KPMG in India and Vianai Systems Announce Alliance to Bring AI-based Conversational Finance to CFOs with Vianai's hila™ Enterprise

Alliance Introduces Reliable AI for Finance Users to Ask Any Question of Enterprise Systems in Real-Time, in Natural Language

Finance Users Can Leverage AI to Ask Questions and Get Accurate Answers in Dashboards, Charts or Text, On-the-Fly, without Intermediaries or Specialized Visualization Tools

KPMG in India, one of the leading professional services firms, and Vianai Systems, a leading Human-Centered AI (H+AI™) platform and products company, today announced a transformational alliance to put reliable, conversational AI directly into the hands of finance users with Vianai's hila Enterprise.

The innovative joint offering by KPMG in India and Vianai Systems will leverage Vianai's hila Enterprise fine-tuning and optimization capabilities, with enterprise systems of record. Targeted specifically at finance professionals, Conversational Finance will allow finance users to ask any question against their systems of record, internal documents, public data, and other data in natural language, with a view to get immediate responses by way of text, dashboards, charts and more.

Today the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) in enterprises has largely been a non-starter for business users that require an extremely high degree of accuracy and reliability, in particular those in finance roles. Issues of LLM hallucinations and inaccuracies are simply too risky for business-critical functions such as finance to adopt AI.

As a result, finance teams have not been able to take advantage of the latest AI advancements and instead many still rely heavily on Information Technology (IT), analysts, visualization tools, experts, and others to find answers to their questions.

The alliance would see both KPMG in India and Vianai Systems leveraging their respective expertise and resources together to provide this innovative Conversational Finance offering to enterprises looking to transform their finance function.

"Finance functions in enterprises today have an unparalleled need for accuracy, privacy, and security as well as relevance to the context of business. Leveraging the power of LLMs with internal data sources, transaction systems, documents, and other data, as well as public information, would allow enterprises to paint a transparent and accurate picture of their business, and industry. These LLMs can also help finance functions play a critical role in ensuring resilience towards a challenging risk and regulatory environment.

Moreover, while independent SaaS (ERP, CRM, HRMS) companies are geared to launch their own co-pilots, they will fall short in desired value creation, specifically when cross functional insights are required. Large generic models are not able to deliver this today, and we are excited for Vianai Systems and KPMG in India to finally unlock this value for the finance functions of enterprises today," said Sachin Arora, Partner and Head, KPMG Lighthouse (Analytics, AI and Data), KPMG in India.

"Delivering the power of AI into the hands of finance users is a foundational step toward making AI available to all business-critical functions. Finance departments and teams must have transparency in their work, and deliver transparency to the outside world – with speed. We are thrilled to be working closely with KPMG to make this a reality for every organization in every industry," said Dr. Sanjay Rajagopalan, Chief Design & Strategy Officer, Vianai Systems.

How hila Enterprise works: business-relevant generative AI, in context, for enterprise CFOs:

• hila Enterprise leverages a full suite of AI tools, techniques and technologies including Vianai's Zero Hallucination™ technology, veryLLM verification capabilities, fine-tuning and optimization techniques, and more, making LLMs safer, more reliable and context-relevant for business users.
• The system leverages large public models, open-source language models, Vianai-built models as well as the customer's own models to enable querying of large amounts of data in the context of the business.
• Customers can query any transactional system within their enterprise landscape to get maximum insights via natural language interaction with systems in real-time.
• Business users get a response generated from public and private business data, in real-time, in the form of the user's choosing, whether as a dashboard, chart, text or other response format.

About KPMG in India

KPMG entities in India are professional services firm(s). These Indian member firms are affiliated with KPMG International Limited. KPMG was established in India in August 1993. Our professionals leverage the global network of firms, and are conversant with local laws, regulations, markets and competition. KPMG has offices across India in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Noida, Pune, Vadodara and Vijayawada.

KPMG entities in India offer services to national and international clients in India across sectors. We strive to provide rapid, performance-based, industry-focused and technology-enabled services, which reflect a shared knowledge of global and local industries and our experience of the Indian business environment.

About Vianai Systems, Inc.

Vianai Systems, Inc. is a human-centered AI (H+AI™) platform and products company focused on bringing trustworthy, responsible and transformative AI systems to enterprises worldwide. The company's hila™ Enterprise platform enables enterprises to safely and reliably deploy large language enterprise solutions, leveraging its Zero Hallucination™ technologies, veryLLM open-source code, breakthrough fine-tuning and optimization techniques as well as its LLM monitoring capabilities – to analyze, discover and explore data within systems of record, in natural language. The hila Enterprise platform helps enterprises minimize the risks of AI, while taking full advantage of the transformation potential of reliable AI systems. A showcase of the underlying capabilities of hila Enterprise can be accessed for free by anyone to ask any financial question about publicly traded companies at www.hila.ai. Follow @VianaiSystems on Vianai Twitter and Vianai LinkedIn.

