Ashish Rai, Group CEO of Aurionpro Solutions on How India Is Emerging as a Global Tech Hub

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Defined by rapid technological advancements and shifting global dynamics, digital transformation has become more than just an aspiration. It is an imperative for businesses seeking sustained growth and competitiveness. And India's Journey towards Industry 4.0 Excellence is a testament to the power of innovation, strategy, collaboration and a forward thinking approach approach to technology adoption. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Analytics Insight podcast where we talk about the ever evolving tech space and I'm your host Priya Diyalani. Now India services exports have been driving the overall export growth. Specifically ITO and BPO services are the largest component and comprise over 60% of India's service exports which has enabled the growth of overall service export at a CGR of 14% in dollar terms over the last two decades. So let's welcome Ashish Rai Group, CEO of Oran Pro Solutions to understand how India can further gain strength as a world's technology and innovation hub. Hi Ashish, how are you doing?

Hey Priya. Hi. Fantastic. Thanks. Thanks for having me here.

Great. It's a pleasure to have you with us on our podcast today, Ashish. And of course we are going to talk about the growth of India in terms of how they're escalating their digital transformation initiatives and becoming a part of global power, I would say. So, you know, before we get, you know, deeper into a conversation, we would like to understand more about Orinpro solutions. So if you could help us understand more about the company, its specialization or any particular solution the company is offering.

Yeah, so we have been. OrientPro has been around for 27 years. We've been listed since 2005. About four years back we pivoted the business to move away from what was a fairly diversified services portfolio to build out global products and platforms player focused around a few segments which I'll come to sharply sort of focused on building out the best products in the world. What are the areas that we focus on? Banking is a very large segment for us. We make some of the leading solutions on lending. We are a full spectrum player on lending software. We are one of the leading corporate loan origination software player in Asia. We are one of the leading transaction banking software players in Asia. In India as well as Middle east and Southeast Asia. We specialize on the payment stack. We have one of the most integrated end to end offering stack in the transit payment space, especially around the open loop payments. And we are a prominent player in the space of data center design. We have also built out a very specialized subsidiary that focuses on enterprise AI both on the applied side, especially within the financial, financial Industry as well as on the research side, especially around explainability. We run one of the top labs anywhere actually in terms of publishing our original research on the explainability side. So that's the overall portfolio. The goal is to build out a scaled up global enterprise technology player rooted in India, but that makes IP that goes around the world.

Definitely. Thank you for giving that crisp overview about Orinpro Solutions. And of course we are also probably eager to understand how India's digital financing and banking system is changing and the role of Orin Pro solutions in that particular niche. And it also sets the stage perfectly for our, I mean, moving forward our conversation because understanding your company foundation helps us appreciate the impact you're making not just in terms of your services a solution, but also in terms of the real outcomes and the impact that you're creating. Moving ahead. Ashish, I think you have over 27 years of experience and a track record of leading digital platform growth across global markets. And you're also well placed to unpack key trends and future scenarios that can shape the enterprise technology landscape. So you know, we would like to know more about you. How has the journey been till date and you know, what triggered your interest at Orinpro Solutions and if you could tell us more about your vision and the playbook.

