Corporate India sees a tussle between growth and ethical conduct: EY survey

Vantage point: Insights from cutting-edge research

Inconsistency and ambiguity in encouraging high ethical standards and insufficient understanding of compliance programmes have increasingly led employees to justify unethical behaviour at the workplace, according to EY’s Asia-Pacific (APAC) Fraud Survey, Economic uncertainty or Unethical conduct: How should over-burdened compliance functions respond? The survey highlighted that ethical leadership has emerged worrisome in India and China alike, with 57 per cent saying the senior management tends to overlook dubious actions of employees to attain corporate targets. Fifty-eight per cent Indian respondents are still willing to work for organisations involved in a major bribery or fraud case, lower than China (66 per cent) but higher than the average of other APAC nations (49 per cent). Sixty per cent Indians also said that organisations are reporting financial performance better than it is. And 31 per cent said they would offer cash payments to win or retain business.

Banking and securities industry to grow at 8.6 per cent in India in 2017

IT spending by banking and securities firms in India will grow 8.6 per cent in 2017 to reach $8.9 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. “The Indian banking sector has undergone a transformation. Banks are gradually lowering the number of branches and increasing capability in terms of their existing infrastructure,” said Moutusi Sau, principal research analyst at Gartner. “Despite effects of demonetisation in the banking sector, banks will continue with digital transformation projects,” Sau added.

Demonetisation is the primary reason for the slowdown in the banking and securities market in India. But the effects will be short-lived. IT services will grow the fastest at 13.8 per cent in 2017 followed by software at 13.4 per cent. Firms in the banking and securities industry are investing more in enterprise resource planning, supply chain management and customer relationship management to upgrade their infrastructure.

By 2021, AI-powered CRM activities could boost global biz revenues by $1.1 trillion

2018 will be a landmark year for AI (artificial intelligence) adoption, according to a new IDC White Paper, commissioned by Salesforce. More than 40 per cent companies said they would adopt AI within the next two years. By 2018, IDC forecasts that 75 per cent of enterprise and ISV (independent software vendor) development will include AI or machine-learning functionality in at least one application. AI-powered customer relationship management (CRM) activities will cover a large spectrum of use cases and touch almost all facets of an enterprise, including accelerating sales cycles, improving lead generation and qualification, personalising marketing campaigns and lowering costs of support calls. AI associated with CRM could boost global business revenues by $1.1 trillion from 2017 to the end of 2021. This global business revenue boost is predicted to be led by increased productivity ($121 billion) and lowered expenses due to automation ($265 billion).