From left: Vineet Arora, EVP & Head - Product & Distribution, ICICI Securities; Govind Saxena – EVP & Partner, Business Head – Digital Banking Technologies, Intellect Design Arena; Srinivas Yelandur, Director, Digital Advisory Services, EY LLP; Chandra Gupta, CTO, Reliance AMC; Lovaii Navlakhi, Founder & CEO, International Money Matters
Social media is not just changing the way we communicate, it is also changing the way businesses are engaging with customers. The discussion commenced with how social media was changing business models and how inevitable it has become to engage with consumers through this medium. Naturally, the fallout of social media on businesses is the pressure it puts on them to balance transactions with consumers, and, at the same time ensuring that their reputation, brand image and privacy remain intact.
Vineet Arora- EVP & Head – Product & distribution, ICICI Securities conceded, the ease with which social media was helping companies reach out to a wider audience. He explained how the cost of reaching out was not low, but the transaction cost was competitive, creating micro markets in itself—a pointer towards the future. He explained how putting technology on top of these micro markets could work as a marketing technique, which is a big draw for financial services companies as they are largely regulated.
Govind Saxena, EVP & Partner, Business head, Digital Banking Technologies, Intellect Design, stressed on how social media will be the new bank by citing the example of e-commerce industry, which has capitalised on this opportunity.
Chandra Gupta - Chief Technology Officer, Reliance AMC, shared views on the mutual fund industry and how distributors and agents drive it. He explained how the 25-45 age groups, who are social media savvy, can be targeted to help make the financial decisions through social media. Giving the example of Reliance, he detailed how through Whatsapp they have enabled customers to transact.
Vineet Arora and Chandra Gupta during the discussion andfelicitating the esteemed panelists
Lovaii Navalakhi, Founder & CEO, International Money Matters, shared his experiences on the beauty of social media and how it has become the medium to reach out to more people. The consensus among the panellists was on the blurring of professional and personal life with social media and the need to have a Return on investment (ROI) mindset when taking on social media as a channel to deal with consumers.
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