy an off the shelf solution. Once the framework and the engine is in place, it's all about finding the right areas of application.

The chatbots will be designed on a common framework and all the data from various chatbots will reside on one platform. The analytics layer on top will give various themes and tracks that

otherwise would have gone unfounded. The plan is also to integrate the pre and the post sales bot, which will help in cross selling. For example, a current customer posting a query on a post sales bot on the coming up projects will be given all the required information on that bot itself instead of being asked to contact the business development person. This will be possible only after the pre

We will have to be very particular on what's the kind of interaction the bot has with the customer, given that Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) has been introduced Vineet Bhardwaj Associate VP – IT, Godrej Properties

and post sales bot integration.

On a monthly basis, close to 5000 queries hit the call centre.

It's important to note that contrary to most of the other business verticals, the value of these customers is much more given that they have invested lakhs and in many cases crores on the real estate purchased.

Consequently, the per customer value is immensely high. The usual queries include: checking the latest invoices; the construction status; the impact of GST on the property purchased etc.

“We will have to be very particular on what's the kind of interaction the bot has with the customer, given that Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) has been introduced.

The queries regarding terms and conditions of the property bought has to be in consonance with the regulation. Another example can be, as per RERA, the area sold by the developer is the carpet area and not the saleable area. In the presales space, the developer has to be very particular about the amenities mentioned in the project. So, compliance has to be strictly adhered to. The bot will have to undergo a strong Quality Assurance (QA) check before it goes for production,” says Vineet Bhardwaj, Associate VP – IT, Godrej Properties. A single customer loss can tantamount to a high loss of revenue, which may not be the case for other industries.

In case, the chatbot will not be able to handle the query, it will be registered in the CRM

module and a live agent will personally give a call rather than taking over the chat. The agent will have the transcript and will reply accordingly.

Chatbot buying model Godrej Properties has adopted a hybrid approach for buying a chatbot framework.

“We are exploring frameworks from startups and off-the-shelf providers. The off-the-shelf solutions haven't yet fitted into our requirements because of the unique model that we are looking for,” says Bhardwaj.

Bhardwaj is looking forward to interacting with many startups and benchmarking other chatbots with what the company can do. The approach will be to have a framework that can be bought and then the internal teams will use it for designing the chatbot functionality as may be demanded by the business functions.It's very important to do the expectation setting on what all can a chatbot answer and achieve. At times, organizations can go overboard in expecting too much out of the available technologies.

“We have done a couple of PoCs and have tried off the shelf products. The company is in talks with some developers and framework providers, who provide a framework rather than a solution. We have done negotiations with close to 9-10 companies,” states Bhardwaj.

The attempt is to benchmark the bots with what banks have been doing for their customers.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | DECEMBER, 2017

| 12

INTERVIEW

IoT and AI have the twin potential to provide RoI and save life of patients THE BASIC ELEMENTS for IoT are relatively inexpensive and platform for it is in place. What is required is a proliferation of use cases and solutions, which are interoperable and governed by some standards. Industry thought leader, Sumit Singh, VP & CIO, Wockhardt Hospitals, shares his perspective on the latest trends with Abhishek Raval How can the RoI story be built around implementing IoT. Please give some examples in the healthcare sector?

The Andhra Pradesh government deployed IoT sensors across a wide geographic area for the purpose of early detection of mosquitoes. These miniature devices utilized IoT communication and a cloud based data store and were shown to be very effective in control and prevention of vector borne diseases. Further, the spraying to eliminate the mosquitoes were geographically focused, thus reducing their widespread use of chemicals.

Recently, tracking in real-time is a real example that is deployed at quite a few hospitals successfully. It requires a few basic elements like RFID tags and a good WiFi infrastructure coupled with a cloud based smart application. This can track both devices/assets, as well as the deployed manpower within the hospital. The application then pinpoints what is in use where, along with where the precious hands are engaged.

The data flow is continuous and can be viewed at a command center or by anyone who is given access.

Additionally, a messaging component to assign tasks to the workforce is also provided.

This has allowed for better utilization and even reductions while actually improving quality and satisfaction.

