CIO Insights : Sameer Kulkarni, CIO - Core Integra | #TechHerald
Transcription : Video Interview The TechHerald Core Integra Pankaj: Let's start you know by asking you as a CIO how do you see the role of IT invention in junction sense in the space of compliance and regulatory how do you think IT playing role in conversation on having your customer and you know offering services? Sameer: Since we are into Compliances so when it comes to compliances, we manage all the regulatory compliances so as a CIO I have to manage all IT compliances of the organisation. Thats keypath so since we are a national player for the entire regulatory technologies in the in the market I as a CIO, I have a policy where I need to make sure that the data is secure and we need to provide the best solutions in the regulatory tech technology because we don t see much of the players are much of the applications in the market so I don t have a benchmark. I don t have a reference point where I can refer something and build. So I need to keep looking at new things and start building new
things based on the feedback and the requirement from the market. So that is a challenging part what we have and we have regularly changing compliance from the IT as well as the other regulatory compliances so being up-to-date with that is the major part of my job so where I need to keep us as well as the solutions up to the current compliances that that s information Pankaj: What sort of policy you follow or approach you have or strategy in a way for cloud use cloud mobility what is your overall on broader way of leveraging this kind of technology for internal as well for serving the customer Sameer: We started we started with a standalone server standalone systems. Then we slowly moved into AWS cloud so all our environment production environments are in an AWS cloud for all the security reasons and higher uptime and the best technology then we started moving. I'm proud to
say that we are the first customer for Jio Azure For implementation so we are planning to move few of our new Servers into Azure area so that we can be on the cloud with multiple operators so that at one point of my for my client so they have the hundred percent access at hundred percent of time so we implemented in as a Core Integra, IT policy that we have enabled ourselves and before the Covid that we can work from anywhere so what we need. We need connectivity and security security so we implied security policies and we in most of our offices we don't have any PCs are LAN connectivity, everything else on our Wi-Fi base, our wireless technology. The idea is to have a seamless office and no matter what's happening so we can serve a customer all the time with a hundred per cent service. So the whole idea is to bring everything on the cloud, the secured cloud and since we handle most of the secure data for PII data, So security is a primary key so the goal is my employer should be happy to work from anywhere and my client should be in the peace of mind that our data is safe with a control CTRL F or the Core Integra the products.
Pankaj: You Touched on the Security aspects so what is your view or what sort of practice you follow generally in terms of data security or even from the cloud security perspective what is the foundation that you are using or you know you are working to ensure that security remains top notch and no breach rule. Those kind of incidents are very very less or can be controlled or managed. Sameer: So for this, this is so ISO-9001 27001, 2022 certified company and we try to office all the policies. So for example, none of my products are accessible without the VPN. If you as a client you are accessing my application, you can access through from your designated Networks. Only you cannot access from outside. For example you are my client so you want to sitting in your office with your secure zone. You can access my application using your IP. Only. So Sameer is
the one employee who is sitting somewhere else so he has a IP restriction so we have a restriction at the user level, not the organisation level at the user level. I can restrict that who can access what kind of data and we track all the data which is being transferred from the server within the server and within the system also so example we use Bitdefender Kaspersky to protect us from all the all the antivirus things we have a rule control on the data move also with a DLP. This gives me some comfort zone. I cannot say that okay everything I cannot leave it on a technology so there are when you say the loses nut in your car is the one who is holding the steering. So the same way the technology can be anything but the user has to be trained and they have to be. They need to be trained in such a way that they own the responsibilities that I am managing my data. It is someone else asset for this week regularly, we connect training and info,
security training and internal audits & ofcourse we have external auditors I cannot say that it is a breachless but we have a very less breaches or we can say always towards Zero beaches. That s a policy what we follow. It is mixture of technology and the human resource is not just a technology. Pankaj: How much you pay attention in terms of mobile application because lot of mobile devices have been used so how are you leveraging or still the application are accessible on traditional devices like laptops and computers ? Sameer: We are in a kind of hybrid part. Most of our applications are accessible by laptops only for the heavy processing data but I can t ask CEO or HR Head of the company to login from laptops, they can access dashboards and reports on their phones where you see them but you cannot get the complete data as it s a report and we have restrictions on Mac ID and IMEI numbers so where we can restrict the access of all these data on their devices. With respect
to our employees we don t have access of any data on the phone except for senior management people other than that they have to use the laptop as it is someone else s asset, Someone else s data. We implemented mobile security applications also and VPN clients also if at all you need to access data on my phone like you know enable the VPN and access all the data so when we enable VPN it disables all the controls and you cannot download anything you can just view everything so this is how we manage at Core Integra Pankaj: What would be the strength of your employees and customers that you are serving at this point in time? Sameer: We cater for 500+ customers across India and 30+ domains and as a Core Integra we are into multiple dimensions we are into staffing also. We have 15000+ employees including staffing and core employees are hundred and fifty and we have a subsidy called Core Integra Global Solutions it s a pure technology company & where the CTRL F is our flagship products almost 50 dollars who manages our internal applications and supports. Pankaj: And what sort of challenge you face as a CIO specifically as you are in a domain compliance technology or regulated technology. How difficult it is to do you know cater this domain which is very niche very immerging specifically in a country like India so how do you see challenge for yourself with the technology and compliance and regulations and laws you know which are happening changing amendment happening so how do you balancing.
