What's up party people? My name is Sunonny Ray. This is the Sunny Ray Show. I'm going to have Shoma Cena back on the show. She was a guest about a week ago, I think, and we had a little technical difficulty. we're going to talk about how to achieve financial readiness. Stop solving financial problems backwards. Shoma, how you doing?
Hey, I'm doing fine. Thank you, Sunonny, for having me back on the show. It's always a pleas.
Yeah, no, problem. You've got like a very professional setup today. Looking great. Awesome. So, I guess let's dive into it. You know, I will put a link to the previous one. I think we just made it maybe two or three questions in before we I think we hung up the gloves. So, let's let's keep going. you were telling us about your illustrious background and then I was asking I guess why finance out of everything you know you could have built. Maybe before that even just as a little reminder, what is vikaraa.net? can you talk about maybe that just like a minute or two and then we'll go back into the conversation?
Absolutely. Vika is a consulting practice that I have built where we help companies build their finance infrastructure. In simpler words, we modernize financial systems through automation through smarter technology and scalable process so that companies can achieve financial and operational readiness. I got it. That really resonates. Okay. So, I guess yeah, back to the question I was asking. So, why finance out of everything? You know, you could have built Yeah, let's maybe go back to that.
Yes. I'll give you an analogy. Think of blood flowing to the body, human body, right? It's so essential because it carries oxygen and if it doesn't flow to a particular body part your finan your health is at danger right finance is exactly like that it carries information to different units and connects businesses across you know the organization and if the information doesn't come in time or is not trusted you know then it can you know hinder the going forward of an organization. So this is probably the one thing that we should always be talking about and solving because it's the only way we can plan for tomorrow.
I like that. way you think about that because you're right. It is kind of like that, you know, the blood of the business in many ways, right? The oxygen. So in your Am I pronouncing right? How do you pronounce it? Akira.
Alira. years. Yeah. What did the finance team pay outside people to fix that you know nobody inside could.
So with Alkira I have a unique story because first I was their first finance person in Alira and I kind of established the financial systems. this was to bring the foundation of finance and thereafter I decided to go into my entrepreneur venture and by then a whole finance function was there but remember I have said that before across enterprise or startup finance is very lean function so you're always having only so much people doing that kind of work so you could have an accounting team you could have an FPNA and we have a CFO who you know was managing the whole piece. So there is no spot which is for a finance IT and that's what we do is we help bring technology and adopt technology to the finance team and then to the broader users of the company by being the finance IT.
That's fascinating. so I guess what did you have to unlearn from corporate years before you could run you know your own firm?
I think the biggest unlearned was you know in my corporate years have been cemented by enterprise you know financial institutions. So processes structure you know these were what we had and visibility. So you got a role, you got a title, you got the processes and you got a go to go path. this was something I had to unlearn completely because in an entrepreneur world you are first jumping into chaos and then trying to move towards structure.
Yeah, that word definitely reminds me chaos. I like that word. it reminds me of of definitely of business and also of my 2-year-old son. So I guess when you started how did the very first clients actually find you Shama?
So very first clients were all referrals you know people who have had worked with me earlier they kind of knew I think that's how we began the journey. So it's like you know the inner circle who says okay I think she's got a point let's go and give her some work and then that's how we have been continuing to work finance is a very closed and a conservative community for the right reasons because there's data sensitivity. So once you start building confidence and trust then you know the word starts spreading. Hey this is a company that can help us keep our data trusted and also train the people to continue this process.
Right. Got it. And so you were saying you trained as a chartered accountant in India and worked inside ICICI and IDBI. What does that teach you that maybe like a valley you know finance background doesn't?
Okay. I would say the learnings are so different. training as a chartered accountant probably is I would think that it's the only course where you have to not only you know study and pass your exams but you have to have a continuous practical application. So you show up to work every day from the for three years from a and you grow yourself from a junior intern to a senior intern and continue your studies that gives you the real world exposure on how the application has to be. working for financial institutions teaches you especially in the world of banking not only you need to have a micro view of the function that you do but in banking it's all about macroeconomics as well right I can be sitting and doing planning and analysis for the banks that I work without adding the macro view of how the economy is working whether it's of the nation and of the global because we are all connected So these two things completely helped and valley is all about unchecking the check box experimentation. So you know taking that agil agile philosophy and keeping a macro view probably was my I think gave me a head start.
Yeah. What a Yeah, what an interesting view you must have had. So when you walk into a growing company like what's broken in the finance function almost every time?
I think the broken piece is generally processes because think about it when people start a company there is a process that has been set but when the company grows you know from half a million to 25 million where people are still following that process. So the process re-engineering concept is not there. it's not you know it's not consciously built. So people continue the same processes they're very emotionally bound by it and that is probably the only reason major reason which finance functions fail.
Really interesting. So where does technology adoption finance usually fail and is it the tool or the people?
I think it's change management. There's you know we do not talk about change management and we kind of think that's a guest lecture that needs to be done but habits don't change because you got a tool or habits don't change because you tell people that you know you got to get up in the morning and brush your teeth. habits change because you have to inculcate them and that's what change management does. When that is not sponsored only a tool is sponsored or people are sponsored there is a gap. So change management is a glue that brings people process and technology together and it's a continuous process because we growing concern what works today will not work tomorrow.
I love that. So, what's the like hardest part of selling a services business where you know the value is essentially invisible until after they buy?
