CIO & LEADER-Issue-01-April 2018 (1)

Cover Story
brands such as KFC, Pizza Hut, Costa
Coffee and TWG Tea.
With multiple brands at disposal,
there is no dearth of opportunity for
the company to improve the productivity
and efficiency of its vast-spread
businesses. There is also a huge scope
of innovation at the heart of RJ Corp
and the company believes in quick
decision- making when it comes to IT.
According to its Group CIO, Kamal
Karnatak, it has been collaborating
with start-ups in the areas of data analytics,
video analytics, machine learning
and artificial intelligence, for the
last three years.
“It doesn’t matter if there was
an IT project or not or if we had the
budget for it but if you can create a
business case, you can implement the
idea.” Karnatak , who is a pursuing
a research doctorate from IIT, Delhi,
has a long history of association with
start-ups, and mentors them from
time to time.
“An advanced start-up is always
looking for a means to enter the enterprise
market. They are ready to experiment,
learn and understand your
business, as well as gain exposure of
their own solution,” said Karnatak.
When it comes to working with
start-ups, the conglomerate’s only
motive is solving business problems
quickly - within a short span of six
months to one year.
“Unlike traditional partners who
spend a lot of planning and excuting a
project, a start-up takes less than half
of that time. Some start-ups are only
interested in increasing their own
evaluation. You can gauge the motive
of such organizations,” said Karnatak.
Take for instance, the conglomerate
was using an old analytics platform to
generate reports. However, their Area
Sales Manager (ASM) didn’t have
access to the platform due to huge
licensing costs. To solve this problem,
they worked with a data analytics
start-up who provided a platform that
not only granted access levels to ASMs
but enabled an analytics interface to
generate these reports.
Similarly, the company also worked
with a machine learning/ AI start-up
to help them predict the sale of next 14
days with an 85-90% o accuracy rate.
With the Nike brand, the company is
trying to measure the sales per store
using the same start-up. This is evident
of the fact that the same start-up
was able to find multiple use cases
within the same organization.
In their work with a video analytics
start-up, the primary purpose was to
track footfalls in a single store. However,
Karnatak asked the start-up to
help them gather more data on their
customers – the time they spend in the
store, the ratio of male to females who
We regularly reach out
to new and innovative startups
via referrals, technology
forums, incubators and
innovation summits.
Nitin Chugh
head-digital banking, HDFC Bank
Start-ups should not
compromise on their
business ethos and cultures
went for trials, etc – and integrate it
with the sales system.
“We are internal sellers for startups,
and we need to make sure that
we are able to mould the start-ups
and help them create a typical business
case that will generate business
value,” said Karnatak.
In short, “If I can show the value of
5 crore, I can get a budget allocation of
1 crore,” he added.
#When an enterprise
and a start-up can work
together and grow together
Organization: HDFC Bank
Start-up(s): Niki.ai
Outcome: Create new
channel for doing business
and improve customer
experience
HDFC Bank launched a new Facebook
Messenger chatbot, OnChat. It was
created in partnership with Niki.ai, a
2015 AI start-up. The chatbot can help
customers pay utility services like
bill payments and mobile recharges,
make cab, bus and movie bookings.
So far, the largest private sector bank
has observed 160% month-on-month
growth in transactions since its launch
in December 2016, and has over 2.4
million messages.
The number of repeat users, which
is close to 34%, further bolsters the confidence
in conversational banking. The
Messenger chatbot also opened up yet
another channel for customer acquisition,
with nearly 25% of OnChat users
being non-HDFC Bank customers.
April 2018 | CIO&LEADER
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