Okay, so on my background, I spent most of my career with what you would call enterprise fintech. I spent a fair amount of time with a player called Finastra, which is, give or take, I think, the third largest enterprise fintech in the world. And for a fairly long period before I started with Orion Pro, I was working with fis, which is again probably the largest enterprise fintech player or the second largest across the world depending on the year you're looking at. So most of my career has been around that and most of my journey has been around what does it take to build technology that makes financial institutions more efficient? Financial institutions actually be able to use technology to drive value for the clients. And that's how I got started with OrientPro. The dream was to build out a global scaled up enterprise tech player. You've not seen many players like that in India, in Asia even, and there were some thoughts on why that is the case. And there's a playbook to be followed in terms of building out a scaled up global player. And everything is so, especially if you look at the Indian software scene, IT services comes very naturally to the Indian IT industry. And services, a fairly linear game product is a very different type of business. So services, you deploy a thousand people, you make 1,000 people worth of revenue. You deploy 10,000 people, you make 10,000 people worth of revenue. The margins may vary, the deployments may vary, but more or less the economic stays linear. A product is a very different, fairly non linear game where you need to sink in a lot of capital right up front to build the product. When you're building the product you don't know whether you'll succeed or not. When you succeed, you don't know how much you'll succeed. So it needs a very different mindset. Mindset. So the dream was to really change the way software businesses are run. And that's how I started with OrientPro in terms of really using a global playbook to go out and build a global player which is every aspect of the business, how you build your products, how you maintain your code bases, even the commercial framework, the kind of talent you need. So enterprise software if you look at it I think in my view at least I think the playing field is fairly level. So there is no particular advantage in building enterprise software in the Valley versus building it in Singapore or Bangalore. The difference between what a leading or a top product looks like and a fairly average product is not so much in the building of it, it's in knowing what that best product looks like. So we've over time, you know, sort of we said we'll build out a team that really can go out and compete and build out the best products in the world. And we've over time attracted a very strong team that helps to sell and that sort of has been the mission for me personally. I got associated with OrientPro back in 2020. 2021, right. I formally as an investor, I formally joined as an exec in 2022 and we've been on this journey to pivot into becoming a scaled up global enterprise tech player. It's still early days. I think time will tell to what, to what extent will succeed. But back in 2021 when we were, you know, when we started the pivot we were a 375 crores company. That's give or take roughly $40 million. So that 375 went to 505 in 22, 6, 16, 23, 880 in 24. We finished last year at roughly 1150 crore. So you've been growing at roughly 34, 35% for the last four years. To my knowledge we are the only listed technology player at least in this part of the world, certainly in India, but probably in Asia which has grown four years consecutively at 30% plus and still a Long way. But so far, so far so good, right? I think we continue to build great products, we continue to attract great talent and the goal is to keep sort of growing, personally for me, keep growing with the business as well as the business keeps growing and makes its impact on the world.

Thank you so much, Ashish. And I think that was a compelling vision and I really appreciate how clearly you laid out the playbook. I mean, it's not just about adopting new technologies or strategies, but also about, you know, changing your mindset, the systems that support long term growth. And of course what stands out is how your approach is deeply rooted not just in adopting any innovation, but also in practical execution. So within vision without an execution is just, I would say dream. But when you back it up with a clear, actionable playbook like you described, I think that's when transformation really begins. So now building on that momentum, you know, if you talk about, you know, in my introduction I spoke about the India's growth in terms of, you know, escalating their digital transformation initiatives. So I think India's Journey towards Industry 4.0 Excellence is driven by traditional digital transformation, which is kind of reshaping the business landscape and offering unprecedented growth opportunities for manufacturing as well as the MSMEs. Now embracing digital technologies allow these enterprises to optimize operation, deliver, enhance a customer experiences and also stay competitive in an increasingly globalized market. I would say, for example, if you talk about, you know, manufacturing, I think digital manufacturing is powering industrial innovation by integrating smart technologies or automation or even predictive maintenance. And accordingly, I think sectors like electronics and pharmaceuticals are also leading the way in leveraging, you know, digital solutions. So what makes India a unique launchpad for scalable tech, especially in sectors like banking, AI and smart transit?

