Ascent Business Technology Inc, one of the leading global technology solutions companies, is focussed on providing innovative solutions for financial control and business resilience. Headquartered in Singapore, the software product company, founded in 2013 by Kundan Shekhawat, its president & CEO, who has over 20 years of experience (having a stint with the likes of Microsoft and FIS), has already created a significant presence across 10 global locations, including India, the US, Canada, the Middle East, Africa and Singapore. It has a strong R&D centre and an office in Mumbai and marketing & sales hub in Dubai.
Backed by over 100 employees, Ascent Business has grown at a phenomenal CAGR of over 200 per cent in the last two years, on the back of massive transition sweeping across industries, and is now ready for future. Buoyed by the recent traction, the company now looking to clock a revenue of $100 million in the next three years and has a client base of over 50 large enterprises – in diverse sectors, such as banking and insurance; financial services; capital markets and investments; government and NGOs; retail; telecom; networking & IT, hospitality; healthcare and oil & gas.
ICICI Bank, Union Bank, RBL Bank, IDFC, Kotak Mahindra Bank and HCL Technologies are some of its customers in India, while Omantel, Dubai Islamic Bank, Doha Bank, Bank Alzazira, Abu Dhabi Ports, Etihad Airways and Gulf Healthcare International are some of its global clients. About 80 per cent of the company’s business comes from India and the Middle East; however, it is gradually increasing its presence in North America (which contributes 20 per cent of its business today), with offices in New York and Toronto. Given the noticeable traction behind its BCM product (in the aftermath of Covid-19 phenomenon), ABT is planning to make forays into Latin American and European markets in early 2021.
“At Ascent Business, we help businesses stay future-ready with end-to-end reconciliation solutions, rapid damage control and regulatory compliance,” says Shekhawat. “We provide smart solutions for financial control and business resilience through our AI-driven SaaS platforms. Both of our proprietary products are highly advanced in nature, even as these are customer-friendly in terms of usage. Our verticals are witnessing massive traction as businesses are embracing digital resilience and controls”. Shekhawat is building the company into a microcosm of SaaS, AI and ML-driven powerhouse, with all kinds of disciplines working towards a common goal of offering high-quality optimised business solutions, impeccable customer service and a global delivery model.
Reconciliation solution
Of the two platforms/production, AutoRecon is a first-in-industry AI-based reconciliation solution, which offers settlement and regulatory reporting, enterprise-wide scalability, handling of exceptions and complex business processes, while AutoBCM, a web-based multi-tenant automated enterprise software, demonstrates risk mitigation capabilities for managing business continuity and resilience management lifecycles.
In the last few months, during the Covid-19 scenario, the company has witnessed unprecedented traction in its BCM vertical, as businesses have scrambled to maintain business continuity amidst growing challenges. In fact, currently, BCM solutions business contributes almost 60 per cent to the company’s revenue; however, going forward, the high-value financial control or reconciliation business is expected to contribute significantly.
Financial control is a proprietary enterprise reconciliation platform of Ascent Business, which offers unique solutions to the complex and bulk financial transactions. In fact, AutoRecon, the intelligent banking reconciliation software built on next-gen technology, is an end-to-end solution for complex transactions and exceptions, whereas AutoBCM, the business continuity solution, ensures real-time recovery from disruptive events or threats.
“Our fin-tech products providing financial control, which uses AI enabled data management and reconciliation, is the data point,” affirms Shekhawat. “These products can revolutionise operations and quality standards for banking, finance and allied industries like retail, telecom, hospitality, etc. Most importantly, both these products are easily scalable. While we have built up a portfolio of robust products, we have also set up a formidable organisation, which is backed by a strong leadership team, comprising experts and veterans from the industry. In fact our products built on proprietary software are designed and developed by experts with over 200 years of cumulative experience & expertise,” adds the CEO.
As part of Ascent’s shift towards high tech businesses, the company is threading AI throughout its operations, building a library of AI applications applicable to the enterprise. It develops multiple modules, with each module having three engines – a sensing engine, a prediction engine and a recommendation engine. By marshalling this technology, the company intends to become one of the top reconciliation and BCM software providers in the market place.