This episode features Sam Burns, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer at IGM Financial. Sam discusses building a secure and scalable digital foundation for IGM’s wealth and asset management businesses, the evolution of his “earn the right” philosophy that balances stability with innovation, and how AI, cloud, and intelligent collaboration are shaping the future of client and advisor experiences.
This episode features Sam Burns, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer at IGM Financial. Sam shares how IGM is building a secure and scalable technology foundation that empowers advisors, clients, and employees across its wealth and asset management businesses. He discusses the evolution of his “earn the right” philosophy, the critical balance between stability and innovation, and how cloud transformation, data strategy, and AI are reshaping client experiences. Sam reflects on lessons learned from past transformations, from scaling SaaS to navigating FinTech disruption, and offers a forward look at how conversational agents and intelligent collaboration will define the next era of digital engagement. Throughout the conversation, he emphasizes trust, resilience, and the power of people in driving meaningful, sustainable innovation.
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Guest Bio:
Sam Burns is the Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer for IGM Financial Inc. In this role, Sam is responsible for steering the enterprise technology strategy for IGM and its subsidiaries, IG Wealth Management and Mackenzie Investments. His areas of oversight include application technology, program delivery, artificial intelligence (AI), data, technology operations, security risk management, infrastructure, and enterprise architecture.
With over 27 years of experience in leading technology transformation in financial services, Sam has been a guiding force in the digital evolution across our wealth and asset management businesses since joining IGM in 2016.
Prior to joining IGM, Sam held the position of Partner and Managing Director at Accenture, where he led global programs focused on strategy and technology solutions. His previous experience also includes senior global leadership roles in technology services, fintech and banking industries.
Sam holds an Honours Bachelor of Business Administration Degree from Brock University.
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Guest Quote
“We have to earn the right in our technology organization to talk about the great things that can move our business forward... Priority one is safe, secure, stable platforms. If we don't have that, we get in front of our businesses. We impede them from being successful and us as a firm from being successful.
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[00:00:00] Sam Burns: We have to earn the right in our technology organization to talk about the great things that we can help move our business forward. You know, the new AI capabilities. The new digital capabilities, we have to earn that, right?
[00:00:18] Sunny Choudhry: Welcome to Hyperconnected Journeys, the podcast where we explore how enterprises are re-imagining their digital infrastructure to innovate and grow. I'm your host, Sonny Choudhry, and I'm also the Director of Global Enterprise Sales at Tata Communications. Today I'm joined by Sam Burns, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer at IGM Financial.
We're also joined by Raj, Solutioning leader at Tata Communications. Sam, Raj, it's great to have you both here. Thank you.
[00:00:56] Raj Purkayastha: Pleasure, pleasure, sunny. And Sam, looking forward to an exciting discussion. Me too.
[00:01:02] Sunny Choudhry: So we'll jump right into it. We're gonna cover a few segments here today, and it's really about talking about the now and the transformation from before. So we'll just, we'll just kick it off here. So let, let's, let's, let's start, start with a now.
So, scaling with purpose is the theme of this segment. Sam, I wanna start with the present. IGM Financial supports millions of Canadians through its wealth and asset management business. From a CIO's perspective, from your perspective, what are your top priorities in ensuring the technology backbone can scale reliably within the business?
[00:01:52] Sam Burns: Yeah, I, um, so first of all. Uh, good question. You know, there, there's so many priorities for myself and, you know, my peers that sit in this seat, but I could probably, I could probably boil it down to three. And these are, there's a phrase I'm gonna start with. It's called Earning the Right. Um. We have to earn the right in our technology organization to talk about the great things that we can help move our business forward.
You know, the new AI capabilities. The new digital capabilities, we have to earn that, right? And what I mean by that is we can't get in front of our businesses. So priority one is safe, secure, stable platforms. If we don't have that, uh, we get in front of our businesses, we impede them from being successful and us as a firm for being successful.
So, so we kind of, we position it as earning the right and, um, that's, that's priority one. And those platforms need to be not just secure, they need to be stable but also run efficiently. Like, you know, we're moving, uh, we're in the cloud, we gotta make sure we operate that in an efficient manner. So that's kind of, that's priority one.
Priority two I, I just really simplifies. Um, if we've earned the right to do that, what are we doing? Well, we're, we're delivering great experiences. That's what we do in the, in, in my CO or CIO organization. Those great experiences range from, uh, our clients. Uh, to our advisors and then to our employees. And so if we can deliver great experiences, it could be in the fact that, you know, these types of interactions work every day, uh, to financial planning experiences for our clients, uh, to making sure our advisors can see, you know, consolidated views of their clients, uh, to making sure our quantitative investing team.
