Ep. 152: Nishant Nair - Modernizing Legacy Systems

Contact Nishant Nair: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ninair/

Forbes Technology Council: https://profiles.forbes.com/members/tech/profile/Nishant-Nair-CEO-RecVue-Inc/329296c5-b50e-4cfc-a7dd-c6813580978d

Fintech Times article: https://thefintechtimes.com/recvue-dont-let-outdated-systems-become-your-legacy/

Global FinTech Series interview: https://www.recvue.com/blog/qa-with-recvues-ceo/?utm_content=172261129&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin&hss_channel=lcp-6640106

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Adam: (00:05)
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.

Mitch: (00:54)
Why is it important now more than ever for companies to implement new financial systems within their businesses?

Nishant: (01:01)
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.

Mitch: (01:53)
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?

Nishant: (02:11)
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.

Mitch: (03:31)
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.

Nishant: (04:01)
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.

Mitch: (04:48)
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.

Nishant: (05:19)
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.

Mitch: (07:25)
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?

Nishant: (07:46)
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 t...