Yeah, so look, like I was saying earlier, enterprise tech in my view at least is a fairly level playing field. I think there's no particular difference between building something in Singapore, on the Valley, or in Bangalore or Mumbai. So I think what really gives India an edge is essentially one, the access to talent. So I think it is sort of fairly well established that if the difference between a good software and a bad software is knowing what that really good software looks like, the talent sort of becomes the most important part, the ability to get the right talent, build it at scale. I think India is one of the very few markets across the world, one of the very few places across the world where you get that level of access to really good quality talent. Right. So I think that is obviously a clear edge. The other biggest that we found as more of an Indian born sort of global fintech vendor is there is a fairly large and a very active local financial institutions market where one can actually build software for who one can build software for and fine tune the product as we take it global. Now a lot of our peer group don't necessarily do that and there's a lot of very India focused fintech players. But if your desire was to build a global fintech, I think there is a large set of willing financial institutions to partner with and build that IP out, which is what we've been doing. Whether that's on the AI side or whether that's on the application side. I think both those cases as well as on the, if you look at the smart transit infrastructure that we're building out, there is a lot of willing and forward looking government organizations to do that. So that second pace of having a large local market to me is a huge edge because if you're kind of trying to build a, a technology player out in a smaller market, you really don't get the access to the institutions to really partner with and build that technology. Or the good products are all about the depth of functionality, not just about having the right boxes on the slide. So that difference and the third major thing if I was to put it down is just in a number of cases, especially with the digital public infrastructure and the regulatory framework, India has genuinely leapfrogged generation. So the access to what cutting edge should look like from the standpoint of digging into the public infrastructure with the payment mechanisms, open loop payments, everything else. India is one of those markets where you really do want to experiment in because you're actually pretty much operating at the cutting edge and the regulatory framework is fairly supportive to do it. I think if you look at it the combination of being able to scale talent at the right and efficient cost effective way, being able to access a local market which is large enough to build and fine tune the products as well as the public infrastructure and the support is a regulatory framework. You put all of those three together, I believe this is a sort of combination to global products. What has been missing is the product building culture I think to some extent, but that's been coming in over the last decade or so fairly strongly. And to the extent that Orion Pro can be a catalyst to, to make that move of Indian services from IT from services to products, we would happily sort of do that. Right. So I think the combination is there and it's very, very rare combination anywhere in the world that you look at it.

Absolutely fascinating insights Ashish thank you. And of course I truly agree with you that India truly is in a unique position. Not just because of the scale of its population but also like you mentioned, where you have access to good quality talent, you also have a good combination of irregulatory frameworks as well as, you know, being, being, being like a market aware experimentation is, you know, highly appreciated where we have UPI revolutionizing the digital payments. And so a lot of things have been coming up in India and you know what's exciting is how this, this entire environment in India right now, it's becoming like a real world test bed for innovation. So I think the first solution can thrive here. You know, having the scalability, affordability and inclusivity. I think it can often be rep across other emerging and even mature markets. So let's explore that further. You know, I think when we talk about any, any technological revolution or evolution, I think consumer expectations, you know, are, play a very important role because they have shifted dramatically over the past decade. Now today's customers prioritize seamless experiences and unparalleled convenience when interacting with brands. Now they want intuitive user interfaces, they want frictionless checkout processes. And I think every touch point matters. I feel now companies that excel in delivering such exceptional experiences and convenience are seeing significant gains in customer loyalty as well as market share. Now a major example of this is a unified payments interface, the UPI which has kind of transformed digital transactions in India now by empowering instant secure and hassle free payments. I think UPI has significantly improved the checkout experience for both e commerce platforms. And even as even a smallest, you know, business like probably a grocery store or a Kirana store. So let's talk about banking. I mean, you know you mentioned that one of the major focuses of Orinpro solution is you know, digital banking and financial services. So how do you think India is leading the way in redefining digital banking and financial services? And how do you think that Orinpro is at the forefront of this evolution?

