How HGS is Shaping the Future of CX and Digital Transformation in India

CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview withNatarajan Radhakrishnan, President and Global CIO, HGS

1. How has India’s landscape for CX and digital transformation shaped in recent years? What possibilities and challenges does this bring for organizations like HGS?

Nat: In recent years, India’s landscape for customer experience (CX) and digital transformation has witnessed significant transformations, reshaping the way businesses interact with customers and operate in the digital realm. One of the key factors driving this change is the rapid increase in digital penetration across the country. The availability of affordable smartphones and affordable internet access has led to a surge in digital users, creating a vast customer base for businesses to target through digital channels.

With the majority of internet users accessing the web via mobile devices, businesses have embraced a mobile-first approach to CX and digital transformation. They have prioritized creating mobile-friendly websites, developing mobile apps, and optimizing digital experiences for smaller screens. This shift has allowed businesses to reach customers effectively, leveraging the widespread adoption of mobile technology.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation technologies have gained momentum, empowering businesses to enhance customer interactions and automate repetitive tasks. AI-powered chatbots, virtual assistants, and machine learning algorithms have improved response times, increased efficiency, and allowed businesses to scale their operations effectively. Moreover, cloud adoption has become prevalent among Indian businesses, enabling them to leverage scalable infrastructure, storage, and software services. Cloud computing solutions offer flexibility, cost savings, and improved collaboration, fueling digital transformation efforts.

The expectation for a seamless experience across multiple touchpoints has driven businesses to adopt an omnichannel approach. Integrating physical stores, websites, mobile apps, social media, and customer support channels has become essential for providing a consistent and personalized journey for customers.

Some of the specific challenges that organizations like us may encounter include:

• Talent Acquisition and Retention: Although India has a significant pool of IT professionals, there’s fierce competition for skilled professionals in areas like AI, machine learning, data science, and other digital transformation technologies.
• Cybersecurity: As digital transformation often involves moving sensitive data to the cloud or new platforms, ensuring the security of this data is a major challenge. This is even more relevant considering the increasing frequency and sophistication of cyber-attacks.
• Regulatory Compliance: If the client operates in a highly regulated industry such as banking, the company needs to ensure that the digital transformation strategy complies with all relevant regulations.
• Change Management: Digital transformation often requires significant changes, not only in technology but also in company culture and processes. Managing this change, ensuring employee buy-in, and minimizing disruption to the business can be difficult.

2. What are the most recent advancements and applications for automation and AI in improving CX, and how is HGS utilizing these technologies to provide exceptional and seamless CX services?

Nat: Recent advancements in automation and artificial intelligence (AI) have opened up new possibilities for improving customer experience (CX). These technologies are revolutionizing how businesses interact with customers, offering personalized, efficient, and seamless experiences. Here are some of the most noteworthy advancements and applications:

• Conversational AI has made significant strides, with chatbots and virtual assistants becoming more sophisticated. It will replace conventional SMS, rule based chatbots, IVR systems etc., NLP techniques and machine learning algorithms enable these AI systems to understand and respond to customer queries accurately. Conversational AI enhances CX by providing instant support, resolving common issues, and guiding customers through self-service options.
• Predictive analytics, fueled by AI and machine learning, analyzes customer data to make predictions about future behavior and preferences. This enables businesses to anticipate customer needs, personalize offerings, and provide proactive recommendations. Predictive analytics enhances CX by delivering relevant and timely interactions, boosting customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Hyper-personalization leverages AI algorithms to tailor experiences to individual customers’ preferences, behaviors, and demographics. By analyzing customer data, businesses can offer personalized product recommendations, customized marketing messages, and targeted offers. Hyper-personalization enhances CX by providing customers with relevant and meaningful interactions, increasing engagement and conversion rates.
• Robotic Process Automation (RPA) automates repetitive and rule-based tasks using software robots. RPA streamlines back-office operations, freeing up human agents to focus on more complex activities. This improves efficiency, reduces errors, and delivers faster and more accurate customer service.
• Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies are transforming CX in retail and e-commerce industries. Customers can visualize products, virtually try them on, or experience services before making purchase decisions. AR and VR create immersive and interactive experiences, bridging the gap between the physical and digital worlds.

At HGS, we have built a top of the line data analytics internal platform, which addresses internal and client data requirements. This platform gives accurate, real-time updates on HR, finance and operational insights for making business decisions. With analytics, we are also able to do client profiling, which helps us understand which clients are the best fit for us and similarly, if we are the right fit as a vendor for them. Similarly, for our recruitment function, we are using predictive analytics to identify candidates who are ideal matches for the open roles. It gives us insights not only from an organizational point of view but also from a candidate’s point of view… both the company and the candidate benefit from finding the right fit.

We also have a recruitment bot named ‘Sophie’ to facilitate hiring in North America. The deployment of Sophie has increased the efficiency of our talent acquisition teams by many folds. The bot can work round the clock, efficiently, and without errors, which is why it can screen a greater number of candidates at a time. This is an important aspect for companies like us who hire in volumes.

3. Which industries or market segments do you see have more potential for Digital and CX business?

Nat: Digital is sector agnostic. However, Telecom, Retail, e-commerce, media and entertainment, education and e-learning are few hot segments for digital and CX business.

4. Which particular businesses or industries in the Indian market do you think will gain the most from digital transformation?

Nat: Retail, telecom, media & entertainment, education, etc.

5. In light of the growing regulatory and customer requirements for data protection, how companies ensure data privacy and security in its CX solutions?

Nat: Here are some strategies to ensure data privacy and security:

• Data minimization: Collect only the minimum amount of customer data necessary.
• Encryption: Encrypt all data, whether at rest or in transit.
• Access controls: Implement strong access controls to ensure that only authorized personnel can access data.
• Data anonymization and pseudonymization: Anonymize or pseudonymize data when analyzing it for insights.
• Regular security audits and vulnerability assessments: Conduct regular audits to identify and fix vulnerabilities.
• Employee training: Train employees on data security and the importance of protecting customer data.
• Data protection by design and default: Integrate data protection measures into systems and services from the start.
• Incident response plan: Have a plan in place to respond to data breaches quickly and effectively.
• Compliance with local and international regulations: Comply with all relevant data protection regulations.

6. What new trends or technologies will influence the direction of India’s CX and digital services sectors, and how is HGS preparing to embrace these changes and stay on top of the game?

Nat: HGS is an organization that skilfully blends digital capabilities and human expertise to revolutionize customer experiences (CX). We deploy a wide range of technologies to enrich both Customer and Employee experiences (CX and EX). These technologies encompass the ‘3As’ – Automation, Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence (AI), alongside cloud computing, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Learning (ML), among others. In essence, HGS is a company rooted in people, yet driven by digital transformation to elevate experiences for customers and employees alike.