Quick RoI has also been demonstrated. Ambulances are also leveraging connected IoT devices to provide

important clinical parameters to the hospital prior to the critical patient reaching the hospital. This life saving aspect of IoT has proven its mettle repeatedly in the recent past.

Which are some of the top opportunities of using IoT in the hospital / healthcare sector?

IoT, Big Data, Analytics and Artificial Intelligence are a great fit together. They are already feeding each other and would continue to do so.

Together, they can provide new insights in all aspects of care and operations. A hospital is a very dynamic space with numerous permutations and combinations requiring quick decision making an absolute must. Managers are greatly assisted if actionable information is available at the fingertips, be it a doctor, nurse or anyone else.

IoT has a big role to play with connected devices and automation providing early insights of a medical event in a ward or an ICU when parameters or trend moves in the wrong direction. Likewise, providing quality care also depends on drugs, consumables and devices, which requires and ties up lot of investment and working capital. With these four elements working together, there is huge scope in running a more efficient and smooth operation and passing the benefits downstream.

As far as the pricing of the IT hardware, software and the associated infrastructure needed to run such

IoT has a big role to play with connected devices and automation providing early insights of a medical event in a ward or an ICU when parameters or trend moves in the wrong direction.

technologies, have they reached a reasonable pricepoint to go mainstream?

While being cost conscious, healthcare is a segment that respects innovation. If new innovation shows competitive advantage, organizations are willing to get on board at a quicker pace. Further, patients are willing to bear a portion of the cost for better results as well. Besides this, economy of scale kicks in quickly as the patient volume is very high.

The basic elements for IoT are relatively inexpensive and the platform for it is in place. What is required is a proliferation of use cases and solutions, which are interoperable and

governed by some standards.

Interestingly, startups are seen to be more imaginative and innovative whereas the established players look a bit slow to catch on.

What are some of the top challenges with IoT technology, given the highly regulated scenario that hospitals operate in?

IoT has set in motion, a series of creative destruction that is going to radically change quite a few processes inside a hospital. Today all hospitals are moving into evidence based practice and those who are further along this path are able to provide better outcomes. No one wants

to be left behind in this endeavor. Therefore, while the desire to get on the IoT bandwagon is very high, some of the important challenges which are yet to be fully sorted out are reliability, seamless interoperability and security amongst channels. Besides this, a very fast and resilient connectivity is necessary. All of this has been shown to work successfully in controlled conditions but yet to mature enough to be set out in the open in a large scale. At this juncture, regulation plays a vital role to keep things honest so that both healthcare institutions and the patient community is reassured.

Innovation and regulation

move at different pace and that will always be the case. But the promise it holds is so big, it is imperative for all players including the regulators to work and collaborate so that the benefits could then be passed on to both the practitioners and the patients.

What are some of your challenges of handling the huge treasure trove of data.

Should it be handled on cloud platforms?

Yes, hospitals and healthcare sector are generating ever-increasing amount of data. Some of this is also required for various compliance purposes. With this mandatory need, organizations are looking at ways to further utilize it for multitudes of additional beneficial purposes. The sector at large, with its limited expertise and resources in IT is often found unable to keep up to manage this increase in a robustly scalable manner.

Cloud has definitely opened up a new possibility where most of the operational aspects in managing then becomes less onerous and is carried out by the cloud partner. However, public cloud is not the only option. Hybrid and private clouds are also choices to go with which may offer some other advantages.

Additionally, OEMs are continuing to provide new technology and solutions that are making on premise an attractive alternative as well.

Where do you see the meeting of IoT and AI? IoT has a symbiotic relationship with AI. Without

it, it would be incomplete. The number of connected devices are set to explode in the near future and thus will result in a corresponding rise in data.

This data, will result in only digital cacophony by itself. The AI platform is what is required to harmonize all of this and will transform the data into information, which can then be used to convert into meaningful and transformative outcomes.

Please discuss the security aspect in handling IoT devices?

Connected devices, wearables, IoT in healthcare will require a renewed focus on information security and confidentiality. Here too innovation for business outcomes is far ahead of vulnerability and security gaps which typically gets addressed later in the product life cycle.

Information security and data protection is an ongoing exercise and it is essential to be continually engaged and watchful as hospitals and healthcare institutions have the fiduciary responsibility to maintain privacy. With the current state of IoT, with the size of the devices, miniaturization and ability, currently it would be prudent to assume that out of the box solutions will be deficient.

