Welcome back to Count Me In,

IMA's podcast about all things affecting
the accounting and finance world.

This is your host, Adam Larson,

and you're now listening to
episode 152 of our series.

The guest speaker for this series is
Nishant Nair, CEO and founder of RecVue,

a modern order lifecycle management
solutions provider. In this episode,

Nishant speaks with Mitch about the
value of new financial systems over

traditional legacy systems and the
importance of streamlining your corporate

structure to enable further
innovation. Nishant believes businesses

are walking when they should be running
through today's business landscape of

adaptable digital technology.

So keep listening to hear more of
what he has to say as we head to the

conversation now.

Why is it important now more than ever
for companies to implement new financial

systems within their businesses?

Oh, that's a great question. Which,

a simple way to explain this would
be with an example that we are all

too familiar with. Now,

we don't go and get our movies
from Blockbuster anymore.

We have Netflix, we have
Amazon, we have Hulu.

Essentially we are in a digital economy
and companies are changing the way they

do business. They're not
selling products anymore.

They're converting the product into
a service and selling services.

So if you look at the financial
and audit systems that

were essentially designed for the
Blockbuster world just does not meet

the needs of the Netflix
business model. I mean,

they're just not designed for it.

And it requires a
completely new technology

architecture and thought process.

Now with this new technology,
these new thought processes,

obviously there are a
lot of opportunities.

So for those businesses who are
working on traditional legacy

systems,

what are some of the main issues that
they are really coming across today?

Sure, sure. So the main,
the main challenge, right,

that we see with a
traditional legacy system,

it's its inflexibility, ,

inability to scale and the need
for an army of IT resources

and business analysts to maintain it.

Now compare that to modern cloud-based

server-less platforms that
lets companies be agile, right?

Modern platforms built on
cloud technologies make

businesses nimbler and more flexible
to meet the customer's need. I mean,

if you look at, you know,

these modern cloud platforms
take away the whole operational

aspects of running and managing
huge software applications so that

companies can now solely
focus on growing the business,

introducing new revenue models and
making the customer successful,

and then modern systems don't
require an army of people to

maintain it as well. So a lot
of things that a, you know,

a lot of challenges that we see
with traditional legacy systems

that, that, that we don't,

or that can be avoided by transforming
or with modern technology.

Now you've mentioned some of the
challenges that businesses are facing.

And again, the opportunities,

the more streamlined new
approaches that are available for

listeners in business who are
interested in taking action,

right? What are some of the key actions?

these business leaders can take within
their organizations to accomplish a more

streamlined, you know,
simplified corporate structure,

where the army is not
needed, as you just said.

So it all starts with aligning your

finance, your it,

and revenue operations team
towards a singular goal of

transforming the organization and,

setting the course to innovate and win in

what we call a digital economy,
right? And, that requires,

fostering a culture that
is receptive to change.

That's going to be very important,
right? To streamline operations.

And even for these digital
transformation projects to

be successful, finally, it's the,

it's the people that's going to
make or break any transformation,

like this.

And now you provided a great
analogy, right? Going from say,

Blockbuster to Amazon and the
trends that are happening all across

business. In general.

I'm curious if you have recognized
and seen other trends, you know,

are there other things
happening and obviously,

particularly in finance
financial services,

what are some of the trends that are
really exciting you and things that our

listeners should be aware of? Maybe
a little bit more interested in.

Yeah. From a, I mean, that is
a lot of innovation. I mean,

a lot of innovation that is currently
happening in the financial services

industry it's happening across,

but specifically in the
financial services industry,

there is a lot of innovation that's
happening that I'm really excited about.

Right? I mean, if you look at, you
know, if you, if you go back 10, 15,

20 years gone are the days when
you had one or two large financial

systems doing a mediocre job of all
the different business processes.

Now what I'm seeing is
companies coming up using

these modern cloud technologies
and focusing on one particular

business process and excelling it
and being the best at it, right?

I mean, if you look at,

Cooper is a good example
for procure to pay.

And if you look at RecVue,

which is for order to
cash are prime examples of

cloud technology being
used to essentially improve

or optimize a particular business process.

And another area that I see is
with cloud technology and API

based architecture,

it actually allows different systems
to seamlessly talk to each other,

and that's driving a lot of
adoption as well. I mean, people,

especially the next generation users
are no longer compromising on any

business process.

They want a system that is
the best for that particular

business process.

And today with the cloud technology
and all the different integration

platforms that are available,
it is possible, right.

And they want the best solution for
each and every business process.

And that is resulting in
a lot of innovation in the
financial services industry.

