Leadership is not always about managing people, but more about selecting and mentoring the right ones. It is a role that evolves with experience. Successful leadership is never indispensable as it is an effort for a larger cause. “Leadership for me is setting up vision and translating it into reality with a result-oriented, process-driven mission,” says Umesh Ikhe, CEO of CARE Risk Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

A leader’s approach must be neutral when he works with his team. Having said that Umesh also does not hesitate in taking difficult decisions for achieving companies’ goals. “I always believe mentoring and continuous guiding helps employees to walk the same path as a company,” states Umesh. An involved working approach is a way to have employees aligned. Team and responsibility driven work culture ensures everyone feels equally responsible for the organization’s goals. Umesh has never hesitated in acknowledging/rewarding the deserving ones.

Having an ownership mindset is at the center of Umesh’s working style. Once someone considers their work as their own entrepreneurial venture, it brings forth a change in mentality which makes it easier to reach the goals one set for oneself and the team. The most challenging things that he has experienced in his career are instilling confidence about quality, functionality supremacy, and user experience about the product. “We are a niche software product company, which is rare from India, otherwise India is home for service sector companies,” comments Umesh.

Every challenge was unique and needed a unique approach. As the CEO of an ambitious, diverse, and growing company, decisions made during such challenges would define the near- and long-term future for the organization. As part of good leadership, good principal involvement of the team in most of the things gave him a holistic view of the challenge and the combined efforts helped his team to sail over the challenge.

Caring for Your Credibility

CARE Risk Solutions Pvt Ltd under the umbrella of CARE Ratings Limited is a technology-driven company with a primary focus on the risk and finance functions of banks and financial institutions worldwide. “We are a company constantly developing world-class capabilities and heavily investing in cutting edge AI and Machine Learning technology,” says the team of CARE Risk Solutions.

Over the years, the company has gained the status of a trusted techno-functional partner with the banks it is involved with. CARE Risk Solutions has emerged as an integral part of their technological ecosystem. “We are working to provide analytical solutions which will help banks and financial institutions gain a competitive advantage,” the team adds further.

With a process-driven, well-researched, and customer-centric approach, CARE Risk Solutions delivers quality products and services to its clients. Being close with customers helps the team to get insights about the market needs and based on users’ feedback which in turn results in the continuous evolvement of products, maintaining a healthy competition.

The team’s expert knowledge on varied markets gives the company an edge over others to deliver exactly what is expected. “Over the years I have observed that a well-trained and domain rich manpower is the most crucial part of our business process,” adds Umesh. He is of the opinion that a substantial amount of time and energy should be invested in training manpower regularly.

An Entrepreneurial Spirit

Speaking about his motivation, what keeps Umesh going is the drive to deliver the best of the breed and insightful agile business product to customers. “I am focused on establishing CARE Risk Solutions amongst the top risk management and financial compliance solution providers for the BFSI industry,” he describes.

Umesh’s approach towards this ongoing pandemic also defines his outlook on the business that has experienced a serious impact. According to him, there are only two ways which any organization can go about doing:

– Reflect – improving oneself, make corrections (if any), relook into the products/ services. Basically, utilize the time to perfect yourself,

– Focus – Be the change agent, be the one to start the new way of making businesses, grab the opportunities that have not been taken.

“Both approaches are relevant but will completely depend on the current situation of your organization,” conveys Umesh.

The next five-year plan will be to firmly establish CARE Risk Solutions amongst the top three banking solution providers in South Asia, Africa, and APAC in space of Risk Management, Analytics, and financial compliance.

An Umbrella that Shelters

The pandemic is making everyone overthink. Going forward, A Shiju Rawther, Chief Information and Technology Officer of CARE Ratings Limited, plans to make CARE Ratings an extremely process-driven, technology-enabled, result-oriented, client servicing focused organization.

“This pandemic has taught us a lot of things which will now become a part of the new normal,” says Shiju. The importance of technology cannot be overstated. Making solutions and customer deliverables tech-dependent is the way forward. A sure-shot way of achieving a lot in this space is by connecting with customers online and catering to their specific requests in line with their current needs. The pandemic has also taught everyone the need to engage with employees and to keep them motivated on an ongoing basis and help them to deliver to their best.

The pandemic has shown everyone how important it is to adapt to new ways. The ones who are well prepared for adaptions will have an edge over others. As CARE Ratings is a technologically driven company, it was able to leverage technological solutions to ensure the continuity of business. Going digital is the new normal and has become mainstream now. “It is technology which shall shape the mankind thus focus on AI/ML framework, next-generation UI/UX is indispensable for envisioned and scalable ecosystems,” says Shiju.

It is very important to constantly update oneself with the newest trends and platforms to keep up with innovation and competition. Staying prepared to take on new opportunities and challenges will keep one having an upper hand, especially in terms of AI and ML, analytics, and making use of predictive technology.

Therefore, the team of CARE Ratings Limited and CARE Risk Solutions have defined a strategy of technology based on four pillars:

The first pillar is Zero Tolerance which has focus areas of engineering, scalability and introducing new platforms. This ensures that the setup is built on robust foundations and can be scaled as per business growth. The second pillar is the Customer Experience. This tower focuses on innovations and implementing future technologies to enhance the experience of internal and external customers by delivering services through superior technology.

Information Security is the third pillar in the roadmap. It is given key importance from the design, builds, and operation phases. This also includes that everything under technology comes under compliance, gets audited, governed by the GRC team, and is protected always.

The fourth pillar is Orchestration. Orchestration is to bring in more orientation, synergy, and automation. This year, the team is working on many automation projects along with building the Data Lake platform. “We are working on the robotic process automation using cognitive services so that manual dependency reduces,” shares Shiju. Automation will also help CARE Risk Solutions and CARE Ratings Limited achieve cost reduction while providing better customer service.

In a conclusive statement, Shiju says “I practice delegative leadership where it is necessary to allot work keeping in mind people’s strengths and abilities to scale up.” The most important task a leader must perform is delegation. Give people tasks and watch them tackle issues and find solutions. A strong leader who stands by the team and shields them in times of need and provides the right fodder for growth can bring out the best in people.