 So, we're going to be shortly joined with Mrs. Arun Dati Patacharya, who is the chairperson of Salesforce India, first while she was the chairperson of State Bank of India, which is one of the largest banks. And today she's joined us here to share with us about her experiences and also what she feels is the times that we're coming today. Now, incidentally, I've just come to find out that she's, while she's been a career banker, and today she's now helving a technology organization, which is Salesforce, but she actually wanted to start as a journalist. So it's almost feels so good because, you know, we would have been part of the same community, otherwise, but so good that, you know, she, back in 1977, appeared for the first examinations for probationary officers of State Bank of India, and that is how she started her career in State Bank, and she retired only as the State Bank chairperson. So welcome, ma'am. I mean, it's wonderful to have you here with us. This is Arun Dati has now taken over as the chairperson of Salesforce India, and she's also looking at how in India, digital transformation is going to be the way forward for businesses. I also see that she has wide interest in music. She loves Harry Pelopon to music, which we'll talk about with her as we go on. But ma'am, let me start by asking you this, that, you know, you've been a career banker, and there have been so many crises you must have seen over all these years. But this pandemic is unique because, you know, it's taken businesses of all shapes and sizes and made them question the fact that, you know, how is it that they're going to financially get out of this situation. So what is your message to entrepreneurs, both young and senior entrepreneurs, and how important, importantly, can banks today play a very important role in helping them and to stay afloat and stay alive. So, you know, I think, you know, if you look at a business, what does a business need to do in a crisis such as the current one? And the first and foremost, of course, would be to try and conserve. The second thing that we really need to look at is that once you know that you're going to survive this particular crisis, what happens then? So this is a time when you don't have the regular customer pressures. So this time is precious, and you need to use it in a constructive way to think about those transformations that you have been putting, so which you must now do in order to ensure that you survive beyond the reopen. And therefore, the first thing that you need to do is to get enough information and data to help you understand what the scenario will be like going forward. If you don't understand what that scenario will be like, if you're not able to connect the dots and paint the picture for the future, then you are going to have a much tougher time. If you can paint the picture for the future, what you then need to do is to try and think of those few innovations which will give you maximum value. There can be lots of transformations and lots of innovations that you do, but not all of them will give you equivalent value. So prioritize the innovations and the transformations that you need to do and then get on with it, because life is going to be different. It has to be a new normal. And if it is a new normal, what is it that we are going to look out for? And for instance, today what we are looking at is now being called the isolation economy. There was at one point of time what everybody called was uberization. That is usage of assets that are not getting completely used. Okay, so you use it more and more people use it. It makes it cheaper and usable by many people. But today it's the reverse. It's a question of isolation. You no longer want to travel in a private transport. You want to travel by yourself in your car because that's what keeps you safe. You want a house that is not overcrowded, has your own little space again, so that you can operate from there as well as from office. So the requirements are changing. And once we understand that this is the requirement that will then become a new normal, then we will know what are the products that are required to actually address this. You know the companies like Zoom, for instance, this particular platform that you all are on right now. These companies that provide you with meeting capabilities are absolutely doing great business because that's what is required right now. Now if you are a company that requires to hold such meetings, do you have the right kind of platform? Do you want to build it yourself? Do you want to adopt something else? How will you get that in? How will you make those changes? I think any entrepreneur today in whichever field they need to assess their areas, first of all, ensure that they can survive this crisis and then ensure that when they reopen, they are primed for growth. I think that's the only way of going about it. Sure ma'am, you just mentioned that today they need to look at transformation, but SMEs when today they are feeling the pain of actually doing business or not being able to convert their business or make it happen, have sales, whatever. So for them to think that of a transformation then becomes as much difficult. So do you think in some ways the government or the banks can support them, maybe give them an innovation loan or something like that, which could help them to get their transformation going? Have you seen such examples in other countries? Not really. There was a time when we used to have something called Project Uptik in SBI, where we used to give loans for basically technology transformation. This was for industries that used a lot of capital goods. What is happening over here is that you may not need a transformation that needs huge amount of KPEX. There are transformations that you