Harsha Solanki, a proficient professional with an experience of over 16 years in the industry, is the Managing Director at Infobip, supervising India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. She is an alumnus of Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies, from where she completed her PGDM in Telecommunications & IT Management, and a computer science graduate from Fergusson College. Harsha’s expertise in the Application to Person (A2P) messaging space has been proven by her eminent track record.
Commencing her career as a manager of marketing and sales at Starcorp in 2005, Ms Harsha Solanki then joined Smart Wireless Pvt Ltd. as a senior manager of marketing and sales in 2006 and before joining Infobip, her last venture was Bsmart Tech Pvt. Ltd as Country Head. She joined as the Managing Director-India at Infobip in 2017.
Ms Harsha Solanki spoke in details about the industry, her business and company vision and the prospects in Bangladesh market, in an interview with Sheikh Nafiul Islam. The full text of the interview is given below:
Question: How did your journey start with Infobip?
Answer: I began my career as a manager of marketing and sales at Starcorp in 2005, before joining Smart Wireless Pvt Ltd. as senior manager of marketing and sales in 2006, where I served for 7+ years. Post that, was associated with bSmart Tech Pvt. Ltd, as the Country Manager, which Infobip acquired later in July 2014. Further, before taking the charge as a Managing Director at Infobip India in 2017, I was a part of several key projects in the country under the brand of bSmart, which by then was an Infobip-owned company. The collaboration of both the entities was very strategic, that aimed at intensifying the footprints in the region.
With Infobip’s expansion in the region, we were successful in broadening our presence in Bangladesh and Nepal, with a scaled workforce of over 200 employees, while the Sri Lanka market is well-catered through our direct associates. Thereafter, Infobip kept adding some of the largest enterprise logos to the customer list and then, there was no looking back. In the last five years, the region has always been on the growth trajectory with the turnover being quadrupled and more than 300 successful enterprises on board. We have established our presence in almost every industry vertically through our world class solutions, unmatched professional services and relationship with partners and network operators.
Question: What is your opinion on the case of ensuring boosted customer experience through omnichannel banking?
Answer: The banking consumer base is increasingly witnessing the entry of a new class of customers: millennials and GenZers. In India alone, the share of millennials in new lending rose by 4.6 per cent between 2015 and 2018. Research indicates that new-age banking customers are increasingly switching from traditional brick-and-mortar banks to new banking options offered by neo-banks, non-banks, and even WhatsApp. In a highly competitive marketplace, the onus of understanding the stated and unstated requirements of modern banking customers falls on the shoulders of the banking companies. This understanding can only be harnessed by engaging with the modern customer, by listening to what they are saying either directly to the banks or in their peer circles on social media. Discerning banking companies looking to deliver improved customer experiences, therefore, need to reach out to their target demographics over their favourite communication channels.
In the post-pandemic landscape, when banking services have shifted to the online space, digital engagement is no longer an option for financial institutions. Moreover, the modern customer is using multiple digital channels to express their identity and opinions, and often have a choice of channel that they visit more frequently than others. This is precisely where an omnichannel approach steps in. Brands are now required to identify the preferred communication channel of a target segment on which to reach out to the customers with personalised messages to maximise the chances of conversion. Take the example of what Muthoot FinCorp accomplished by adopting an omnichannel strategy. The company used a combination of SMS, WhatsApp Business API, email, and voice-based channels to engage a wider audience at lower costs, in lesser time. Through WhatsApp API integration, Muthoot FinCorp, whose customer base typically consisted of people over 35 years of age, successfully reached a younger audience for their gold loan products.
Question: What were the driving factors that led Infobip get into the Bangladesh market?
Answer: Being an emerging economy, Bangladesh is among the promising markets in the Indian subcontinent. Astride of the projection of a GDP growth to the tune of 7.2 per cent in 2022, the country is looking at healthy economic activity across sectors, especially banking and BFSI, retail, and apparel, among others. Part of this development can be attributed to the increasing smartphone and internet penetration in the country. In the post-2020 era, the share of internet users in Bangladesh grew by 19 per cent while the number of social media users in the country rose by 25 per cent. Research suggests that the online shopping landscape in the country is being primarily driven by the younger demographic (18-23 years old), often through unconventional channels such as Facebook Pages. The lesson is clear. Brands looking to capitalise on this burgeoning opportunity need to reach out to the increasingly modern customer base through tech-enabled engagement strategies. Our strategic expansion into the Bangladesh market aims to fulfill this need-gap.
Question: What is Infobip’s vision in Bangladesh?