 

Why CFOs are Becoming the Go-To Metric for Start-Ups & SMEs

By - CA Jitendra Jain, Director, Tapanshi Finanziell Pvt Ltd

Given the pace at which market dynamics, corporate strategies, and operational structures have evolved in recent years, businesses are increasingly becoming aware of the critical role that CFOs play in determining and directing a company's strategic direction. CFOs bring incredibly useful networks in addition to their talents and expertise, whicht can help with business growth, legal compliance, and hiring.

Also, since technology is altering how the workforce operates, it stands true for CFOs as well. Technology is driving the conventional position of a CFO and making them more digitized. They are particularly experiencing a change in how they conduct their businesses due to technology and the automation of routine transactional work. Technology advancement is making CFOs more and more interested in the long-term advantages of digital investments, which can significantly lower the cost of conducting business. Using it, they can cater better to today's consumer-driven environment and keep businesses competitive in the market.

Jitendra Jain

Post-covid several startups and SMEs are still navigating through extremely treacherous waters. CFOs can promote their recovery and confront ongoing uncertainties, given their distinct position to plan out the most effective routes to success, see the wider picture, and comprehend the inner workings of our organizations.

However, the majority of startups and SMEs lack the need for and the financial resources to hire a full-time, competent CFO.

A fractional approach can assist them in this situation by allowing them to hire a CFO just as needed, eliminating the burden of hiring one and providing executive counsel and better knowledge to help with financial planning and decision-making.

CFOs - Go-to metric for startups and SMEs

A CFO's agenda now includes a considerable discussion of enterprise risk where legal reporting and payment requirements are constantly developing and altering. CFOs have long been recognized for their influence on the financial side of the business, but their impact on several other key sectors has also become important these days. These sectors include raising capital, establishing reporting mechanisms, developing a corporate strategy, ensuring balanced investment growth, and reserving money for potential opportunities. By having a capable CFO on their side, no matter if outsourced, startups and SMEs can achieve considerably. Startups and SMEs can derive the following benefits by employing CFOs.

Strategic Decision-making

Because the future is uncertain due to growing political and economic unpredictability that has a distinctive impact on business, CFOs are expected to look around every corner and make more strategic, deliberate judgments. Today, the expansion of the company's finances, as well as long-term financial and non-financial initiatives, depend heavily on the work of the CFO.

The CFO assists in making strategic financial and business decisions that are optimal for the organization and its objectives. They provide accurate reporting and meaningful data related to inventories, spending, recruiting, capital investments, and other matters. They guarantee on-time delivery of accurate, high-quality information, establish and track KPIs, develop strategic plans for success, deal with setbacks, and support contingency planning. Recovery calls for contingency planning for both, startups and SMEs to get through the current challenges.
This is where CFOs come into play.

Sustainability Measures

A growing concern for both large and small firms, sustainability challenges, can be addressed largely with their help. They can assist in balancing short-term concerns with longer-term goals by integrating sustainability challenges into reporting with conventional financial indicators.

Easy Funding

They help startups and SMEs with their funding challenges. Their maintenance and development of beneficial networks with banks, accounting firms, brokers of liability insurance, and other similar organizations facilitate safe financing.

Cash Flow Management

CFOs actively control the fragile cash flow of startups and SMEs as opposed to only monitoring it because they understand that cash is vital for every business. They examine the total cash flow and offer suggestions on best practices that have been proven effective for firms of comparable size and stage of development in an industry vertical. They also suggest technologies that help business owners keep an eye on their cash flow and better prepare for unforeseen circumstances every day.

Growth Assistance

A CFO can give a company a blueprint for future growth if they have the required advanced analytical knowledge. This entails increasing profitability as well as carefully planning when to hire new employees, make acquisitions, and other investments, such as in real estate or a marketing campaign. Also, the CFO will always ensure that all financial accounts are accurate and defend the company in the case of an audit. They can deliberate on best accounting practices and offer guidance to guarantee long-term success.

Resource Optimization

Internal controls, including procedures, processes, and automation, can be put in place with the support of CFOs to help prevent errors and even fraud. This lowers the possibility of expensive financial errors. Additionally, CFO services ought to free up the business owner to concentrate on their core competencies rather than accounting, lowering overall risk by giving the finances more focused attention. They can assist entrepreneurs in deciding where and when to make investments and accountants in tax preparation.