If you look at the Indian financial sector and one is obviously the commercial end of it on the banking side or the non banking side, the other is the enabling side of it through the government institutions as well as the regulators that look at the market, I think India has had the advantage of really coming to the cutting edge very, very quickly, jumping a generation. So if you go out to the western world, you go to Europe, you go to us and you look at any aspect of financial technology. So transit for example, we are quite prominent in transit payments across the world. And you look at most of the transit organizations around the world, the tech has been 40 years, 50 years old, mostly closed loop deck. And closed loop basically is where you use a prepaid instrument where you load, let's say $10 in it, $50 in it, and then you go to the transit gate or you go to the bus and that debits and that gives you the right. Most of the world still exists on closed loop prepaid tech, India in that way, if you go out and you look at ncmc, that is an open loop instrument. So India has had the benefit of jumping a generation and go straight to open loop. So in most of the sort of world, or most of the western world, at least the jump is go from legacy tech to open loop tech. And that's a very complicated jump. While India you start from, most of us have started from straight to the open loop tech. And the same thing, if you see UPI as a payment mechanism, it's been a very, very long haul in most of the countries around the world to try and get to a level of real time payment that UPI enables, of course does the volumes anywhere close to upi. So it's just a sensational infrastructure and sensational tech. But even real time payments in general has been a very tough journey for a lot of economies. So I think India has had the advantage of being able to jump not just a generation, maybe two generations in many cases when it comes to building out the financial infrastructure. And a lot of institutions and industry players have been able to take advantage of it in terms of the offerings that go out to the customer, how smooth that offering is, how value adding the offering is and the level of innovation that we see, whether in terms of providing capital, in terms of lending solutions, for example, the banks can offer or the fintechs can offer. So it's a very, very thriving play field where there is a lot of experimentation, there is a lot of value to the customer delivered through an almost frictionless or a very low friction infrastructure, which I think most of the rest of the world, especially in the more advanced markets, does not have had the advantage of because of the legacy burden or at least the tech debt that they've built out over time. I think to that extent it's really a joy to be able to work with the financial institutions in India and be able to build for them. Other thing that you see in terms of, of what's happening to the enterprise fintech world in general, which is the provisioning of software, financial technology to the industry players for a Long time the financial software industry has had a pecking order and the reason for that is you've had the same providers of technology existing in the various spaces for a very, very long time. Whether that's core banking solutions or there's treasury solutions, or there are risk solutions, you know, the standard solution stack that the bank uses. And the reason for that I think has been the really there's been no incentive to generally the pain involved in switching the solution has been a lot more than the value you get from switching that solution. And that has traditionally stopped the banks from, or other financial institutions from really reinventing their tech stack. Right? So you stay on the same stack for a long time because you realize, or you start off on changing it and then you realize that the pain of that switch is very, very long. Because it's a regulated industry, there is a lot more checks and balances around what you can do. So the cost involved in doing it increases and then eventually you conclude that the value is probably not that much. I think for the first time in the enterprise fintech space, you see, I think especially in where the world is going with the AI led value creation, the, the value may actually be greater than the pain. So you actually see a fairly large incentive to switch in the world. And we work with a lot of Indian financial institutions where the legacy burden is a lot less. And you see that value pain equation to be largely skewed towards value where you see, okay, you see switches and I think probably that trend will carry on again around the world where for the first time in decades we will see large scale switches of enterprise tech infrastructure around the world. You see that in a market like India happen a lot more quickly. And the simple reason is the value of that switch is now probably greater than the pain of that switch, which is a very encouraging situation for players like us and other India based software players or Asia based software players for that matter. Where you say there is an opportunity to really make that change in terms of really go up the industry pecking order a lot quicker than you traditionally would have had. So we actually use our base in India specifically to create a lot of tech and especially we work with most of the large Indian banks in terms of creating that stack. But the goal always is to take it around the world. And that experience of really being able to switch from legacy software to the new generation of fintech, I think we've got the right ecosystem in India to experiment and then take it around the world, that has been very, very successful for us. Right. So I Think in that sense you also see the industry sort of switching a bit.