Answer: We aim to help businesses in Bangladesh to deliver augmented, more satisfying experiences to a wider audience by digitally renovating their engagement strategies. We will achieve this by leveraging our product suite which consists of Moments, an AI-powered omnichannel hub; Answers, an automated chatbot solution; and Conversations, an extension of our CPaaS platforms that allows users to monitor and manage omnichannel communications through a single, user-friendly interface. Aligned with our motto ‘Worlds Connected,’ our mission in Bangladesh is in sync with our overarching objective of revolutionising the global business communications landscape by enabling businesses to deliver the right content over the right communication channel at the right time.
Question: What do you think are the reasons for which enterprises/partners should choose Infobip over any other similar solution provider in Bangladesh?
Answer: Infobip’s mission is to build a world of connections. To accomplish this, we are focused on uniting our local reach enabled by a robust on-ground network and the different “worlds” of communication channels including WhatsApp, voice, SMS, email, Facebook, Instagram, Viber, etc. The idea is to create an extensively interconnected ecosystem founded upon trust and innovation. This twin focus allows us to react faster and deliver the most relevant solutions to our customers at scale. Currently, our platform reaches 7 billion people and things spread across more than 190 countries.
Besides a vast global reach and a strong local presence, our guiding principles give us a competitive edge over our peers in the market. Driven by simplicity, innovation, and empathy, we empower businesses to forge genuine, human connections with their customers. The modern customer demands to be recognised as a human being with complex tastes and values-driven sensibilities. For instance, Infobip research found that 24 per cent of the British youth prefer engaging with a brand that communicates, and delivers on, its commitment to society through sustainable, environmental, or charitable initiatives. At Infobip, we are equipped both experientially and technologically to help businesses to identify, track, and analyse the evolving preferences and sensibilities of their target audience and create personalised communication strategies with the maximum chance of optimally engaging the customer.
Moreover, the utility of our cloud-based products is elevated by their scalability and ease of deployment. Brands neither need to invest heavily in cumbersome hardware nor do they need sophisticated tech skills to use our services. These factors contribute towards making Infobip the business communications platform of choice among our clients.
Question: Have you experienced any specific challenges while operating in Bangladesh market? If you have, what are they?
Answer: The challenges that we are facing in Bangladesh are not typical to the region; that is, they are universal in nature. For instance, since we are amongst the first players of our kind in the Bangladesh market, it will take some time for the country’s enterprises to become familiar with our solutions. In fact, I see the challenges more as opportunities; as per the recent guidelines, the country has opened the gates for players like us to partner with telecom operators and regulators, more collaboratively. This will eventually strengthen our partnerships in the country.
Moreover, the acceptance of newer offerings in emerging markets is typically gradual. For instance, with the launch of mobile security solutions like Mobile Identity, a solution that is generally used by enterprises to protect customers, improve user experience and engagement, is slowly giving them the confidence on us. However, the early reception is that we are receiving indications of favourable prospects, signaling greater adoption and acceptance in the coming years – this being not a question of if but when.
To add, while Bangladesh exemplifies an economy on the growth track, enterprises have started preferring to associate with players like Infobip, that can offer omnichannel services. We, being a multinational organisation with vast experience in building solutions for MNOs, understand our customer sentiment and requirements better, leaving no room in the game for other retail service providers.
Question: Is Infobip planning to release any new product or solution in near future?
Answer: Businesses must take bold steps to capitalise on the increasingly digital-first economy. For instance, present market trends point toward mobile-based authentication operations becoming mainstream in the coming years. It’s aligned with this development that we recently launched our Mobile Identity solution to fast-track the onboarding, login, and authentication operations for digital-native businesses. In Q3 we will also be offering our customer experience SaaS solutions via the self-serve portal. Outside of this, Infobip is focused on creating value through learning loops, integration with acquired technology skills and software as well as staying ahead of the curve when it comes to communications innovation such as AI, IOT and future interfaces, particularly the trend for interactions based on conversational NLP.
Question: As we know Infobip is preparing to enter US IPO, what are some major goals that you would like to achieve before going public?
Answer: As we work on our IPO-readiness, we are adjusting our internal processes, including the way we do financial reports. With the current pace of development, we expect to be IPO-ready within a couple of years. In line with our aim of listing in New York, we have decided to adopt US GAAP as our financial reporting framework. A lot of internal activities and preparations revolve around this effort. At the same time, we are also focused on transforming our corporate governance structures while implementing various other internal controls to make us fully compliant with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
We are actively pursuing M&A as one of the main strategies aimed at corporate development. In addition to the acquisition of US-based messaging provider Open Market, and more recently SMS firewall service provider Anam, we’ve also got an M&A pipeline with opportunities at various stages of actionability. With these potential new additions to our group, we are looking to accelerate our transformation towards becoming a full-fledged conversational SaaS provider. Besides this, we are focused on being at the forefront of digital innovation for communications designed to make people’s lives easier and happier.