Hence, additional layers would be necessary to ensure data protection and privacy. It was also the case at the dawn of the Internet age itself, couple of decades ago. However, heightened awareness and progress at the design stage itself is being made now. Over time, the risk would reduce.

AI can be used in fraud detection and pattern recognition HERO MOTOCORP, WHICH is arguably the country's most ubiquitous two-wheeler brand, is betting big on emerging technologies like Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Hero MotoCorp believes that AI in security is going to be a big game changer, which will predict and detect the threats with or without human intervention. EC’s Sandhya Michu speaks with Vijay Sethi, CIO and Head CSR, Hero MotoCorp about how digital transformation is posing new security threats and making the job of CIO and CISO all the more challenging and complex.

Few edited excerpts: How is Hero MotoCorp leveraging technology to remain competitive?

Technology is core to our business. Currently, we are in the process of experimenting in new areas, competency upgrade, and innovation. With the use of technology, the scale at which the IT initiatives at Hero MotoCorp were being implemented are amplified.

We encourage people to work on innovative ideas beyond regular projects. We have set up a Centre of Excellence (CoE) centered around activities related to Blockchain, Machine Learning and IoT to work on emerging technologies.

In your view, how AI and ML will disrupt the security landscape?

Information security is paramount to all the companies -- be it large or midsized companies. Protecting customers and internal data and information in complex security threats is making the role of CIO and CISO more challenging and complex.

Earlier, we used to protect the information security from limited exit points such as datacenters, laptops and mobiles. Today, it is going beyond mobile, IoT and sensors. Hence, the possible exit points for getting the information out are increasing day by day.

At Hero MotoCorp, we secure our information around three factors: Process, People and Technology. There is a huge amount of evolution in these three areas. As we progress, lots of global practices are coming in process and existing processes are getting matured. In technology side, some of the new technologies which are coming is leading to an increased threat, but some of the technological developments will lead to security advancement, for example Artificial intelligence. AI can play a huge role in today's time to mitigate the risk which is growing on a daily basis. It is humanly impossible to track all sorts of threats and risk

We are already big users of 3D Printing, simulation, and it's beyond new technologies like social, mobile, cloud and analytics.

Moving forward, we are investing to make AI and ML the next growth engine for our business.

which are there. The second piece is machine learning.

From a Hero MotoCorp perspective, we have a multilayer security architecture. We have invested in technology, which just only does prevention and

detection and also predictions.

Where do you see the scope of AI in security?

Evolving technologies and the growing numbers of “always on”, “always

connected” devices, tools and commodities have increased cyber-threats opportunities for access and interference.

Security personnel are finding themselves overwhelmed by the multiplicity of attack vectors

and tools available to the cyber-criminals, and are increasingly looking to a new ally, in the quest for cyber security. AI can be used in fraud detection, behavior and pattern recognition, behavior predictions. At this stage, we are exploring the tools available in the market. In a year or so, we see AI will become mainstream.

What were the key IT initiatives that Hero MotoCorp took in 2017-18?

We are already big users of 3D Printing, simulation, and it's beyond new technologies like social, mobile, cloud and analytics. Moving forward, we are investing to make AI and ML the next growth engine for our business. At Hero, we are willing to explore new technologies and we work with many startups. We are among the few companies who are testing AI and ML. We will be replicating this experience in our new and existing manufacturing facilities to constantly drive innovation and efficiency. As we move

forward, we will integrate the current solutions with other solutions as part of our focus on digitization, which in turn is aligned with the strategic business objective of achieving Industry 4.0 standards.

What are some of the key concern areas for Hero Motocorp?

Security is a critical concern and we want this to be a key element of our culture.