Yes. I think the hardest part is to let people like I said, you know, change their habits and sponsor a change management. That's probably the hardest part. where we try to sell that is by showing them how you know data needs to be trusted right and how we bring about that trust. So that's definitely a conversation that starts like okay I have these tools I can probably do it and then we try to sell that can you trust your data coming straight from this tool made by this person and the answer is no and that's when we get into those conver deeper conversations.
And you guys brought in outside help right to get your name in front of new companies like what has it actually produced Did you mention that or no?
Oh, the marketing. Oh, the fraction marketing. not really. I like I said, you know, I've kind of worked on that space and I do believe there's an outreach. but this being an industry which is such a trustdriven.
I think word of mouth and referrals are helping our company more than just you know blasting or outreach. But it's always good to discuss information. I think that event marketing where we discuss we bring together or we sharing information that helps more than blasting emails.
What does Vikaraa look like in three years if it goes the way you want?
Okay. The way Vikara will be is will be working on two sections. One is like I said modernizing continuing to modernize the financial systems that would be definitely one of our practice and the second practice will be using technology to fight financial crimes because the more we are going to be hitting on finance and more adopting technology there's going to be more financial crimes happening.
You know yeah consulting firms I guess like rarely take outside money have you ever been tempted or is that the kind of wrong shape for this business.
Like I said, I am defin I would be open to it not today but definitely tomorrow as our ambitions are not just to be a a company which is adop helping organizations adopt technology. We're also going to be going after institutions and organizations fighting financial crime. So I I'll definitely want to expand that because that's again industry agnostic and it can be used by everyone.
Yeah. Wow. Interesting. So what do you believe about finance and technology that maybe most people in your field would would argue with? I think the biggest belief is that we have to bring finance in a place where it can be trusted and the only way to build that is through using technology right because that adoptions can expedite that process. in very simple terms data one more time finance is data sensitive and time sensitive. if I can turn a data faster but I can trust the data it's of no use right so getting to that point is where is our goal and I think now we've begun to see the resonation because it definitely delays the whole process where information we're going to a world where information is like a nancond.
I guess what's an example of a financial crime you think tech could actually prevent that banks missed today.
Sorry, come back again.
You know, you were talking about the financial crimes and potentially building a product that scales earlier. I was going to ask you like what is there like what's an example of a financial crime that you think tech could actually prevent that banks are missing today.
Yeah. I was not actually talking about product. I would still be doing services but I think the.
But you know now with AI now they're saying that services are kind of like products or something you know because you can scale I don't know I.
Of course it's going yes.
Yeah go ahead.
You're absolutely right you know AI is only propelling services because it's the new product where we tell where we help automate the you know workflows and ensuring there is a human compli in review compliance is always there. so in that exactly the same mode think about finance compli crime compliances that can take place and you cannot just have it as a task. You will always need to be having that flags given time and again. technologies come to such a point that now banks are recording your voices so that you know you have bank recognition but there are also people who are using AI to build voice recognition by just giving you that scam call and trying to record that. So we have to fight that and that will only be with some human intervention in place because compliance, discipline, rigor and control has to be put in place, right? Whatever tool you use, real intelligence or artificial intelligence.
Yeah. No, it totally that makes a lot of sense. You know, if a founder could only fix one finance habit this quarter, what should it be? Oh, that's a great one. I think fragmented data, you know, fix your data to ensure that it's all synchronized. That would help the founder to have everything speaking in one language.
I love that. And you know, you said data can move fast but not be trusted. How do you actually measure trust in data? because you should be able to defend it, right? So trust data, a trusted data is something which is well supported and defend it. what are your assumptions? is there a support? How does it come in? You don't make an assumption out of nothing. You make an assumption out of what business use cases you're seeing. So the complete audit trail that you see makes the data trusted. Every tr every transaction that is created comes out of a supporting and an approval chain that makes the data trusted and there's always a control right on whenever you're passing adjustments that makes the data. So and there's nothing going outside because if you take something and then you massage it and then you send it out there's a complete trail lost. So there has to be a complete audit trail and then it becomes defendable to everyone in the company and outside the company. Have you ever walked away from a client because they wanted the tool but not the change? Like and what did that maybe teach you?
I I've not walked away from a client who actually Yeah.
You don't have to name them, but I'm just curious about the story.
Yeah. I did. Yeah. Well, actually that's a very good question. I did walk away from a client who was expecting us to sponsor you know to fight with emotions of his company, you know, his team resistance rather than sponsor us as a change agent. So because he was like the CFO was like I don't want to have friction. I'm like I get that you know if you don't sponsor change management we are not able to establish best practices and we are an external agent who bring in exter who sit on neutral ground and push for gold standards or best practices we can't be sponsoring emotional battles you know that that's not right so I just had to walk away from there and I do believe that it's a learning that you have to be both in both parties have to be invested equally to make the change.
Got it. Well, Shoma, I know we had another like 10 minutes. We've done 20 minutes. I don't want to take more of your time. You've been a gracious guest. I went over all my questions as well. Where do people learn more about you? How do they get in touch with Vikaraa and then maybe right after that I'll land the plane?
Yeah, you can, you know, you can visit our website. You can you know go to our LinkedIn Vikaraa you can you know DM me at chomomas at LinkedIn and yeah happy to have a conversation and understand what's going on with your.
Awesome thank you so much yeah I know these are these are important topics right so founders a lot of them listen to the show so let's yeah great thank you so much I'll see you on the other side just wait for one minute sha cheers everyone.