Can Great do, you know, great analysis to create a, an edge, uh, for them, uh, in their portfolio and their portfolio management capabilities. So that spectrum is just about delivering great experiences. So I really see it as those two. And then the third is, um. One thing I've learned in, you know, my career over the this, uh, time is you can't do any of the first two unless you got great people.
And so technology is, uh, is at a wonderful time right now. Um, and you know what, the best way to deliver on those first two priorities is just to have great people and have awesome people. People that care. People that'll walk in and wanna make a difference every day. And sometimes it's hard to find those people no matter where they're in.
Uh, sometimes it's harder in technology, but I feel this time right now in technology, you get some great people.
[00:04:39] Sunny Choudhry: Yeah. So the people go a long way, right? You got the best.
[00:04:44] Raj Purkayastha: I, I really like. Sorry. I'd really like the point that he said earning the, the right, uh, you know, I've not really heard it so succinctly.
Anywhere else or from anyone else. Uh, yeah. Love it.
[00:04:59] Sam Burns: You know, you know, I'll give you a little story. It started with, uh. It was a, the CCEO for one of our companies, so IGM Financial is really set up wealth and asset management and then we have kind of heads of each of those. And we have a CEO that runs IGM.
Uh, and you know, we were in a time a couple years ago where our systems weren't as stable. Um, and so we were having some issues, advisors were noticing it and um, and it was great. You know, it was hard to have a conversation that says, well, how do I deliver this next great experience when the experience we're delivering right now is not great?
And so I think I, I said it in one of those meetings. I said, we, we, meaning I and my organization, we need to earn the right to be able to sit in front of you and your business teams to be able to say, no, no, no. Let's, let's take this to the next level. Um, and it came outta that conversation and then we coined it in our strategy.
We refreshed our strategy about a year and a half ago and said, guys, like, let's just make sure we earn the right to have those really innovative, great conversations every day. Um, and if you think of those, those. Many technology organizations and the board and C-suite, et cetera. You seem to talk about the 20 or 30%, the cool projects, the things we're doing, the great experiences enabled.
And then in technology, the 70% of what we do is making sure the stuff runs every day, uh, and it runs well and it's safe and secure and we're, so, I think we can't lose sight of that. Yeah. Well, well,
[00:06:32] Sunny Choudhry: well said. And, and, and Raj, if we go to you, you know when, when you look at. Financial services more broadly, you know, what do you think are the best practices that you're seeing, you know, um, in the, in that industry with scaling network infrastructure?
So remaining helping these companies remain both secure and agile at the same time?
[00:06:58] Raj Purkayastha: You know, when we think about financial industry, right? Uh. One of the first things that I think about is that this industry is extremely complex, not because of, you know, what Sam just mentioned in terms of, uh, you know, what the great customer experience should be earning the right, uh, but also because it has very strict policies, regulations, et cetera.
And therefore, if you look at this industry, the move to cloud. Is has been a bit slow, right? And, uh, it has started over, over the last few years, but this industry still has some data centers. Now, when you think about a combination of meeting the policy, the regulation, and, and sunny, when I'm talking about regulation policy, these are very, very region specific, right?
Uh, so. You know, in, in a specific region, it'll be something else to other region, it'll be something else, and so on and so forth. So the complexity is very, very high. With that comes the complexity that you are going to the cloud because you have some workloads in the cloud, and Sam, I'm sure you'll agree to this, there'll be some workloads, which is stay on the cloud, some workloads, which is there in, uh, your data centers and some workloads which are in public clouds, GCP as your, whatever the case may be, right?
So the network therefore becomes a bit more complex here. And, and this is where, you know, the need for a blueprint, which, which then says that if I'm going to launch a new application, how am I going to do it? You know, the agility of it will be defined by that, right? Because if you're going to discover for each application, each segment, each new product.
What are the things that you do from a network perspective? It'll be a catch up game. And, you know, earning the right will not not be met. Right. You'll not earn the right, as Sam was mentioning. So, uh, you know, I really believe that while this, the whole thing is complex, if you can define, this is my GoTo strategy.
This is how my blueprint looks like. It's easier for us to have a much more agile and a much more, uh, you know, a, a, a strategy which can respond faster.
[00:09:28] Sunny Choudhry: Yeah. It's, it's really insightful, uh, Raj, and, you know, that, that, that kind of takes me to my, to my next question here for you, Sam, when, when you look at cloud interactions that, that are evolving.
Very quickly, especially right now. Um, how has IGMs use of collaboration platforms changed the way financial advisors and clients connect in, in real time?
[00:09:59] Sam Burns: Yeah, I think of it as in two areas. Um, the first is the foundations. So, and the language. And what do I mean by that is I, I think to have great collaboration with your clients or advisors or employees.
