New-age market dynamics are disruptive. The deeper we understand our customers’ needs, the better we serve them, and the better we understand the market. The better we know the market, the more relevant our offerings are. PureSoftware is a future-ready company that works on this principle.
Recently, in an interview, TUSHAR BHATKAR, chief technology officer at PureSoftware, talked about the company’s futuristic approach and business outlook. He also revealed how the company is forging disruptive solutions for a future underpinned by technology-driven change.
Bhatkar is credited with designing over 100 solutions for global businesses, in domains such as payments, retail, banking, pharmaceuticals, casino gaming and telecommunications. He has many patents in the areas of payments, unstructured data management and algorithmic trading. He is also a founding member of “arttha”, a unified fintech platform.
TECH CENTRAL : What opportunities did you see for the company when you started?
TUSHAR BHATKAR : We started as a 15-20-person organisation focused on software testing. As we grew, we identified a huge gap in OTF (open type format) software products to support new-age business dynamics. However, the long gestation period in the software business was a barrier, so we decided to expand our services business to generate ample revenue and liquidity to support software product development.
Today we are focused on both software services and products. Our next-gen products, Arttha5G for telecoms and Arttha Digital Banking for the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector, complement our service offerings around digital transformation, hyperautomation, cloudm infrastructure and cybersecurity.
Moving forward, we aim to invest in one product in each domain. Our team is aggressively working towards streamlining highly regulated industries through our solutions, leveraging innovative technologies.
TC: Please tell us more about Arttha5G and Arttha Digital Banking.
TB: PureSoftware has always been involved in making innovative products to help businesses overcome their challenges. Arttha Digital Banking is an industry-leading and fast-growing unified fintech platform that enables banks, fintech firms and financial institutions to deliver core and value-added services to their customers. This allows banks to fill the huge gaps in financial inclusion by providing access where it is most needed. It helps businesses embrace digital solutions in consumer and SMME banking, agency/branchless banking, microfinance, Buy Now Pay Later, payments and merchant management. Today, over 100 financial institutions across the globe run their business on Arttha Digital Banking, with transaction volumes exceeding a billion annually.
Arttha5G, on the other hand, is helping global telecoms businesses strengthen their communication backbones by providing a faster and lower-latency network. We help original device and equipment manufacturers accelerate their time to market by providing reliable, scalable and economical digital frontend RU solutions.
TC: What are your medium- to long-term plans for company growth?
TB: We will continue to focus on both products and services. As a team, we are passionate about software products and we plan to venture into new product categories by exploring the domains and technologies of the future.
We are investing in future-relevant domain talent, technology and innovative processes with a goal to provide unmatched services, solutions and offerings to our customers and partners in casino and gaming, cybersecurity, early drug delivery and other key domains that are likely to shape the future.
TC: What are your key focus areas for improvement?
TB: At PureSoftware, our perpetual endeavour is efficiency improvements. We see efficiency as a combination of knowledge and motivation. Knowledge enables people to solve business problems, while motivation instils the desire to solve them effectively.
We have a few initiatives at PureSoftware to empower teams with the knowledge component. One of the initiatives is Owl (Organisation-Wide Learning) that provides learning opportunities to teams. Our Owl team continuously identify gaps in skillsets and work towards keeping the organisation skill competency compatible with the market demands.
Our Mind (Mentorship for Individual Development) programme is designed to connect selected mentees in a 12-month professional mentoring relationship – pairing experienced industry leaders with talented and motivated early-career professionals.
We continue to focus on diversity and flexible employee growth for the future-ready workforce.
Our line and human resources people work constantly to keep people motivated by providing them with adequate stimulus, counselling sessions, ample development alternatives and objective feedback. The HR team in PureSoftware works with the goal to ensure that people feel valued and respected.
TC: What differentiates you from your competitors?
TB: Our growing investments in platforms, frameworks, innovative processes and intellectual property are a big differentiator for us. The people at PureSoftware do not just think from the customer’s point of view but from the end customer’s point of view. This is an immense value-add for our customers and partners. We believe in improving the quality of life for all our customers and partners.
If you look at our product range – Arttha Digital Banking is a good example of how our BFSI partners are growing their revenue and reach by providing newer engaging services to their customers. PureClinical (a data delivery framework for preclinical and drug development) is helping pharmaceutical companies accelerate research and drug development, launching products in timeframes never seen before. Similarly, Arttha5G impacts billions of people by providing a faster communication backbone worldwide. We will continue to make investments in technology solutions with the promise to improve customers’ quality of life across all segments.
TC: Partnerships are vital for any business’s success. Tell us about some of the key partnerships you’ve formed?
TB: Any partner with synergy to PureSoftware is a key partner, where we collaborate in areas ranging from business development to implementation. We understand the crucial role partnerships play, and we have an illustrious history with them as an organisation. Partnerships with companies such as Oracle, Automation Anywhere, Salesforce and Nice have helped us drive innovation and reach a global market.
We also partner with large global telecoms companies for Arttha5G, where we collaborate with them from product road maps to go-to-market strategies for new product versions.
Partnerships open newer markets for us, technology collaborations give us a newer prospective of the solutions, and marketing relationships help us market our offerings more effectively.
TC: As a renowned technology leader globally, what change do you see in the world of tech?
TB: Most large software services and product organisations have not woken up to the new age of fast-paced market and customer needs. They are still cocooned with legacy thoughts, processes and technologies.
The world is moving from legacy to next-gen business models where customer needs change much faster than before. Today, it is extremely important for technology executives in every country to embrace newer ways of thinking and execution. Never lose focus on efficiencies in business processes and operations. The results will be more predictable once you have your processes in place. The use of the right technology will yield higher efficiencies, with growth in terms of revenue and reach.