can do, which is not KPEX intensive. So today, even for instance, if you need to ensure that you are computerizing your entire system, there are ways of doing that without a huge amount of money. So that is why I believe that I don't think it's known that we are looking at. It's basically a different way of doing things. And if you look at our company in Salesforce, we have a huge number of SME clients and a large number of them are still investing, not huge amounts, maybe smaller amounts, but they are investing in taking forward that transformation. Now to think of transformation as linked with huge expenses is not right anymore. There are many ways of doing frugal innovation or frugal transformations. What I'm actually trying to really point out is that what you need to understand is what is the new future going to look like and what will be your response to it. Today, for instance, everybody wants to have a separate channel for communication with their customer. Lots and lots of people are doing it on WhatsApp. What investment does it need? It just needs you to put all of the stuff that you are selling and ensure that you are getting it out to your customer and then ensuring that the customer is equally able to WhatsApp back their requirements. And then after that, make payments. So you just need a payment gateway. Doesn't cost you all that great an amount. Similarly, there are many, many things that you can think of as non-core activities. Can you give it off to somebody else to do at a far cheaper cost than what you would incur if you did it in-house? What about the supply chains? Do you have alternate supply chains so that if a certain portion of the country suddenly closes down, you can go and get supplies from somewhere else? None of these need a huge amount of money. It's a question of mindset. This is the time I use to make myself resistant, more resilient to face such crisis. You've just talked about resilience and SMEs, otherwise in India, have known to be most resilient going forward. But today, they are in double trauma, so to say. On one side, it is about the disruption that is coming from technology, where they need to move fast in order to get into a more digital transformation mode. And secondly, the pandemic itself, which is not making them do business. I mean, even if we are in an unlocked situation, you don't know that tomorrow your people, your teams would be coming to work or not. And how is it that things are going to change today in terms of SMEs being able to be more operational? So what is it that you are doing at Salesforce today, which could help these small and medium enterprises and particularly even startups today? Startup founders are in a very difficult situation because they were in the middle of customer acquisition. So how is it that you're guiding them from a digital journey perspective to be able to make the most of the situation that is? And because we don't right now know how long it's going to last. So we first started with the Salesforce care package, where we actually told SMEs that if it was required, then we could do something regarding spacing out their payments for a little while for the first three months. So we did try and support them in their activities in whatever way we could. Similarly, even today, for those companies that would want to come on board, we could provide licenses for a little while, which they don't need to pay for upfront, but where the payments could be got later on. We also have a very active SME group that hand holds people as they think through what could be the steps of their transformation. So Salesforce, basically, if you know, started with SMEs. So we were not an enterprise version of CRM when we started. We started actually with the small guys. And even in India, if you look at the long tail of customers we have, we have far more SME customers than we have enterprise customers. So our effort always has been to try and understand the SMEs business and then empower that SME to ensure that they do a good job of managing their supply chains, managing their dealer networks, managing their customers. And how do we empower all of this? That's what we try and bring to the table. So I think there is a lot of support that we have worked out for the SMEs. For the really small ones, for the really small, we do a lot of work for the NGOs for that matter. And there actually we give them our products free of cost in the sense that 1% of Salesforce products, as I said, 1% of Salesforce products are given to units that are not for profit. And we then spend a volunteer hours which are paid for by the company in order to teach those NGOs as to how exactly they can operate on these licenses, on these products that we have given them. So there is a lot of stuff that we try to give back to society. Salesforce has a one by one by one policy. So 1% of our profits or equity, 1% of our products and 1% of our time is actually given to the nonprofit sector in order to help them during these times. So there is a lot that we intend to do and we actually do with the small scale industries, with the people who set up the small units, with the startup community. In many a case in the startup community, there is again a unit called Salesforce Ventures. If the startup looks to be something really promising and adjacent to Salesforce, then there is a way in which we also seed fund them and then later on as they grow bigger, there are cases where we have taken them over as well, merged them with us and the acquisition of velocity is one such instance. So our interactions with this community is very deep and very long. So we will definitely be there for them and try and address whatever needs to put before us. Sure. So ma'am there is Abhishek there who is asking that are there