Sameer: It is quite challenging. When I say challenging it is with people s mindset also and the government policies because we deal with the regulatory compliance, strangers now and then and we have a dedicated team to do all the researchers and the connection and study about these new upcoming changes and the policies what government is planning to implement based on that our subject matter experts provide us inputs which will implement in our products and Core Integra is also into advisory. We are also into advisory services for compliances where we provide advisory services to the clients on the compliances part. So this is all about the compliance part when it
comes to Tech technology or a people. It is very niche market. We don t get a people who are very well known to the compliance and who knows the tech technology also. So for example, all regulatory compliance are known by the all lawyer and law graduates and all they are not tech savy so somewhere we have to balance them, train them on the IT part and take a developer, make them to sit with this compliance expert people to learn this compliance. Make IT people to learn this compliance. When I say IT developer a Performer is a normal form, so they don t understand what it is so it s a form of normal form which is available on the screen register and I said register what is the register they don t understand but when it comes to legal person he will say okay it is a government document. We call it as a register which is submitted to the government so there are two issues we face them.
Pankaj: So how large is your Core IT team that work on core technology, foundation how do, I mean in your own team can you tell me about it Sameer: So we have around 50 plus developer we have product heads we have multiple product heads. We have multiple product like compliance product known as CTRL F as purely compliance. Then we have a product called HRM management or claims management and we have application to manage PF trust so we are one of the few players who manage large PF trust & These are the tools which are available as a product as well Service, so every product is independent Every product is a different because compliances for both of them are different for each other. So my teams are divided into verticals. So based on the technologies we are in the dot somewhere in the Java and we are in a Hybrid other common platform. What we have is a team of RPA developers so where it is not possible to build something within the application or we cannot connect to things directly so where we reach our RPA tools and RPA team will build a breach for all this, which is last date of possessing our data movement between the two systems so something instantly form RPA tools. Pankaj: And how are you taking care of innovation and how much are you experimenting or you see power or capabilities through AI or you know automation analytics how are you levering or at least you see this technologies is playing role in your field how do you see the connect that can help? Sameer: It is very very important part to have this AI and ML in our system. Everything is
evolving and the one step before going into all this is automation so we are doing automation using RPS and we do a process automation then we build RPS around that so we will save a lot of time and effort and human error based on these RPS we are implementing AI/ ML-based models which will be coming into the market by mid of coming financial year where the users can manage many things by their own and the data can be safely managed and handled without any hassle so ML is very important for us because we are dealing with a very large set of data. For example when recently there was a case where we did a higher pension scheme. Government announced the higher pension scheme for all the pensioners so we had a lot of data the huge set of data from 1995 to till date. It s the last date. It s a very good opportunity for build analytics around that which helps our customers to take a decision on how things move from 1995 to the day and how it is going further, so that helps us in building our own set up. And as I said AI ML is everything for the future, we are trying to implement as much as possible AI in our systems, we have our own products which is coming up in few months which will help our domain people who can use their systems, when I say our domain specifically, The compliance people what we have seen is not a large tech savy people, it should be easy to use and it should be understandable by the people who are non-techies. So we are coming up with somethings in our products. Pankaj: So this product will be more of a user friendly, individual placement of your products ? Sameer: Yes, so these are the product under the compliance domain. Compliance domain itself is a
bit complex, and when you say compliance the people get a bit scared of things, hesitant to get into that, if Law says it be like yes, I will follow it , but we have to make these things easy so people understand. So we are trying to make things uncomplex, make people to understand these things. So we are working on those products. Pankaj: How do you see the technology and competition in this kind of domain, at this point of time, especially in the market like India, How many challenges you see, competitiveness compared to similar kinds of products or how do you see the entire landscape when it comes to compliance tech or regulatory technology market in India? Sameer: When we talk about the competition, we have very few national level players in the market, in the competition. We have a lot of regional and local competitors, who processes, but this is not an organized sector, it is purely an unorganized sector, and where we have a lot of opportunity to grow and a lot of opportunity to make life easier with digitalization. So we have a good scope and a good competition also. When it is an open road, it is up to you how fast you can drive, so we are facing the challenges on that and since we are having 500+ customer bases, many of the changes are based on the clients feedback, that helps us in a large scale.
