COVID Blues? FinTechs At Your Service For any business, the most important function is which takes care of and ensures seamless transaction processing

The pandemic has affected almost every aspect of life. While the entire focus so far has been on protecting health, a greater challenge lies ahead as we wrestle to put economic activity back on track as before. Businesses have seen a huge disruption over the past five months starting March 2020 after the government imposed a lockdown to prevent the spread of the deadly virus. Things have just about begun to open up and are expected to limp back to normalcy.

However, all is not lost. Especially for those who have proactively figured out and acted to prevent further disruptions. The most important constituent that has come to the rescue of businesses trying to get back to normal is technology. "No human intervention' being a mantra of sorts, deploying technology to ensure a safe contactless business environment is the only viable way to ensure there are no further disruptions for businesses.

For any business, the most important function is which takes care of and ensures seamless transaction processing. And when it comes to finance, which is called the lifeblood of any business, seamless transaction processing acts as the vital plasma that binds the cells and platelets together that deliver oxygen and keeps life going. What has all this got to do with how fintechs can and have been instrumental in helping corporates in overcoming the disruption set about by COVID? Well, fintech companies have played the heart, helping companies get back on their feet by deploying technology in finance that can help in not only abiding to various protocols of contactless business processes which are bound to become a permanent way of life going forward, but also improvising on the existing systems and processes.

Empowering the Finance Function

Finance is where every aspect of a business culminates. From revenue generation to expense management and from asset building to capital development, everything eventually is about the financial wellbeing and sustainable growth of an organization. What this means is, there is a strong need to empower the financial function to ensure every rupee that flows in or out of the coffers reaches where it is meant to be. Fintech companies that provide technology in finance—are servicing this need of organizations with a whole range of offerings right from helping them in securing working capital to enabling efficient foreign exchange management which eventually leads to better cash flows. So adopting fintech has helped companies to streamline its complex financial functions.

Serving the Top and Bottom Lines

Fintechs will play a vital role going forward in helping companies in their sales management function. Here again seamless transaction processing, right from remote online order processing at various levels (factory, warehouse, retailers) to receivables collections, solutions provided by fintech companies will help in automation and faster turnaround times, not to forget, elimination of the human error to the minimum thereby ensuring lesser leakage and faster churn of finances for businesses—a factor that is very important in case a black swan event like COVID raises its head again.

Supporting The HR Function

Another vital area where fintechs will play a very important role in helping companies get over the COVID disruption is supporting the HR function. People, after all, are the most important assets of any business. Taking care of their needs is of utmost important. Technology infused by fintech companies in this function will go a long way in improving and sustaining growth without disruption. Right from salary pay outs to reimbursement of expenses and statutory deductions, almost every aspect of the HR function has been automated and can be improvised upon given the new paradigm that we are in.

Improving the Banking System

The banking system which has been strengthened by fintechs' various offerings has helped and will continue to help companies in ensuring faster operational turnaround of funds which are essential for keeping the business in good shape.

Responding to crisis is not an option but a compulsion for organizations that are looking at a long-term and sustainable future for themselves. This calls for a very adaptive approach from managements across boards to seek and deploy solutions from the fintech world to ensure zero disruptions and sustainable growth.