LeaderBrief | FSS Director of Global Mktg Arunima Mehta on strategic marketing, digital innovation, and purpose-led brand building

Give us overview of FSS’s core offerings and how they address the evolving needs of the financial/payments industry.

FSS have been leaders in payments technology for the last 33 years. This is what makes us the most trusted brand among the leading banks in India.

We started our journey by listening to our customers; understanding and anticipating their needs better than anyone else in the market.

We were the first on many  fronts – the first to set up a digital banking infrastructure for banks, the first private sector company to initiate interoperability; first to even work on real-time payments in the country, which were precursors for the development that we see today. All this started way back in 1991 when one used to visit the bank branch to withdraw cash. 

What parts of the payments value chain does FSS cover?

FSS has a product portfolio that runs across the payments value chain –  from card issuance, merchant acquiring, payment analytics to digital security, reconciliation and settlement, and ATM monitoring and management.  

And what has FSS’ growth been like, over the past 10 years?

We have increased our global footprint significantly in the last 10 years. We have a strong presence globally in the Middle East, Africa, and APAC.

We have more than 2000 payment experts who are working primarily from the Chennai and Mumbai offices in India, and we also have a strong presence across the globe; one of the reasons we are known to be a company that calls itself “a global company with local understanding.”  

Today, a every business is driven by, and dependent upon the best of technological innovation. What sets FSS apart from other players in the industry when it comes to tech innovation?

FSS brings the knowledge and expertise of the payments domain combined with the technology that will empower financial institutions to meet unseen, unforeseen future needs. This requires a very, very different level of thinking and only comes from understanding the depths of current systems. We have been the pioneers in this space and have built the systems over the years hence can understand.

Our expertise, knowledge of past , present and future of how financial institutions and being rooted in the ground sets us apart from our competitors.

Share any recent technological advancements or developments within FSS that have had a significant impact.

The latest disruptive technology that our extremely talented engineering team has developed is FSS BLAZE™. FSS BLAZE is a payments technology platform which brings on the best of tech the industry has to offer onto a platform-based ecosystem play. So, we set out to create an ecosystem similar to Apple but for products being used within a bank.

The good part is that the ecosystem is not just limited to our products; we are creating a marketplace of leading technology vendors and their offerings onboarded on our platform such that they get access to our bank network, collaborate with us to create new products, and create a robust offering that will help banks go beyond anything that fintech is offering today. 

So, FSS has been doing well on business and growth, and has also been helping Society and economic growth – as we can see from the contribution of its offerings. Let’s shift to leadership skills.  What do you consider to be the most important qualities of a successful leader, and how do you embody these qualities in your own leadership, Arunima?

Quoting from the famous novel The Little Prince  by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to get wood, divide work, and give orders. Instead, let them yearn for the vast and endless sea.” This is what inspires my leadership. Define the vision, give them a shared purpose, and then let the magic happen.

I also believe in giving timely feedback to the team. Don’t wait until the end of the year to give any feedback to your team; keep giving them timely feedback so they can improve and course-correct. I want them to succeed and not wait for them to fail.

The other aspect I strongly believe in is ‘Keep learning’. Be like a sponge; absorb as much as you can. The day you stop learning, that’s the day you will stop growing.

Wonderful. Please share a specific example of a challenging leadership situation you might have faced, and how you effectively navigated it.

Just four months into my new role in healthcare, COVID-19 struck, catching everyone off guard. Since our business premise was built on face-to-face interactions, we faced an existential crisis, because physical interaction became next to impossible. So our primary channel suddenly became irrelevant.

Facing this new reality, we had to pivot and reinvent ourselves swiftly and decisively to survive and excel at the same time.

We crafted a new digital strategy with a multi-channel engagement approach.  This meant building an entirely new platform and content, alongside orchestrating comprehensive training for the team – all while convincing hesitant stakeholders of this new behaviour shift. As a newcomer, I championed the art of setting a shared vision and then pursuing it collectively.

As Global Marketing Head of FSS, what leadership qualities do you believe are essential for driving innovation and growth within the organization?

Becoming an effective leader is a continuous journey where one embraces numerous skills and qualities that will allow an individual to thrive on embracing challenges, fostering connections, adapting to risk tolerance, and empowering people to collaborate and innovate.

Great leaders are never born; they learn, adapt, and thrive by putting themselves in challenging situations. This allows them to innovate and grow simultaneously, cultivated through self-awareness and effort.

A great leader should know the importance of authenticity, be curious, and see the importance of timely adaptability and creativity, yet empathy and resilience.

With these necessary skills, one is positioned for continued success in the dynamic and competitive market segment.

Let’s speak about work culture. How do you foster a culture of collaboration and creativity within your marketing team to achieve strategic objectives?

Communication and listening are at the heart of cultivating a collaborative and creative culture within a team.

As a leader, I believe communication channels should be open and prioritized for team members to freely share their ideas, concerns, feedback and thoughts. This can build the team spirit and allow everyone to recognise individual contributions in the right manner. 

One must remember collaboration is the key, and diverse perspectives bring more creative solutions. If you can leverage cross-organization’s collective expertise, you can achieve strategic goals more effectively.

Finally, the celebration should be done by celebrating the recognition of individual team players who have worked collectively to achieve the task.

As a professional, you have pivoted yourself from the B2C to the B2B landscape. How has that journey been, and what are the main challenges you faced, learnings you learnt, that you can share?

