EY veteran Binu Koshy, who quit a promising career to set up a start-up, Exponential Digital Technologies (10xDS) two years ago, has since consolidated his base in West Asia and is reaching out further afield. “We’ve clients in the UK, where we partner with consulting firms; we are also present in the US, South Africa and Australia,” Koshy told BusinessLine here on a recent visit.

AUTOMATION, NICHE AREA

Robotic process automation (RPA) is his niche area of work. While the initial focus was West Asia, with the first office being set up in Bahrain, the company is testing markets such as Japan and Africa.

“In the Middle-East, we have offices in Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE. Of the industries we are present in financial services, airlines, and government deserve special mention.”

At EY, Koshy set up its multi-million dollar Global Delivery Services facility from scratch in Thiruvananthapuram. Bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, he left EY as leader of its Innovation Hub here, along with seven 'core' colleagues, to set up 10xDS.

“We’re starting with automation. That’s one concept behind all things disrupting our lives,” Koshy, who was a Global Partner at EY, told this correspondent soon after starting out on his entrepreneurial venture.

Two years hence, 10xDS has worked on some prestigious global projects, some of which have been completed and others that are ongoing. One of his biggest projects is automation of visa processing for one of the Emirates.

ANALYTICS, BIG DATA, AI

This apart, 10xDS has also completed a challenging project for a major airliner there. It now has multiple clients in the banking, government and real estate sectors in Dubai.

The second vertical that it is active in is analytics and big data. And the third is artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.

“When we go to the market, we go with a AAA (triple A) proposition - automation, analytics and AI!,” says Koshy. Except Qatar, his company is present in all the GCC countries.

Today, most management decisions are taken based on data. The biggest issue here is quality of that data, which is sourced from multiple processes.

“There are humans and a machine working on these processes. The errors are created by humans,” Koshy explains.

Anything that is repeatable, predictable and is rule-based can be automated. This is what RPA is all about. Once quality of data is assured, then analytics comes into play.

Based on the past and current data, the analyst can predict what the future is. This is where AI plays a role.

PROXY INNOVATION ARM

Based on quality data, one can write algorithms to help in decision making. Humans get involved here only in exceptional cases. Another vertical that 10xDS is focusing on is cyber security, with banks and FIs being enlisted as clients in India also.

“We’re talking to some of the leading shared services centres and a big Bengaluru-based HR firm. We’re working on a big project for a leading UAE-based exchange house,” Koshy said.

The next is cloud computing, with a team already helping clients to migrate to cloud. The company has got engagements where BOTs running on the cloud try to execute specific work.

“We also work with large organisations as their extended arm for innovation. We come in where organisations do not have the bandwidth to look at emerging technologies.”

Within Kerala, 10xDS has offices in Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi. It proposes to deepen its engagement in the state, especially after it becomes active in blockchain.

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