To this end, all our developers are trained in secure coding practices. We are working to improve the group's information security position through training and awareness campaigns. An integrated security function covers the business environment and allows more visibility into normal and abnormal activities. It adapts the security strategy to the current digital environment in order to bring innovation to the next level in the safest way possible and promote the benefits of secure business to all our clients, employees and stakeholders.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | DECEMBER, 2017

|13

INTERVIEW

AI, Big data analytics are going to be the game changers in the near future ARQ IS THE TECHNOLOGY enabled wealth investment advisory engine by Angel Broking. Within a year since its launch, ARQ mid-cap investment strategy has given more than 42% returns to its retail investors. Consumers pocketed profits worth more than 1700 crores. Today, more than 75 per cent of revenue come through online platforms of which 60 per cent comes from the mobile app alone. In the last two years, investing activity through the mobile platform has increased 20x and the turnover has shot up by 10x. Rachana Jha speaks to Rohit Ambosta, CIO, Angel Broking

What have been some of the major initiatives taken in the past one year? Out of all the IT initiatives, which initiative has the most business impact?

The vision at Angel Broking has always been to provide real value to the investors. The sector that we operate in is extremely sensitive and highly regulated, and rightly so, since it’s the consumers hard earned money that you are dealing with. Consequently, we have taken an active part in our endeavour to lead the stock investing space on the fulcrum of technology. We have introduced multiple products and services in tandem with this keeping the consumers’ best interests in mind such as ARQ, D-KYC, DigiPitch, #CustomerService, Trade in One Hour etc. Many of our initiatives have actually changed the way Broking Industry operates in India. One of them is “Trade UP”.

Till July 2015, no one in the broking industry ever thought that Account Opening, Activation and customer striking his first trade can be done in less than 2- 3days. With “Trade-UP” we infused speed in the industry by bring down this whole process to just 4hours and today we do it in less

than 30 minutes. It has been our constant endeavor to make things faster for the consumers thereby enhancing their experience continuously.

Similarly, when we deployed chat-bots to resolve customer queries through Social Media platforms like Twitter & Facebook, we redefined query resolution process by not just making it the fastest but also convenient and customer friendly. Even today, when many industry players are working towards launching Robo-advisory platforms, we have not just launched it a year back but have gone beyond and made ‘ARQ’ an hyper intelligent investment engine.

ARQ powers all our platforms and benefits are available to all our customers (over 1 million).

How are emerging technologies impacting your sector?

There are 5 mega technological trends that we believe will disrupt the market, as you have mentioned above.

India has already taken a hands-on approach on most of these technologies with new innovations being added to the gamut every passing hour, as we speak. Blockchain, digitization, automation, AI, Big data analytics are all going to be the game changers in the near future. The spectacle on blockchain technology is yet to completely sway India since we are yet to understand all the implications of this technology.

Our foray into digitization occurred nearly 2 years ago.

We have since then committed ourselves to provide a 360 degree digitized advisory and service competency to all our stakeholders, internally and externally alike.

Post the digital transformation kick-started in 2015, the daily turnover has

surged up by more than 60% in the last two years itself. We are concentrating on automation and big data analytics. Almost all of our operations, internal and external are governed by automation and digitization.

We have even committed ourselves to a 360 degree digitization approach.

Analytics are being used in various parameters. Case in point, we have introduced a FDS system nearly a year ago that tracks unusual login/trading behaviours and immediately alerts the user, before falling prey to fraudulent practises. We truly believe that technology will aid financial inclusion and that has been our vision for the country.

Multiple products have been launched and are in pipeline in tandem with this principle.

How have you used Artificial Intelligence at Angel Broking ?

The ARQ initiative of Angel Broking has been designed inhouse with the help of a team of captive data scientists. There is a dedicated team on Machine Learning too. The ARQ engine provides customized data to investors on where to invest.

The investors are supposed to enter their relevant details and ARQ suggests the right investment strategy. It helps to build an appropriate portfolio in both mutual funds and equities. ARQ has even outperformed the Nifty midcap.

ARQ has AI solutions like a recommendation engine, fraud detection solution that picks up patterns, KYC systems integrated with Aadhaar which also helps in making bank validation online and lastly, a ticket management system to resolve issues.

How significant is ARQ for your firm?

ARQ Engine – A superior tool RESEARCH

◗ Cutting-edge Research

insights ◗ Stringent Fundamental ◗ Quality Checks ◗ Complex Data Science

ARQ is the wealth investment advisory engine by Angel Broking. Prior to this, investment ideas and advice was at the disposal of either HNI individuals or the brokers themselves. The retail investors were extremely vulnerable. We have committed ourselves to individual investors and will continue to innovate to provide the best of Investment Advisory and Digital Platforms for them.

