By Arun Subramanian,
Co-founder & Chief of Strategic Initiatives, Enparadigm
December 15 2019: The BFSI industry is a key sector that continues to boost the economic growth of the country. The last few years have witnessed radical changes in technology and communication owing to the rise in internet usage. There are approximately 935 million mobile phone connections, of which 160 million people are using the mobile internet today. This number is expected to grow by 33% in rural areas alone. Salespeople need to continually evolve to meet changing customer needs, especially to tap into new markets in rural areas.
The BFSI industry now needs to achieve the twin goals of effectively managing its sales force while ensuring productivity and satisfying the ever-changing needs of today’s informed customers. Businesses need to empower their sales force with digital content repositories, tools and high-impact strategies through a motivating selling experience while equipping them with in-depth industry knowledge to target their customers with superior buying experience.
Successful businesses employ multiple levers to optimize productivity and drive efficiency in day-to-day operations. The key to success is in making their workforce productive in the least possible time to maximize business output, while cutting down on running costs. A lot of it comes with finding the right training solutions that can help amplify performance and help sales teams achieve quick wins.
It cannot be overstated that l productivity, efficiency, and training are interlinked. They form the spine of any workforce.
While there is a lot of progress in terms of technology employed in building products, a large part of growth is dependent on a well-trained workforce, especially the salesforce. As businesses expand to new geographic areas and the spread of the workforce increases, there is a dire need to implement technology to increase efficiency and productivity through training. Organizations realize this too, and this has led to the emergence of a whole new industry around technology-driven training solutions that enable workforce training at scale.
Employing technology-driven training solutions can help companies accelerate their growth as it works around training the bottom-third of the organization to work efficiently.  Technology-centric solutions that take a structured view of training can be a key aspect of a company’s approach to training their employees and can help turn employees into high performers and grow their future potential.
This way, companies can find it easier to expand as the frontline becomes capable and performance-driven — something which is the motive of any company.
 AI in learning solutions
Artificial intelligence has seen a breakthrough in recent times, with companies adapting rapidly to such change. AI can help take out subjectivity from the path of training by assessing the development needs and helping design the right flow of training that can help meet performance goals. The effectiveness of organizational level training lies in effective translation of an employee training program that can serve employees equally effectively in tier 1, 2 and 3 cities. Technology can ensure that a bank employee from a rural area will have access to the same training facilities as the ones sitting in the head offices in big cities like Mumbai. Here, AI can be effectively used towards bridging the skill gap that might emerge with geographical dispersion and languages.
AI can also be used to personalize the path of training for employees. It picks up the learning behavior — speed, topics covered, user interest and behavior, and any other markers that can be used to determine the course of training. With these training markers being measured and analyzed, approaches and takes through the training curve can be well decided.
It provides a much-structured approach to training which can be customized and implemented based on the needs and requirements of different geographies, locations, and the construct of the workforce.
If businesses want to scale up the usage of innovation to drive efficiency, usage of technology in training is one such area which has a significant impact on employee performance and organizational productivity. All the more when technology is combined with a more personal and human touch, it is a win-win, both for the organization and the employees.