The many benefits of hiring CFOs have led to the popularity of virtual CFOs and outsourcing them. Besides, such hiring allows to employ a CFO more relevant to a particular industry. Employing someone more suited to the industry sector through outsourcing helps SMEs and startups gain the necessary skills, experience, and competitive edge.

Conclusion

Startups and SMEs can gain from hiring a CFO sooner rather than later since they need to get their systems in place, especially around governance and compliance. All of the aforementioned strategic services, offered on a part-time or as-needed basis by an outsourced CFO, enable startups and small businesses to obtain financial counsel of an enterprise-level quality that may also be more suited to their current requirements and issues than a full-time worker. The demand for CFOs is therefore increasing as they play a considerably more significant role than just figuring out and putting financial rules in place. The lifeblood of every firm is money, and it requires a skilled CFO to understand exactly where that fuel originates from and how decisions made in the future will impact it, making them a vital resource for businesses.

(The author of the article is CA Jitendra Jain, Director, TapanshiFinanziell Pvt Ltd)

Snapdeal's CFO Anup Vikal Resigns

It seems, there’s no end to the road of troubles for Indian ecommerce firm Snapdeal. After going through a period of tiresome acquisition discussions with Indian ecommerce leader Flipkart, which eventually fell through, the firm has now seen a high profile exit.

Anup Vikal, the chief financial officer (CFO) and general counsel of Jasper Infotech, the parent company of Snapdeal, has put in his in papers and decided to leave the organisation for greener pastures after completing two years of employment with the firm.

Vikal's resignation comes at a time when several senior Snapdeal executives have either, already hung up their boots, or are currently serving their notice period. The high profile list includes names such as Viraj Chatterjee, VP of engineering; Srinivas Murthy, VP of marketing; Gaurav Gupta, head of IT and Pradeep Desai, vice-president of product, among several others.

"Anup has done sterling work at Snapdeal, building high levels of governance and helping structure various transactions of importance for the company. He has led the finance function with distinction, contributing immensely in furthering the profitability initiatives of Snapdeal, which the deep bench of Snapdeal' finance team will continue. I wish him the very best for his professional pursuits," Kunal Bahl, chief executive of Snapdeal, said in a statement to Economic Times.

Vikal had joined Snapdeal in October 2015 from Aircel, where he was also given the responsibility of heading the telecom operator's finance operations. He is now reportedly planning to join Essar Oil, which was acquired Russian energy behemoth Rosneft, global commodity trading and logistics giant Trafigura and United Capital Partners in 2016 for a gigantic amount of $12.9 billion.

Immediately after the Rs 385 crore Freecharge-Axks Bank deal came to a close, Snapdeal founder and chief executive officer Kunal Bahl made his mind clear to the employees that he was not in the favour of being acquired by Flipkart.

In a letter written to his employees, the Wharton graduate wrote that now that the Freecharge responsibility is off their shoulder, it is now time to "focus energy and passion on continuing the Snapdeal journey." The letter was considered testimonial of the fact that Bahl still had confidence in Snapdeal.

The Snapdeal-Flipkart merger deal was being enthusiastically pursued by Snapdeal investors, following the cut-throat competition the company is facing in the country from global ecommerce giant Amazon and its domestic rival Flipkart. However, after inflow of cash from FreeCharge sale, Snapdeal decided to give independent run another chance.

This development was first reported in Economic Times.

(Image: The Indian Wire)

Snapdeal's CFO Anup Vikal Resigns

It seems, there’s no end to the road of troubles for Indian ecommerce firm Snapdeal. After going through a period of tiresome acquisition discussions with Indian ecommerce leader Flipkart, which eventually fell through, the firm has now seen a high profile exit.

Anup Vikal, the chief financial officer (CFO) and general counsel of Jasper Infotech, the parent company of Snapdeal, has put in his in papers and decided to leave the organisation for greener pastures after completing two years of employment with the firm.

Vikal's resignation comes at a time when several senior Snapdeal executives have either, already hung up their boots, or are currently serving their notice period. The high profile list includes names such as Viraj Chatterjee, VP of engineering; Srinivas Murthy, VP of marketing; Gaurav Gupta, head of IT and Pradeep Desai, vice-president of product, among several others.

"Anup has done sterling work at Snapdeal, building high levels of governance and helping structure various transactions of importance for the company. He has led the finance function with distinction, contributing immensely in furthering the profitability initiatives of Snapdeal, which the deep bench of Snapdeal' finance team will continue. I wish him the very best for his professional pursuits," Kunal Bahl, chief executive of Snapdeal, said in a statement to Economic Times.