With this in mind and with the backing of technology we introduced ARQ, a system which uses algorithms and Nobel Prize winning Modern Portfolio theory to enable personalized investment advice based on individual’s financial goals and risk profile.

We believe that with ARQ, we have taken our first step

TECHNOLOGY

◗ ◗ ◗ ◗

Machine Learning Cognitive Algorithms Computing Power Billions of Combinations

towards making superior investment advisory available at zero/minimal cost to every individual we hope to deal with in the future.

How it is affecting your business in terms of growth and also from customer’s perspective? Is it efficient enough to meet customer’s financial needs?

In August 2016, Angel Broking introduced to the market a revolutionary Mobile App, ARQ, a comprehensive and personalized investment advisory engine, strengthening our venture in cognitive technology. Within a year since its launch, ARQ mid-cap investment strategy has given more than 42% returns to its retail investors. Consumers pocketed profits worth more

RESULT

◗ Developed Models with

highest predictive power

than 1700 crores. Today, more than 75 per cent of revenue comes through online platforms of which 60 per cent comes from the mobile app alone. In the last two years, investing activity through the mobile platform has increased 20x and the turnover has shot up by 10x. It is certainly most efficient enough to meet the consumers’ needs since it provides personalized information.

ARQ is a system which is backed by Deep Insights and Industry knowledge. The system relies on the information and predicts the future about the performance of the investment and possible returns that you may get. ARQ uses a model that assumes that for all efficient portfolios there has to be a mix of assets, and

based on this it helps investors allocate to equity, debt, and gold.

Any upcoming plan or projects which can take Angel broking to next level?

There are multiple projects in the pipeline. We are looking at various projects to enhance consumer experience and make it as good for them as possible. We have plans for the sub-brokers and our FinTech start-ups as well. The aim is to lead a ‘Digital Revolution’ and we have committed ourselves to revamping us for all stakeholders involved. We will further enhance our powerful wealth investment advisory engine called ARQ that will make investor’s life much easy to meet their financial needs.

Data is the new oil RECENTLY, SASKEN TECHNOLOGIES recently changed its name to reflect its new positioning. As part of its vision to expand beyond the core communication business, the company has outlined a 5×5 strategic vision to achieve sustainable growth over the next five years. In an extensive interaction with Express Computer, Rajiv C Mody, Chairman, Managing Director and CEO, Sasken Technologies, tells us the rationale of repositioning the company Some edited excerpts: Automotive, Industrials, Communication and Devices, and Retail. The segments that we are operating in are going through their own transformations. Here we believe our chip-to-cognition expertise comes in handy where lot of transformations happen in the silicon world but a lot of value appropriation happens in the machine learning cognitive world. This is where the future lies and we see ourselves making a difference in these verticals that we are targeting.

Sasken recently outlined a “5×5 vision” to achieve sustainable growth over the next five years? How different is this vision from the strategy that the company has pursued so far?

While staying within the core competencies that we have built over the past 28 years, we have identified the top 5 verticals that we will operate in – Semiconductor,

Please explain the growth opportunities from each one of the verticals mentioned in the vision (Automotive electronics, Semiconductors, Communications, Industrial automation and Consumer segments), and explain how this vision will help in expanding the business opportunities exponentially?

All these verticals that I

mentioned in our vision are going through their own business velocities but we expect significant growth in each of these segments. The Semiconductor space is going through its own transformation with IoT chipsets and vehicleto-vehicle (V2V) communication while the automotive sector is getting into Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), V2V, and ECU consolidation.

The Industrials space is getting impacted by IoT, augmented reality, virtual reality, machine learning, and artificial intelligence all of which are giving rise to newer business models. Consumer continues to lead the world with disruption because the mobile handset is still at the center of everything and transformation starts there. While each vertical has its own velocity, we can take advantage of their intermingling in the overall scheme of things.

