The recent NIIT Tech (NIIT Technologies Ltd.) analyst conference was an opportunity for the current administration, most of whose executives have been at the company less than 18 months, to discuss their strong business success. FY19 (ending March 31, 2019) has so far added 19 new clients. The BFS industry sector added four large clients.

NIIT Tech has accelerated its growth under CEO Sudhir Singh, growing revenues 23.1% in Q2 FY19 y/y, with net profits up 66.3% y/y over the same time-period. This has been accomplished by focusing on a limited set of high-priority areas:

• Industries – focused on three industries (BFS, Insurance, and travel). The BFS strategy is to focus on advisor engagement in the wealth and asset management sub-segment of the BFS industry and, to a lesser extent, on core platform transformation in banking
• Digital technologies/service lines – focused on the use of emerging technologies in legacy environments (digital, data and analytics, cloud, automation/AI/blockchain, and cybersecurity).

Key examples of delivery within NIIT Tech’s focus areas include:   

• Digital –  digital advisor portal primarily for a large asset management client; supporting over 7k wealth advisors and $64bn AUM.
• Data and analytics – organizational analytics for a tier one bank; analysis of mortgage broker sentiment to prioritize loan origination cases
• Cloud –  platform transformation to cloud with BankingEasy on Azure for 19 local Indian banks; managed platform service for 200 financial services clients
• Automation/AI/Blockchain – RPA for 26 processes in retail and W&A; RPA and AI for a tier one U.S. bank to optimize back-end processing; application development and support for multiple FIs.

NIIT Tech uses third-party software for its solutions, but delivers its services using proprietary frameworks and tools. The primary proprietary framework is TESS, which it uses to identify the best opportunity processes for automation and deliver the implementation engagement. If clients do not want a retained automation environment, NIIT Tech provides TESS, its robotics-as-a-process offering. NIIT Tech has found, consistent with our research across vendors, that selecting the right process for automation, especially in RPA, is the major determinant of project success as well as the level of value delivered. 

Core platform transformation is delivered leveraging of NIIT Tech’s proprietary TRON smart automation platform, which provides cognitive solutions for business processes, IT processes including QA and DevOps.

Clients I have spoken with indicate NIIT Tech’s tight focus has helped them decide to start and expand engagements to drive digital enablement internally. Because NIIT Tech’s parent is the largest IT training organization in India, it is able to train and provide the required number of qualified staff to deliver digital engagements (while most clients and competitors find it very difficult to find staff with relevant qualifications in these high-demand technologies). NIIT Tech has sufficient backlog to continue its rapid growth for several years. However, its delivery will need to remain relevant to new local countries as it expands its footprint across geographies.   

I am researching RPA and AI services in BFS for my next market analysis project this winter, delving deeper into adoption challenges and the opportunities these technologies provide to banks.