Empowering businesses with technology innovations, Conduent marches ahead

Businesses as well as governments today are expected to serve their clients better than before. With increasing consumer base, businesses are challenged to their limits for providing not one, but multiple services to their clients, and this is where technology is needed at the core.

Conduent is a digital interactions company that creates the technology to help businesses sustain the ever rising needs of their clients. The company digitizes key business processes and offers end-to-end services for businesses that can manage millions of interactions on a day-to-day basis for their huge customer base. In order to enable digitally-powered consumer experience, Conduent provides its customers with tech innovations and solutions, helping them overcome hundreds of real world challenges by not only understanding user requirements, but also providing solutions and even operating some of them for various businesses as well as the government. The company creates secure and personalized solutions for its clients’ unique business needs. Conduent’s digital solutions are built on its own technology platforms and the company follows the ‘platform modernization’ principle to keep its offerings updated and aligned with upcoming technologies. IoT, blockchain and AI are some of the technology solutions that they are working ahead for across various business segments.

Conduent in India operates from 11 offices located in 7 cities with over 13,000 employees and they manage processes for various businesses with tech-based solutions in various segments, ranging from insurance to healthcare and accounting to transportation. Now that the company has recently placed a hub in Visakhapatnam, they are targeting higher growth in the country and promise to offer their services with full confidence.

Speaking to Lokesh Prasad, Chief Executive Officer, Asia Pacific for Conduent Inc, we find out a bit more about what they do, a little about the company’s future plans and what it has in store for India.

How is the India business key to Conduent’s global growth? What are the various areas or sectors that Conduent plans to expand in India?

India, part of Conduent’s Asia Pacific (APAC) Region, is a key location for technology and service delivery. We have grown the number of employees in India from 9,000 in 2017 to over 13,000 in 2018.

Conduent’s investment in India ensures access to a diverse pool of technology talent and further reinforces Conduent as a technology-led, digital interactions company. Today, India is home to over half of our global technology workforce and one of two Conduent Labs – our innovation hubs. Since last year our team of researchers at Conduent Labs India has grown sizably to support their critical role in developing solutions with a range of technologies such as IoT, blockchain and AI.

What are your customers' key challenges? How is Conduent helping them navigate these challenges?

Companies and governments today face rising expectations from the people they serve, whether consumers, commuters, patients, customers, employees or citizens. Often the process of providing the perfect blend of services to their clients is their primary challenge. That is where we come in. We create digital platforms and end-to-end services for our clients, including businesses and governments, to manage millions of interactions every day for their customers. We create effective business solutions for our clients to overcome many real world challenges such as the rising cost of healthcare, mobility in urban society and payment card fraud in financial welfare programs. We not only understand the technical and user complexities our clients’ businesses face, but also implement solutions and operate them on their behalf.

Can you share some examples of what kind of business benefits customers have realized with your solutions?

Conduent manages essential aspects of client operations while interacting directly with the people they serve. This means we not only understand the technical and user complexities of the client’s industries, but also implement solutions and operate them on their behalf. We apply technology innovations across our business to enable digitally powered customer experiences that are personalized and secure.

The kind of benefits that our customers derive from our solutions range from organizational process benefits and cost advantages to elevated constituent interactions and modern digital experiences that are efficient, helpful and satisfying. For example, in the United States, the Conduent WIC Connect platform offers states a configurable, functionality-sharing environment to enhance the delivery and management of Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) benefits to recipients via Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT). WIC Connect supports multiple state agencies with standard functionality and provides access to periodic updates and new features. For example, a state may request that Conduent develop a new online customer service function. The rest of the agencies on the shared platform would also have access to this enhancement. Another example is our Pre-Paid Incentive Card solution —an employee awards system debit card, where employees redeem earned recognition points for merchandise or cash. Implemented at a top airline company it resulted in increased efficiency, reduced cost and a streamlined use experience as well as reinforcing the airline’s pay-for-performance culture.

India is often referred as a tech hub. Has Conduent taken steps in this direction and how far along this path are you? What kind of projects is the India labs currently focused on? How does the India lab fit in with the work you’ll do globally?

Our activities at Conduent Labs India include these focus areas – Mobile and IoT, Machine Learning and Statistics, Human Interactions and Experience Design, Blockchain and AI. Conduent Labs India works closely with Conduent businesses and customers to enable successful transfer of technologies from the lab to the marketplace

Have any of these products/ solutions been monetised yet – if so, some more details on the kind of solutions, customers etc.

Over the years our innovation labs have developed multiple solutions. Specific research projects that have been commercialised include license plate recognition systems that facilitate electronic toll collection. Conduent License Plate Recognition (LPR) builds on our core competencies in the areas of device and personalised imaging, machine learning and data processing. It enables high-accuracy levels for all automated license plate recognition applications, including toll operations, access control, traffic management and safety.

How bullish is the company on India expansion?

India is a strategic investment region for Conduent and we are currently evaluating expansion plans for the next two years. We have over 13,000 employees in India operating from 11 offices across 7 cities. Our most recent expansion was in March in Visakhapatnam where we have already created employment for over 1000 people within eight months of starting operations.