While staying within the core competencies that we have built over the past 28 years, we have identified the top 5 verticals that we will operate in – Semiconductor, Automotive, Industrials, Communication and Devices, and Retail Sasken has been traditionally providing embedded R&D services, comprehensive testing services, IT infrastructure services and application development & data services to device OEMs, network OEMs, semiconductor, automotive & industrial OEM companies. How do you see these service lines changing – Will there be a major transformation in the service lines? Which will be the new emerging lines of business in

the new era?

Sasken has made a conscious decision to not pursue the IT infrastructure business line. We continue to be strong in Android and protocol stacks while focusing on newer elements such as IoT, vehicle-to-vehicle communication, and 5G among others. While in the semiconductor segment we are expecting transformations in chip design, the digital space is seeing some major growth with analytics, cognitive

technologies, and machine learning. There is enough and more to be done in these verticals in terms of innovation and technology breakthrough which is what Sasken is focusing on.

For an IP-led product engineering company with 70 patents, is there a vision to be present in all smart devices? What are some of the major opportunities in connected devices?

Sasken continues to generate IPs and create patents. We will be focusing on smart devices that impact the verticals we operate in so we will not be focusing on, for example, medical healthcare.

Devices are inherently smart today and there are major opportunities in this space as the whole world is moving more and more towards connected living as well as machine intelligence. Machines will be taking over a lot of our daily

activities and this is where we see a great deal of opportunities. We are looking to arrive at solutions and business cases which either launch new services or improvise existing services.

Data is the new oil so the world of digital has become absolutely critical. Physical is more relevant to provide the plumbing where as digital is where the value add is happening, hence the confluence is inevitable.

Devices by themselves have no value unless they are connected and have some value-added services. For example, dongles are commodities but an example of a value added service that an OEM can launch with it is analyzing driving behavior for personalized car insurance.

Sasken is transforming itself and the roadmap ahead is clear. We believe the worst is behind us and we have the right team in place.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | DECEMBER, 2017

14 | CASE STUDY

How DBS Bank’s Kai virtual banking chatbot is setting a new benchmark in customer service

IN THE last two years, the Kai virtual banking assistant has been able to handle 80% of the queries received by the bank with close to 80% accuracy.

This has led to a reduction in the call centre hiring Abhishek Raval abhishek.raval@expressindia.com

“W

e not only see Private or Public Banks as our competitors but also see our competitor landscape as expanding to include many other fintech companies. And in fact, many of them have adopted UPI payment interfaces into their platforms which is a direct service that is in competition to ours. We see their biggest advantage as their knowledge on how to achieve mega-scale, i.e getting to a billion customers or more at a rapid pace, and they are religious about customer experience,” says Alfian Sharifuddin, MD- Head of Technology and Operations, DBS Bank.

As one can see from Sharifuddin’s quote above, two years ago, technology platform scalability and customer experience was the focus for DBS Bank, while launching Digi Banking in India. In other words, as the customer count grew, the bank did not want to see itself scaling up with manual, non Straight Through Processing (STP) processes.

For example, there should not be any corresponding increase in the staff irrespective of the rate at which the customer base is increasing.

The bank was looking for tools, processes and capabilities available in the market that would help to meet this need across all the functions. Kai Banking fitted DBS Bank's expectations.

The platform is AI enabled and can do voice and text communication with the

customer. All the major FAQs like balance check; branch opening hours; how to open a bank account; queries regarding upgrades; what to do if the debit card is lost etc from the customer can be answered with relative ease by the platform without going into the chain of multiple clicks or standardised short code formats. The platform is intelligent to understand what's being asked. There is no need for asking in specified formats. Certain keywords does the work for the AI enabled chatbot.

Chatbot has delivered satisfactory numbers This also takes away the customer's pain of answering the Bank's Interactive Voice response (IVR) or interacting with the call centre agent. Out of all the responses from the bank, on an average more than

chatbot is in subseconds i.e in less than 0.5 seconds. “We are so happy with the performance of the Kai platform, that we have made an investment in the startup company, that provides the solution viz., Kasisto,” says Sharifuddin.

Kasisto is also an important player in the conversational AI industry because it was born in the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), which was the original company that designed Apple's Siri platform.The company has been in the business of Natural Language Processing (NLP) for years. "One of the core branches of Siri has been branched into Kasisto," informs Sharifuddin.

