| |May 20189CIOReviewgaging, leading to better sales con-version and deepening of customer relationships. Such investments can have a shorter payback period, if adopted across the organisation and used smartly. Transformation through AutomationSales Force Automation is the next major enabler for a smarter and productive sales force. Friction in the customer journey, physical and manual process combined with long conversion and onboarding cycles are some of the major pain points for customers. New process design looks at a `zero ops, zero contact centre model' by making the process straight through with zero errors. A case in point are banks using Aad-haar to onboard customers real time or API integration with core systems enabling paperless, real-time instruc-tion processing with no manual in-terventions, no multi-level checks and no logistics. Such processes have led to 2-3X growth in productivity of sales channels, thereby reducing the cost of new customer acquisi-tions and eliminating errors. OCR (Optical character recogni-tion) helps convert physical docu-ments to electronic, in a readable and editable format, thereby eliminating paper. Using this, large documents can be digitised at source. Businesses with huge document requirement at the back office like credit, risk, fi-nance, operations and legal can use OCR for faster decision and process-ing. Today, OCR is 60-70 percent accurate but with time and Artificial Intelligence (AI) based interface it will only improve. This can make the decision cycles shorter and the sales process faster and seamless. API interface is another game changer. A lot of validations are available through API, thus elimi-nating the need for collecting docu-ments, verifying and validating it later. Details can be validated at source accurately thus avoiding time consuming and expensive processes.Image compression of scan based documents is another tool used by a lot of organisations. This can make large data files transmit faster at optimum bandwidth. Documents can be scanned at source and shared with operations and back office teams for faster decisions. Banks and NBFCs use it for submitting large files of financial documents which helps in faster credit and limits related decisions. MobilityMobile is shaping consumer and employee experience alike and in-creasingly organisations are moving to a mobile-first approach for sales force as well. All CRM, customer onboarding, analytics and sales tools are customised for phones. Many organisations have started to follow BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), which eliminates cost of providing company owned desktops, laptops or tabs. All customer facing engage-ment tools are rendered on device through user experience layer con-necting middleware and micro ser-vices without the need for accessing core systems directly. Through Mo-bile Access Management (MAM), organisations can control applica-tions running on a BYOD device and can restrict access or wipe-off content remotely. Such tools pro-vide agile, secure and scalable solu-tions for a large sales force. With video and interactive tools, the sales process has become more immersive. Remote experts can sup-port in engagement and sales by connecting with customers over we-band mobile or in assisting field sales and relationship managers. AI, Data & AnalyticsAnalytics tools backed with rich data and AI engine is able to multiply sales efficacy. Intelligent bots and predic-tive analytics tools can recommend products, analyse product suitabil-ity and recommend solutions. This can also trigger periodic customised communications to channels and customers creating new opportuni-ties for interactions and sales. The world around us is changing faster than ever before, and human connect backed with technology will be able to render the combination of "Tech n Touch" to drive customer centricity and organizational profit-ability together. Deepak SharmaSales Force Automation is the next major enabler for a smarter and productive sales force
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