Pankaj: Are the offerings available in the English modules, are in vernacular available for your client? Sameer: To be specific, our products are in English and all the registers are generated based on bilingual, based on that particular state, we need to have registers in English as well as the local language also. Based on the government policies, many states they expect bilingual, but many states they are okay with English, so we support both. So it is like an ISP for us Pankaj: You did mention it was a bit unorganized, so how do you see the compliance segregation bit of unorganized can you just touch on that? Sameer: For example, large organizations which have presence in PAN India Who are trying to manage other compliances. And one day one client they get a notice from the government so will remain in that client only the central head office will never come to know about that until and unless that documents come to head office, And in our product we have centralised management system where anything happens in a any of the sites just they have to upload their document to their system the central compliance team which is seating in their headquarter of their company they can managed it and they can legal team sitting in a central based they can manage all this thing. They don t need to know be in the spot we cannot have a compliance team every offices they have so many of the place what they do they know only within the local state or restrict they don t know how it is managed when it is a centralized system so that is way we play key role.
Pankaj: Okay and you know Lastly, I want to ask you what stuff of IT project you are working or you know you have in pipeline going to ahead in 2024 you see want to build internally servicing and offering you can give a brief on those idea that are working as a CIO in terms of bringing innovation using technology Sameer: We are working on a few products, first thing enhancing our product to the latest technology building all has much as possible we are trying to invest on a AI based things so that makes like easy and it will be easy for people be used and since we are seeing a large change a huge change you know all the compliance from the government so we are building agile system which we can adopt the movement policy are coming into the picture we can change it and we can Make it available for our customers so that is we are building a more regulatory system which is not available in the market. As of now so on the new reporting system which Government is expecting on sustainability. And we have RFPs for few of the critical processes where you don t need a human intervention, make it run so that my human capital can be utilizes in a better process in a better places, so we are trying to Automate things as much as possible and my human capital can be used on critical and complex application projects. So this is what our benchmark for the new development.
Pankaj: And lastly you know you mentioned about the system so how are the ESG elements playing in the corporate sector how are the organization Where is your own interaction with your clients and customer, How are they aware or are ready to pay more attention to the ESG as part of corporate strategy or planning Sameer: Many of the organization you know happy to adopt the ASV parts and earlier it is their some people are religiously following some people where okay. I can follow when somebody ask me now the trend is changing. People are now going into more with proactively. They are getting all the things and their happy to explore new products in the market and they are happy to see now earlier, the compliance was like okay if I m not Compliant I'll pay the penalty, how much money I will lose. I lose some money but now it is
a brand value if I'm not Compliant so it may damage my brand value so it is people taking it as a pride to be Complaint so not to see one rat anywhere Table they want to be. I want to follow the rules and regulations as much as possible and try to be on a right side of the law so that save their brand value as well as they make lives easier with the management. Pankaj: With that we are done thank you we are taking time and hopefully we shall Talk Again, thank you. Thank you. Sameer: Definitely we ll talk again Thank you.
2024-02-15 15:15