It's a very exciting
times with both, you know,

technology and the business
knowledge pretty much aligning with

each other.

And what happens if businesses
essentially don't take your advice, right?

Everything we're talking about here,

if a business chooses to
continue using its legacy,

the antiquated processes and systems,
if they haven't gone digital,

what are the risks? You know,

what would you predict will
happen to these businesses?

The world is changing. The world
is changing. We all recognize that.

I know the common example is
obviously Blockbuster to Netflix,

but what I see is that same
change happening in each and

every industry that we operate
in that particular change.

And,

with the legacy systems,

the most common phrase that I hear
from businesses running legacy

system is that they are there
to keep the lights on. Right?

And that's the most common phrase that I
hear when we talk about legacy systems,

what are you using your
legacy systems for,

or they are just there to keep the

lights on now, companies
can differentiate,

accelerate the growth and own the
digital economy by just keeping the

lights on, you've got to change.
Companies have realized it,

that companies have to change.

They've got to transform or essentially
risk being obsolete. I mean,

those are the,

I believe the two to two
choices that companies have in

a digital economy where things
are changing so rapidly,

new revenue models are being introduced.

More complex revenue models
are being introduced every day.

So you better have a
system that can handle it,

that's agile and scalable enough to
take you into the next, you know,

that can make you leaders in the next,

I would say, in this economy.

Now, obviously the current
state of, you know,

the global business economy,

we went through a lot right in the
last year and a half or more with the

pandemic and a lot of businesses. I'm
sure a lot of those who were on these,

you know, traditional systems,
had to make major adjustments.

They had to adapt very quickly
and hopefully, you know, most did.

And with that being said, assuming that,

you know, anybody in business is
aware of the possible consequences,

as you just said, of becoming obsolete,

what is your vision
for business? You know,

finance post pandemic, how do you
see things potentially rebounding

and, you know, what will this global
business competition look like again?

Sure, sure. I mean,

I think the pandemic,
right. Pandemic, I mean,

people talk about pandemic
and it's true that what

was going to happen in 10 or 20 years

timeframe, the pandemic has definitely
accelerated that whole process. Right.

And then that whole
process of cloud adoption,

where we are looking at,

we are no longer looking at a
hundred percent going back to

offices, everybody's talking
about hybrid remote models,

and working remotely.

And that essentially brings
in the need for modern

collaborative platforms on, right. I mean,

if you're running an old
legacy, on-brand solution,

that's no longer connected to the world.

You're not going to be able to run
your businesses anymore. Right.

And it's not collaborative.

And it doesn't scale plus it doesn't you

know, it does not work,

when most of your employees
are global and working

remotely, and that's a huge change.

And I think that that's going to
bring about an acceleration in the

adoption of, cloud technologies
and modern platforms,

which we are actually seeing it today.

We are seeing a huge
demand post pandemic for

modernizing legacy
applications all across the

financial services space.

So I just have one more question
to wrap up our conversation today.

And I think you've shared a lot
of great insights on this topic.

you were just talking about
modernizing legacy systems and,

and allowing for business to rebound and,

you know, employees to collaborate
teams to work together remotely.

I'm just curious if you have
any thoughts in regards to other

possible innovations when it comes
to modernizing these systems,

you know,

are there certain opportunities that
you see that you think businesses might

start to take advantage of as they
begin to implement some of these either

more modern systems or, you
know, potentially new ideas?

Yeah. So, in terms of,

in terms of new ideas, I
think everybody all, I mean,

like I said,

the ecosystem for innovation
is ripe at this point, right.

And companies are innovating
and obviously, right.

There's a lot of talk

around artificial intelligence and
automation technologies like RPA.

So I see those two areas, which is very
interesting. That's essentially right.

I mean, what you want to do is
you want to do two things, right?

You want to give people the information
or the insights that they need

at their fingertips. That's one,

and you would want to
automate any repeatable tasks,

any tasks that can be, can be
automated and that's repeatable,

you would like to automate it that
rather than a human actually going

through that processing back. Right.

And then those are the two
areas that I see are ripe for,

you know,

for disruption now is mainly the areas
of artificial intelligence where,

you know, you can get more of a predictive
capabilities in different areas.

And, and even, you know,

just like you have self-driving cars, we,

in the next step one or two years,
you're going to have self-driving.

And then some of,

some of the features that already come
out where there's going to be a complete

self driving financial systems,
that's going to operate on its own.

And it's going to require
human intervention only
when there is an exception,

right? And that's the world that
we are going towards. And that,

that is one space that's pretty exciting.

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