Thoughts and Learnings

Digital transformation is gaining a lot of ground in recent times as companies try go more digital. So, what is digital transformation? What does it mean? Digital transformation means transforming the business processes using digital technologies. Transformation is a continuous process and is not a one time activity. Transforming can be further explored as below: Create business processes wherever required  Re-engineer processes to eliminate non-essential and non-value adding steps Add newer steps for creating value Streamline the process flow to increase efficiency    Digital technologies can be understood as technologies that use digital data Now, how can we have bring about digital transformation? Digital Transformation aims to create value in each stage or step of a process. For this value should be first created for the overall process. This value should also need to be measurable so that analysis can be done. For making it measurable, it is important that the o...

I was talking to a friend of mine whose cousin's kid was supposed to join classes in India but was stuck abroad due to the present pandemic. As they were wondering how to enroll and whether they will lose an year, the school announced online interviews and admissions. Now the classes are also going on online for the past couple of months. This has made me wonder whether this will really change schooling in a way not imagined before. Kids are attending schools from 3000 kilometres away. The impact of distance has been reduced to nothing. If we had trouble of children being able to reach the school before, now it is no longer true. Schools have reached the children. I see the following things unfolding in the near future: People can study in any school of their choice irrespective of the location There is going to be a big change in curriculum Curriculum and content are going to decide where a student is going to learn The importance of schools will come down and more importance will...

Lock-downs are imposed by many countries. International borders are sealed and trade has a hit a low. Manufacturing plants are closed due to lack of labour. Daily wagerers are out of jobs. There is less money with people to spend even for food. All this has led to a reduced economic activity. Market indices have fallen and even long term mutual fund returns are in the lower single digits.  So, is there a recession that is looming ? Or are we already in a recession? There are enough evidence to suggest that this dip in the economic activity is not due to any structural deficiencies. It is expected that the economic activity will pick up post lifting of the lock-downs. But, when will this lifting happen and when will international trade resume normally. My thoughts from Indian standpoint As India opens its economic activity there is going to be a shortage of labour supply due to the reverse migration that has happened. Migration happened due to the lack of opportunities in one p...

This is post is my thoughts on how the world is going to look at post this episode. Public spaces are cleaned  and disinfected like never before. People may find it not right to dirty a clean space. This means we can have cleaner cities as a consequence of this. Spitting in public would be looked down upon heavily. A behavioural change is on the cards.  There is  reduction in pollution  levels and it is good wake up call for all of us. Maybe every year we would declare 1 day for being inside the house like we are doing today. A good tactic to fight pollution and global warming?  People have started to realise how to be productive working from home.  Remote working  is going to become the norm in many industries wherever it is possible. People would be working from hometowns rather than moving to big cities permanently.  We could see  cities getting decongested  and  real estate prices falling  in many areas because of thi...

This post is in continuation to the previous post on auto finance business processes.  Contract servicing in Auto finance can be broadly classified into 3 Collections - All activities that involve collection of payments come under this. Based on milestones there are different process that happen.  The initial milestones involves informing the client of the missed payment through SMS, e-mail and phone sequentially.  If the client doesn't make payment even after the next milestone a home visit by the collections team to remind the customer about the money.  At the next milestone the client will be offered a restructured loan that would be a more favourable one.  The subsequent milestone requires a staff to meet the client and then try to retrieve the overdue amount.  If the client still does not pay, it would considered that the client is refusing to pay and that the client is not honouring the contract. The client would be consider...

Automobile finance is an auxiliary function of the automobile industry that finances the automobile purchase. Auto finance business processes can be classified into 2 main categories-Contract Origination/Creation and Contract Servicing. Each of these have sub processes as listed below. Contract Origination/Creation Deal creation Quotation creation Credit analysis Contract initiation/creation Contract activation Partner payments Contract Servicing Customer service related (Customer Info, Business partner updating, queries, other requests) Collection and Payment related Re-marketing and Resale Auto finance products Loan Products Retail Loan, Wholesale Loan, Balloon Loan   Leasing Products Retail Lease, Wholesale Lease, Financial Lease, Operating Lease

RACI is a matrix used to assign roles and bring in accountability to complete tasks and deliverable in projects. It is a responsibility assignment matrix. R- Responsible - This is assigned to the person who is responsible to complete the task. There can multiple people with this roles and there should be at the least one person with this role for any given task A-Accountable- This is assigned to the person who is accountable for the task and signs offs the change/task/deliverable. He/she is the one who is answerable for the task. There should only be 1 person who is accountable for any given task C- Consulted- This is assigned to those people whom the doers of the task consult in case of queries and clarifications. They are SMEs or business people in most cases. I- Informed- This is assigned to those people who should be informed of the task

Any project will start with a requirement. Requirements are the fundamental building block of a project. Based on the various constraints present we will have to prioritize the requirements in order to build a robust product in successful iterations. In simple terms prioritization means ranking of requirement subject to constraints. General constraints that we face are budgetary, timelines, resources and business impact.It is imperative that the requirements are prioritized and that too early in the project. The most common method that I use is the MoSCoW technique.This can be broken down as-Must Have, Should Have, Could Have and Won't have. Must Have- These requirements are those which are the most critical pieces of the project without which the project will not be complete. These MUST be taken up.  Should Have-These requirements are important ones but are not as critical as must haves. There could be workarounds available and these SHOULD be taken up based on the constrain...

Maslow's hierarchy of needs Physiological Safety Love/belonging Esteem Self actualization Porter's 5 forces Bargaining power of Customers Bargaining power of Suppliers Threat of new Entrants Threat of substitutes Competitive rivalry within the industry SWOT:  Strength Weakness Opportunities Threats

User stories are the smallest unit of activity of a functionality. They are used capture an activity or feature that an end-user does or is impacted with. In essence, user stories are made from functional requirements. A functional requirement can have multiple user stories. User stories should have the following structured in anyway deemed fit- User story number Parent functionality number Name Created by Created/Last Updated Date Actor(s) Description Trigger Pre-condition(s) Post-condition(s) Success criteria A good user story will have the following qualities- Simple Clear Concise Verifiable/testable Complete Consistent Viable A good user story will also contain the answers to what, why, when, where and how questions.