The platform thus far has reduced the cost to the tune of less hiring at the call centre. In the absence of the Kai platform, close to 300 agents would have been working in the call centre, which is just 55 now. The bank, when it kicked off operations (DigiBank India) two years ago, started off with 15 call centre agents.

This was basically done for queries which are advanced in nature and could not be solved by the bot. The call centre currently, handles 20% of the calls, which the Kai platform is

DBS Digibank requires just a fifth of the resources of a traditional bank set-up due to cost-saving features such as an artificial intelligence-driven bot and virtual assistant 80% queries are answered by the Kai platform and the rest 20% responses are from the call centre. This year till date (1Jan-2017 till 14-Nov-2017), the digibot virtual assistant has handled over 1 million conversations (each conversation averages 3 questions) and 87% of the conversations are handled by the bot without the need to hand off to a human agent. The average response time by the

unable to handle due to the complexity that the Bot is untrained for. The Kai platform resolves 80% of the queries. This has resulted in tremendous amount of savings, which, when compared to the recurring savings on an annual basis would be a huge amount. In the first six months, the bot was like a baby and was only trained for the conventional queries. Over a period of time,

as the nature of the queries became more complex, the bot was made to understand the transcripts. It helped the bot to solve similar queries, when it was asked the next time.

The bank is now keen to train the device to keep reducing the number of calls handled by the call centre. "We are focussing on training the Kai platform. Any AI device is like a blank child. The more it learns the better is becomes," says Sharifuddin. It's like DeepMind, the Google AI that defeated the number one player in the Game of 'Go'. It simply happened by making the DeepMind AI play millions of games to learn more about the game. Similarly, DBS Bank is training the Kai platform to solve more customer queries.

The unsolved requests and queries by the Kai platform are identified and then it is trained on how could it have been solved. "This makes the bot evolve and become smarter, week-after-week. In the initial months, the percentage accuracy of the responses from Kai was about 55% - 60%.

However, in the last six to nine months, it has been improved to 87 and the target is 95%," Whenever the call centre head comes for an additional hire, Sharifuddin asks for the number of annotations that Kai has been trained for in the last month. This way, the call centre hiring has tapered off in the last few months and the focus is now on making the Bot more smarter.

Kai platform: Well connected with other channels The Kai platform has been integrated with the web and the app channel. "We are actively assessing the voice channel, wherein the voice accuracy, language and accent tuning is being worked upon" states Sharifuddin. The bank has been consistently ranked number 4 in the Google Playstore and the Kai platform has contributed immensely to the ranking. "Instantaneous query resolution is one constant feedback, we get.

This is because people hate to

wait for the call centre agent."

DBS Bank has adopted a hybrid model for hosting the Kai platform. A part of the Kai platform is on premise, because of security considerations. The rest is hooked onto the AWS platform.

The bank makes sure that all the customer data and the personally identifiable information is stripped off before the information is sent for processing.

Future plans DBS bank has launched banking through Facebook messenger, Whatsapp in different geographies

globally. The bank is actively considering launching the same for the India market too. This feature will be launched when the market will be ready for it because, the customers in India think that banking on Facebook might not be as safe as banking on a bank's parent platform.

The best risk based approach is alo being considered to launch such services in India. In terms of the type of transactions, interbank transactions can be done. However transactions where the bank has to interact with any other non financial entities, the Kai platform has the functionality ready, but it is yet to be launched.

USP OF KAI BANKING ◗ An agile platform ensures

smooth integration with DBS middleware and infrastructure using KAI Banking APIs for conversation (channel), enterprise (data), reporting, and live agent hand-off. KAI enabled DBS to deliver a rapid succession of launches while ensuring proper protections of secure banking data.

◗ DBS Bank has adopted a hybrid

model for hosting the Kai platform. A part of the Kai platform is on premise, because of security considerations. The rest is hooked onto the AWS platform.

The bank makes sure that all the customer data and the personally identifiable information is stripped off before the information is sent for processing

◗ Kasisto is also an important player in the conversational AI industry because it was born in the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), which was the original company that designed Apple's Siri platform

We are focussing on training the Kai platform.

Any AI device is like a blank child. The more it learns the better it becomes Alfian Sharifuddin MD- Head of Technology, Operations, DBS Bank

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