any, what kind of sectors are seeing greatest digital transformation and particularly at Salesforce if there is some research or data for that and you know how it has really helped the businesses. Okay. So you know one area where we are seeing a lot of interest is commerce, the commerce club that is because everybody now wants to go on the channel. Okay. They want outreach to all of their stakeholders whether it be customer or it be retailer, dealer, supplier, whatever, they want to do it on the channel. So there is a lot of interest there. The sectors that are digitizing very, very fast of course the financial sector is very much there right in front but I don't think manufacturing is very far behind. Similarly with things like healthcare, almost every single doctor wants tele-consulting, video consulting currently. Okay. Yes. We are seeing a lot of this happening in respect of the services industry as well where people are realizing that services actually can be delivered without having to actually go to the place where the delivery is required to be given. Okay. So I think you know we are seeing transformation in every single sector that you can possibly think of. Auto sector currently is very impacted but auto sector is all again another very big one which is going in for a lot of transformation. Okay. They need to also bring down their costs. They need to also be much more efficient. They need to be able to handle volumes. So all of that is currently underway and therefore you know I think if you ask me about which sectors actually it would be very difficult to pinpoint you know every single sector utilities for instance again great users and great transformation taking place there. Most companies today are realizing that you know we have definitely and truly entered the fourth industrial revolution and if they are going to exist in this world they have to change. They have to become far more productive and efficient and for that a transformation is important. Sure. So ma'am there is also someone who's asked us you know there is great digitization of Kiranas which is being planned and with of course Geo looking to do it. I mean how do you see that probably three years down the line Kiranas looking different in terms of their digital strategy? So you know Kiranas already are in a way different because through the entire pandemic how many of us actually went to the shops. I didn't have to go to the shop even once. I order everything if either online or on WhatsApp. As I told you WhatsApp is the most you know most frugal innovation that we have so the person who sells me fish normally sends me a list of what is available along with the prices and I send back what is required and it's delivered to me and I pay again on the basis of he has net banking so I pay on the net. So all of it you know at one point of time that activity would have taken me three hours okay 45 minutes to go 45 minutes to come back and then you know whatever in between. Today it takes me all of 10 minutes and the same job gets done. So if you know over a period of time yes the Kiranas are going to look different. They are going to be able to manage their inventory. They are going to be able to understand which customer normally takes what and give reminders to the customer if that is not being taken by the customer at that point of time. They are going to be able to push new products to customers if they know customers use that particular type of product. So you know if you are taking say a particular say toothpaste he is going to showcase to you that this company has come out with this new toothpaste. Would you like to take it try it and here is a sampler okay. So you know the Kiranas are definitely going to look very very different as time goes on and they will be far more efficient and hopefully they will be far more profitable. Do you think they are likely to come under a larger umbrella you know as we see in the west there are 7-11s which is actually a large corporation and they could be franchise partners running stores. Do you do you feel that the our very own mom and pop stores would have a similar future in the coming years. So that is something you know some types of 7-11s may come up but that will not do away with our neighborhood Kirana model altogether. So India is a different country you know we have too many people I don't think that this is you know the 7-11s can cover all of it and I think you know the fun we have in India is because everything is different the 7-11s all look the same. People have the 7-11s you know for that matter you had McDonald's you had the pizza huts of the world in India has it really brought down the sale of the other types of food that we used to have you know if I go back to Canada I still see as many shops selling rolls as I used to when I was you know when I was when I started working. So that doesn't go on away so you know we are a big expanding country I think there is space here for everybody I don't think I see a future where every mom and pop is taken over by one conglomerate no I don't see that. Sure ma'am there's a question from Mr Manoj Patel who's asking what are fintech startups moving towards lending as a SaaS service about five 400 fintech startups in Bangalore with crowded space what's the revolution process driven fintech? So you know lending is something that is very amenable to AI and to rich data okay using usage of rich data which is now available so that is obviously an area where fintechs will get in but if you really want to be a lender of choice you have to have a balance sheet behind you okay and therefore if you just want to give it as a service as far as I know the India stack today is very shortly going to have the credit reels for people to actually just log on to that and lend