I have learned a lot transitioning from a B2C to a B2B environment. The B2C work experience has laid a solid marketing foundation for me. Hence, the transition was pretty smooth, as the core ideology of encompassing brand strategy, utilizing consumer insights, media planning, and digital media remains the same. With the basic foundation in place, working within a dynamic ecosystem was always easy, allowing me to drive creative outputs aligned with core business objectives.

The real challenge was to get to the core of the B2B segment’s audiences. Unlike in B2C marketing, where the core emphasis is on understanding the underlying needs and preferences of an evolving consumer, B2B marketing requires a deeper understanding of organizational goals and sector needs.

Adapting to this change calibrated my thought process on how to approach and align with the unique dynamics of this specific B2B landscape.

What might have been one of the biggest challenges you faced while making the transition?

One of the biggest hurdles I faced had to do with rethinking my audience. When you are in consumer marketing you tend to spend a majority of your time thinking about the individuals and less about the company that they work for.

In B2B marketing, it is the exact opposite. You are dealing with companies first and indirectly through human beings that comprise those companies.

B2C marketing focuses on determining the desires of customers and B2B marketing focuses on understanding organizational imperatives and relationship longevity.

Making this transition requires a fundamental shift in the way you approach your work.

The B2C segment has a more customer-centric approach. The only difference is that other than B2C, where your customers are your direct users, B2B customers are the immediate service providers who rely on your services. Here, customer satisfaction defines your long-term success. Also, the ability to make data-driven decision-making in the B2B segment across the sector makes you make more informed decisions and drives measurable results that contribute to business growth and success in the long term.

That’s truly very insightful, Arunima, thanks for sharing that. So your customers changed from being individuals in the B2C, to the companies that depend upon your services as a B2B solutions provider. So please tell us about FSS’ marketing strategy, and how you reach out to CXOs and other key decision-makers in the industry.

At FSS, our core marketing strategy revolves around being recognised globally amongst our various stakeholders – including businesses, policymakers and strategic partners. The main goal is to showcase FSS as a leading voice in the payments industry, with a strong point of view about the future of the industry. At the heart of it, I aim to emphasize on customer-centricity.

I believe that every client is different, with distinct needs of their own; hence it is important to provide personalized experiences to our wide customer base through customized content and related programs. Such engagement initiatives help create meaningful interactions and develop deeper understanding of our clients’ dynamic needs.

Thought leadership too is critical to being recognized as a trusted advisor and pioneer within the payments industry. We publish thought leadership research papers, organize proactive events in order to share our views and expertise with the CXOs and other important decision-makers in our organisation.

Overall, we consider marketing as building relationships, emphasizing on thought leadership and creating value for the overall clients and industry members. By remaining true to our values, we believe in determining the future of payments and leaving a permanent mark in the Indian economy and even the global economy.

Remaining on the critical vertical of Marketing that you lead globally at FSS, how do you ensure consistency in brand messaging and position across multiple marketing channels and touchpoints?

As a team, we are dedicated to consistent execution of marketing activities across various touch-points and channels, brand messaging, as well as positioning, which is key to our success at FSS.

We have also created a detailed brand playbook that captures all our brand guidelines, which is a reference point for the entire team in order to ensure that every communication and touch-point represents FSS as a whole.

I had also previously worked with Vodafone, wherein I was also responsible for brand management for multiple circles, so I realise the need for a cohesive brand identity in the geographically and operationally complex environment. This has leveraged our learning to ensure that we have strong processes and protocols in place, which ensure brand consistency in all our marketing activities.

What does your brand playbook cover, and what’s the process at FSS to ensure consistency across all touch points?

Our brand playbook covers the visual aspects such as logo usage, imagery, photography and colour guidelines, and also includes messaging frameworks, tone-of-voice guidelines and key brand values. So, inevitably, this ensures that irrespective of the marketing communication medium or platform, our audience is able to receive a consistent brand experience from us.

We also ensure that the entire organisation is aligned and involved in different marketing processes, empowered to champion our brand standards and deliver them in the best way possible.

For that matter, we also carry out training and workshops with the organisation regularly to ensure that everyone is on the same page with the brand message – it is not just the marketing team’s effort to ensure consistency in brand messaging; it is everyone’s role to contribute towards it. At the same time, we use technology and analytics to track and measure brand communication across different touch-points, in order to help us understand if we need to improve on any areas and fine-tune the strategy, to better engage with our target audience.

So the bottom line is not to just keep our visual identity intact, but also about building trust, credibility and familiarity amongst our stakeholders.

By following our brand playbook and learning on each other’s expertise, we aim to maintain a strong recognizable brand that will reflect FSS’ identity as a leader in the payments industry.

Since you also have customers in other countries, how do you manage marketing globally? What’s your strategy for that?

I believe running a global brand demands a smart strategy and insight into multiple markets, customers and cultures. Our top-level strategy is to customize, collaborate and ensure there is consistency.

Firstly, we understand the need to customize marketing efforts based on each local market’s needs and wants. This requires extensive research into the local trends, customer behaviour and country regulations. Post that, we adjust our message and position to appeal to each country’s target audience.

FSS must maintain brand consistency and messaging across all markets; however, we also understand the need to customise our approach when speaking to distinct market nuances.

Having said that, our approach strikes a balance and we are able to maintain our core brand identity and visual standards while communicating and offering services that respect and align with every local culture. This is what strengthens our brand recognition and credibility, ensuring there is a common brand experience. That’s why, consistency is the most important aspect when it comes to a global marketing strategy.

Looking back on your career, what advice would you give aspiring marketers just starting in the industry?

It is important to keep learning, absorbing and mostly importantly being committed to your work. This will allow you to follow your goals,  and success will inevitably follow.