Vikal had joined Snapdeal in October 2015 from Aircel, where he was also given the responsibility of heading the telecom operator's finance operations. He is now reportedly planning to join Essar Oil, which was acquired Russian energy behemoth Rosneft, global commodity trading and logistics giant Trafigura and United Capital Partners in 2016 for a gigantic amount of $12.9 billion.

Immediately after the Rs 385 crore Freecharge-Axks Bank deal came to a close, Snapdeal founder and chief executive officer Kunal Bahl made his mind clear to the employees that he was not in the favour of being acquired by Flipkart.

In a letter written to his employees, the Wharton graduate wrote that now that the Freecharge responsibility is off their shoulder, it is now time to "focus energy and passion on continuing the Snapdeal journey." The letter was considered testimonial of the fact that Bahl still had confidence in Snapdeal.

The Snapdeal-Flipkart merger deal was being enthusiastically pursued by Snapdeal investors, following the cut-throat competition the company is facing in the country from global ecommerce giant Amazon and its domestic rival Flipkart. However, after inflow of cash from FreeCharge sale, Snapdeal decided to give independent run another chance.

This development was first reported in Economic Times.

(Image: The Indian Wire)

After Shared Offices, Its Shared CEOs, CFOs Called "Fractional CXO"

Necessity is the mother of all inventions. So, when the startup scene started booming in India and people realised that their small budgets and the space crunch in the country didn’t allow them to have their individual spaces early on in the game, they decided to share their space with their peers, and the concept of co-working spaces was born. And now it comes to light that another sharing concept is taking flight in the ecosystem. Startups in India are now reportedly sharing sharing top executives so as to save costs.

Take the example of 51-years old Sridhar Subramanian for instance. Having had over two decades of experience working in the finance sector, with big shot companies like working Coca-Cola and 3M, he has now decided to take on task of serving as a “fractional” CEO for a number of startups. Subramanian is the go-to person for these startups when it comes to anything associated with accounting or managing compliance. Every now and then, he also help them in structuring their plans.

When asked about what he does as a fractional CEO and why he does it, Subramanian said, "My work is mostly need-based since these companies do not have a constant flow of work. It is financially rewarding and more challenging to do this.”

Startups that are just starting up need as much guidance and help as possible, but their pockets don’t allow them to go out in the corporate world and hire someone full-time, this is where fractional CXOs come in and help fill in their void. While startups get expert advice and save cost at the same time, these fractional CXOs earn good cash and put their time to better usage. Chennai-based OrangeScape, which provides a cloud platform to build applications, has been availing Subramanian’s services as a virtual CFO for about a year now.

Speaking about the arrangement, Suresh Sambandam, co-founder of OrangeScape said, "We don't have enough work for a full-time CFO as of now. We have finance folks who manage the book-keeping. What we need is a person who makes sure that the obvious things are being done and who can advise us on financial decision making.” Subramanian helps OrangeScape by giving them expert advice on how to deploy excess cash, prepare banks documents, and how to make strategic decisions.

Sectors such as finance, marketing, strategy and sales are some of the most famous sector among fractional chiefs right now.

One of the biggest advantages that fractional chiefs have working multiple jobs is that they get to apply their learnings from one startup to another. Since they’re into the startup ecosystem with multiple organisations all at once, they catch a drift of where the trends, markets and the consumers are heading. According to Masroor Lodhi, who’s currently working with as many as ten startups, "There are soft learnings that you can apply irrespective of the nature of business. How one founder was able to manoeuvre a roadblock, how a founder is setting the culture of the company, or something as fundamental as using a tool to facilitate team dynamics - these aspects are applicable across startups.”

However, everything isn’t as rosy as it seems. There might be times when issues such as conflict of interests or confidentiality might arise. This is where the trust factor comes in the picture. Considering today’s competitive world, many startups now have a confidentiality clause in their contracts for their fractional/virtual chiefs.

According to Sanjay Swamy, managing partner in Prime Venture Partners, while the concept of virtual/fractional chiefs sounds good on paper, there are certain areas where the startups shouldn’t try this method. One of them being a fractional CEO. "Ideally, a founder should be CEO. At Prime, we are happiest if founders scale and learn the ropes of becoming long-term CEOs, as the company progresses. The founder and CEO is the one who brings the passion for the business and is often the first and primary sales person too," he says.

While right now people might have different opinions on in which areas should the concept be allowed, but one thing is for sure, the trend is going to live and flourish in years to come. HR experts believe that fractional work will be the trend going forward. According to James Agrawal, MD of executive search and leadership development firm BTI Consultants, people no longer want to be tied to a single organisation or be committed full-time. Hence, we might soon find a growing number of people flashing the title of fractional CEOs or CFOs on their business cards.

This development was first reported in the Economic Times.

[Image: Diligent Cxo]