Definitely. Thank you for unpacking that, Ashish. And I think India isn't just adopting digital banking trends. I think it's setting the pace globally and it's kind of building a playbook that many countries are taking notes from. I think what's really remarkable here is the balance. India is striking, you know, between financial innovation and regulatory oversight, whether you're scaling and also delivering personalization. So I think it's not about just, you know, becoming or resembling as a very flashy fintech player, India or resembling that, but it's about creating a more foundational impact and that's what we are witnessing right now. And of course it's exciting to think about how this will also evolve in the years to come. Moving ahead. When we talk about a localization, I think localization is something which is, which is not without its hurdles. I mean these challenges encompass a wide range of obstacles that organizations usually encounter when adapting to international audiences. Now failure to address these challenges effectively can of course lead to wasted resources or damage to brand reputation, of course, and missed opportunities for growth. So what are the challenges when it comes to localizing AI solutions for diverse international markets? And how do you solve for that?

That's a very deep question, Priya. So I think, you know, there are probably two or three different vectors that sort of go down there. Look, one is so the world, you know, was moving towards, if you look at before the large scale interest in AI, most of the, especially the banking world, tech world, the movement was towards greater productization. I think application vendors like us, like everyone else, I think the primary driver of, let's say your primary driver of economics, of the business was productization. So the more I productize, the more efficient I become in terms of how I get the technology up at the client side. The less services I do and hence the better the economics is or at least that's what the hope was. And that's where most of the tech world was going as the AI wave is coming. On the enterprise side, I think the first major shift is that productization drive itself gets diluted and the services component of it becomes a lot more heavier. Because now you need to really do a lot more working together with the institution, using it to make the intelligence work within the enterprise. Right. So at 100,000 foot level, if you look at how is technology used inside an enterprise, you know, every application, you know, it's more or less, I mean at 100,000 foot it's like More or less a similar thing. You got some sort of a front end, you got, you know, you got a deal entry screen where you actually bring the, bring the deal in. You got some sort of a workflow where you are, you have checks and balances, you've got someone approving something and you go through the whole flow and then you got some basic record keeping back office, right? So that's what an enterprise application is. If you really abstract it out. If you think of bringing AI into the enterprise, what you are then doing is I'm looking through my workflow for all the places where I'm checking something, I'm making a decision, I'm doing something and then I say okay, if I marry that with the right level of intelligence input, that could be a predictive output from my ML model, that could be some sort of a generated generative output in terms of creating a credit memo or something, that could be some sort of a rule NML output blended together and assisting a human make the decision. But whatever kind of intelligence that is, that is how you sort of bring AI into the application workflows around which the bank's sort of business revolves, right? So if you're doing that and you say localization, ultimately it comes down to what, how does the business process work within the enterprise depending on where you're going? For example, right now we're working with a UK based lender how, how the lending business itself operates in UK is not exactly the way it operates in, in India or in the US for that matter, right? So one is you adapt yourself to the local business workflows. The second major thing when it comes to AI especially is the how do you really adapt to the local regulatory framework which is again increasingly coming out. So EU for example, has this AI act that came out. A lot of other regulators are thinking about it. So how do you really adapt to the local regulation? And more and more, especially in the banking world, insurance world, you will also need to adapt to what the local regulator is asking for. Because I think so what's happened in the AI world is data to model is very, very easy these days, right? I mean there is really no magic in comes to it. But taking a model into production means obviously it needs to meet all the business imperatives. It also needs to satisfy regulators if you're a bank and then you go in, right? So there will be a lot more coming in which would be very specific to the country regulator that you're dealing with, Reserve bank of India or the Fed or the FSA and Where people regulators will no longer be satisfied with. For example, oh, I am using an LLM, whatever LLM it is, and I ask the LLM this, and this is the output that came out. You need the models to be explainable, which is, like I said, is one of the key areas of research for us. You'll need to be able to explain the output in a lot more clarity. The models will need to be interpretable. You will need to see that they are aligned to the general direction. You will need to see that they are aligned to the regulatory framework compliance. And that is a huge part of making the AI work within the specific country market that you're going to, especially in the regulated industries like insurance, banking, etc. So that again would be a key aspect. So as we go out and build the localization in, for us, the magic formula is to be very close to the market. So for example, our AI labs, we of course run a fairly large AI lab in India, but we recently opened an AI lab in Paris. We opened AI lab, especially a research lab in London. We run one in Singapore as well. So we try to be close to the markets we are in, be in conversations with the local regulators. So that as and when we are using technology on one side, you're localizing from a business process standpoint point, which is a question of local expertise, which is where we run a lot of engineering centers across the world. And then this question of really being staying close to the AIC in terms of research collaboration with the local bodies, with the regulators, so that we are aligned to it. So I think it is still a rapidly developing space. The key thing to keep in mind is ultimately, so there is a lot of toy applications sitting in sandboxes everywhere. It's very easy. Data model is super easy. But if you really want to take models into production, there is a lot more diligence that needs to happen, There is a lot more proving of value that needs to be happened, and there is a lot more explainability, interpretability, alignment that needs to happen for us to really be sure that the intelligence that we are taking to face our end clients is getting delivered in the right play in the enterprise. Right. So I think that's how I would probably summarize that.