so to that extent I don't really know whether a lot of the 500 of them that are already into this whether all of them will survive some of them may get into a differentiated model and be able to make their space but it is obviously a space which is very very highly competitive and it is also a space where you need the staying power you have to stay there in the race in the game for quite a period of time you need to go through various cycles if you're merely giving this as a service then obviously you need to be able to acquire enough customers at the back end to be able to render that service to them and that service the back office people taking it or the background the people behind you taking it your sponsors or your partners will depend on how good your proposition is so if your proposition is very good if you have pilot tested it and shown that the portfolio that you ultimately get is actually going to look very good then without a doubt you know you have a good future but it is an area which is highly highly competitive and not something that is you know that's going to that's going to be very easy to make it big. Ma'am you know with the onset of venture capital and a lot of businesses getting or using equity as a route for raising capital do you do what kind of changes do you see happening in venture debt what what difference do you think is going to come because I feel that five years down the line SME and startup world is going to somehow look very similar it's going to look one in the same right now we say that this is an innovation-based startup but everybody is going to have to innovate to in order to remain in business and be digitally once they are particularly digitally enabled so how do you see financing and do you feel that there is going to be a collapse between venture debt and venture capital also and do you think banks might overtake venture capitalists at some point of time I don't really think banks will overtake venture capitalists because you know the risk profile is totally totally different venture capitalists are willing to lose on eight accounts if they can win in two I don't think the banks can afford to do that okay because there they are playing with money which is the customers and has to be returned venture funds normally would be funded by people who have a far higher risk appetite than those who keep money in banks so I don't think we are going to see you know a mixture of the two debt well debt is a different matter sometimes you may find a certain banks will venture it to some amount of debt in this area but again I think you know it's a different risk profile altogether the entire startup world is a different risk profile you know it's like a baby the baby faces maximum health issues in the first two years of their lives okay that's why we have so much of vaccinations that's why we maintain so much of hygiene during the first two years it's the same with our business the business in the startup phase is the most vulnerable and frankly if you've been an entrepreneur any possibility or any reversal that can happen you have to start with the premise that it will happen so you know there are a huge number of challenges that startups face and that is not something that banks you know traditionally are geared to deal with so you know the venture capital venture debt area is really totally different they are not going to collapse one into the other and do you think banks are going to be more open to give loans to startups I mean I know they the reason why they go to venture capitalists is because banks have never been so entertaining for them as I said banks can't be because banks have a separate loan you know that the people who put money in the banks expect to get the principle and the interest sure the people who start venture funds they are willing to make a bet okay right depositors are not willing to make a bet there is no bet in putting money in banks so the bank will look for far better risk a startup is a far higher risk so I don't think this is going to happen however what could happen is that banks may get into JVs with startups banks may get into other arrangements of a transaction like payment with startups banks may even see some startups if they believe that this startup is developing something that could be useful to the bank okay but sure it could always be a very restricted portfolio it wouldn't be something that is done as a matter of a policy or something you know where you traditionally will continue to give credit to that I doubt it will ever happen sure ma'am we've got another question from Anu Singh Ali says one of the reasons why SMEs are not able to fully adapt themselves to digital world is because they don't understand digital marketing and because digital marketing itself is becoming very expensive now versus what it used to be let's say a few years back so do you think as they go on to so I mean let's say selling in physical or digital environments is now going to be the way forward how is it that they can make this marketing a good investment for themselves so basically again you know it's a question of reaching out to your customers and you don't necessarily have to go through establish platforms you can have platforms of your own you can use as I said you know people are using WhatsApp and I think you know there will be players who will give it to these people at a very minimal cost so anything that is expensive in the digital world somebody or the other will come up with innovations that will enable them to do the same thing at far lower costs so if you look at some of the plans that the big manufacturers or the big platforms have those platforms do not you know envisage making huge money out of SMEs they envisage making little money out of lots of