Definitely that's a powerful breakdown and it really highlights that how nuanced and complex, you know, localization can be. And it's interesting to also see that localization or addressing the challenges of localization is not just a nice to have, but a core strategy for global scalability. And because let's face it, what, what works for one market might fall completely flat in another if it doesn't feel native or relevant. So I think for anyone who's listening and who's trying to build global products, I think this is a reminder that localization isn't a final polish, but it's more of a foundational layer. So just to quickly wrap up a conversation, Ashish, one last question. Because we have time constraints, I would, would have, you know, loved to go deeper into a conversation. But what's next for India as a global hub for, you know, digital first innovation, specifically in banking and smart transit?

Yeah, look what next for India? For me the big shift for India has to be or the Indian it has to be the mindset shift. Embracing the global product building mindset to me is the number one shift that the whole Indian IT needs to go to. Look, I think that I'm reasonably Convinced, Priya, the $250 billion Indian IT industry will probably one day be a trillion dollar industry. I don't think that will happen by quadrupling the number of people not in where the world is going, not where the tech is going. That will happen on the back of brands, that will happen on the back of products. And I think that is the sort of movement we are all about anyway. And it's not just it, right? You look at any industry, you look at any industry, any of the larger exporters in the world, look at, look at auto, look at electronics, look at Japan, China, Korea. I think every industry starts off the same way. You build something for someone else, which is the classic outsourcing story. And that is all the big players. Toyota used to be a maker of machine loops. Samsung used to make a black and white television in collaboration with nec, which even the Koreans will not buy. Huawei used to distribute PBXs for European manufacturers at one point. So everyone starts up the same way. But eventually all industries move, move to building brands, building IP, building products. And I think that is where Indian it needs to move. And to the extent that OrientPro can help catalyze the change, that's our dream anyways. That's our mission anyways. I think that's where Indian IT needs to go, definitely.

And I think if India wants to become the technology and innovation hub of the world in the coming years, it's important that it diversify its service and ensure and embrace a very product building culture that will definitely further accelerate the growth in terms of the global stage set up for digital transformation growth and initiatives. And of course when we talk about digital transformation. It's a very continuous journey. It's not a destination. And I think the discussion today probably, you know, can help our listeners understand and have a path from assessment to sustained leadership and, you know, turning the challenges into opportunities for growth, resilience and innovation. Well, thank you so much, Ashish, for taking out a time and effort to be on podcast today and helping us, you know, gain more insights around how did the Indian landscape is changing in terms of adopting and embracing the the emerging technologies and specifically in certain sectors like we discussed in like banking and smart transit. And of course it's really important that they need to foster a digital first culture and businesses can therefore future proof their operations and and drive more inclusive progr. So thank you so much for coming on a podcast today. It was lovely chatting with you, Ashish.

Thank you, Priya. Thanks for having me.

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