SMEs so in India if you're looking for a sustainable business model here it has to be one of volume and low margins so you'll still make your money but you have to learn to handle volumes and you know that is where the SMEs can find a way and even today as I said there are ways of doing this quite cheaply it may not look as professional as say some of the bigger e-commerce platforms do but it is still workable and people will still accept it sure um so ma'am you know we'd love to know a little more about you as well I mean you know you've gone into a completely different arena from being a banker you've actually gone into a technology organization so how different does it feel for you to be here well it's in the in at the end of it all both are service industries okay right there I was selling financial services and here it's IT services so at the end of it all it's still the customer at the center you know it may be different in many other ways the language of the two industries is different the way they follow the sales cycle is different the way they look at innovation is different but at the end of the day it is still the customer at the center and what do we do for the customer so somewhere or the other I think you know there is a very close what should I say close linkage between the two and therefore you know it's not as though it's very widely different from what I was doing earlier sure and are you enjoying technology industry more oh yeah yeah I'm enjoying it usually and the main thing is you know I have a very young workforce over here so it's always great to be amongst youngsters there's so much of energy and joy in their work so to that extent I'm enjoying it usually yes no that's that's really fantastic and ma'am you've been a jury member for the entrepreneur award so what what trends have you seen I mean you know what is it that came to your eye in terms of changing scenario or changing businesses you've been evaluating businesses for the longest time so what changes are you seeing so I think you know most changes that we are seeing is the fact that you know most entrepreneurs now realize that whatever area they are in much of it has to be tech backed so technology is basically the backbone of many many new things so whatever be the new idea you have you actually back it up with technology in order to give you that reach that productivity that efficiency and that ability to sort of put in all of the information and then make something out of it so you know the reliance on data and digital is right across so whether they be in health whether they be in logistics whether they be in manufacturing whatever they are doing I think these two things figure in the whole mix okay the other of course is that I think you know our country is extremely innovative and there are quite a number of things that you know people think of in a different manner I was on another panel just you know five minutes before I came on to yours and I was saying that you know if you can solve for India you can solve for the world and we have seen that happening whether it be our other platform whether it be our UIP UPI platform if you look at all of these platforms they're unique and they're unique in the world so I think you know for our entrepreneurs what I would suggest is that solve for India if you solve for India solving for the rest of the world is far easier and ma'am you know the prime minister is talking about local vocal for local and you know we've already seen examples in the world where countries are trying to be more you know intrinsic they are trying to build their technologies themselves understanding their own problems do you see in in India I mean you know of course in some cases it may not be required at all but do you see a lot of technologies which instead of looking at internationally we going to build our own technologies going ahead uh no I couldn't really get your question what do you what are you asking me do I see what so what I'm asking you is that you know we use a lot of technology companies and India has particularly been a very good consumer for technology companies whether they were American technology companies or even Chinese or or lots of other countries you know European technologies do you see with local for vocal vocal for local being our new mantra a lot of new technology platforms are going to be developed in India for India see I do think there will be quite a bit of that because there are enough innovators in India now frankly speaking even today when you see technology is being developed outside 60 to 65 of those resources are actually Indians they may be sitting somewhere else many of them are in India also if you look at all the big technology companies including Salesforce we have a huge development team here okay so has Microsoft so has Google so has uh has adobe or SAP so you know it's not as though we don't do it locally we may be doing it for an international company but it's still happening locally and the consumption is local as well as global so you know there is no doubt that we have the abilities to do all of this okay it's a question as to whether those companies will be able to scale okay so there I think you know there are several other features that need to work in along with innovation to ensure that that scaling happens some companies scale tcs scale infos scale wipro scale okay today we have tecma hindra scaling very well so what was the mantra that those those people follow what is it they got a good economic model along with the innovation if that is brought in then you know there will be a lot of companies coming out of India so the economic model also needs to be understood along with the innovation model innovation I have no doubt at all you know there will be quite a bit