You, you gotta be able to be seeing the same things. You gotta be able to speak the same language, so to speak. So, uh, what we've done, uh, in our wealth area, we spent a lot of time on making sure we have an integrated environment, uh, that our advisors can see the right things from our clients that are, that, um, you know, clients can see the appropriate stuff they wanna see, and then you overlay collaboration on top of it.
So. You know, they're speaking the same language. They're looking at the same document. You know, they're, um, they're being able to collaborate around that common understanding, whether it's a document, whether it's a financial plan, whether it's a, it's a, um, you know, it's a transaction that they're disputing.
You know, um, we, we've created this environment where we can foster. That type of collaboration on a common set of language or data points, I guess is the right term. And then we overlay the collaboration on top of that. So we use different channels. I think the, you know, someone asked me, I was at a, a recent event, um, last week and I had a, one of the best questions I've had asked for a long time and, and uh, and she asked me, she said, Hey, you know, what's the most important decision you've made in the last 10 years?
Uh, and I said, oh, that's a tough one. Um. And it, and it actually was an, it was around just before COVID, and it was, we were a little bit farther behind and we made some decisions on Microsoft and rolling out the suite of productivity tools, um, you know, knocking on wood. I remember, uh, and I said, Hey, listen, a bunch of us of our leadership team sat in a room and we said, Hey, let's test the network.
Has everybody we ever tested it with, everybody working from home. And so, uh, we tested, we never came back, you know, it was a couple years later, you know, with all the COVID stuff happening. But the decision to work towards, you know, kind of a new modern collaboration suite and user technology and that, and we were Microsoft shop, um, that was a great decision in hindsight 'cause we were all remotely, but we'd not, we'd not been able to do, you know, video calls, teams calls, whatever you said.
It could be Zoom or, or whatever. But, um. That, uh, ability for us to collaborate anchors in this instance, you know, Microsoft was one of the tools. We have others, but we all, we, we really integrate. We integrate these environments, we create the common language, and I think just having the tools back and forth in our business, like the chat and video is not as powerful unless you have.
The ability to have a common view of what you're talking about, specifically between client and advisors and end operations and contact center. And so just having that common view in data is, is super important.
[00:13:07] Sunny Choudhry: Yeah. And, and Raj, I wanna get your vantage point on this as well, but before I go there, Sam, what about security risk management?
I mean, just protecting clients. And it, while still enabling innovation, while keeping them protected. Just quickly on
[00:13:26] Sam Burns: that, yeah, I mean it, it, it comes back to maybe my first priority, which is like, we have to make sure everything we're doing is secure and is we're, we're, we're managing the privacy aspects of it.
We're in financial services. Roger mentioned it's a complex environment, highly regulated. Regulated. So, you know, we, um. We've spent a lot of time doing, um, data classification. So we know every piece of data element in our environment, how it's classified from a privacy and regulatory perspective. And that dictates, you know, what we can share and what we can't share in some of these collaboration.
Uh, back to your point, Sonny, you know, if we know it's classified as this, we know it doesn't get actually we use in technology, make sure it doesn't get presented for a collaboration conversation. Um, if we have a highly piece of confidential information that we classified, for instance, in our. Asset management world.
That is a, an algorithm our quantitative team uses for their investing strategies. Well, that's, that's ip, that's confidential information. When we look at large language models and using some of the external tools that are out there, well we, we limit that stuff. We, we don't, we don't allow that to get exchanged 'cause it is confidential for us.
So I think, you know, you're, you're quite, we think about data and the classification of data. And then anchor that on to, you know, how we want to collaborate. And if it's items that we shouldn't be showing to collaborate on, we don't. Okay. Okay.
[00:15:00] Sunny Choudhry: No, thank you for that. And, uh, uh, Raj, from your vantage point, I mean just, uh, on both items, right?
The collaboration platform, not just internally, but how it's reshaping the customer experience, uh, the client facing experience, if you will. And then also about what. Sam just mentioned with the trust, with customers, clients.
[00:15:27] Raj Purkayastha: Yeah. So, you know, uh, when I think about this industry, uh, I think the primary thing that it is driven on is experience,
[00:15:36] Sunny Choudhry: right?
[00:15:37] Raj Purkayastha: Uh, if I don't have the greatest experience in this industry, I may be looking for something else. Uh, so, uh, I'm sure Sam, you are also, you know, you talked about experience in the first segment, right? So I'm sure you're also obsessed with experience, right? Whether it's both internal and external, external, more so client experience is, is really, really paramount at this point of time.
Now, when I think about this industry, therefore, uh, you know, to drive experience, one is, you know, addressing what the client wants. Okay. And second is also taking on in the market something the client, uh, you know, has really not thought about it, but it delights them. Right? I'll give you an example for me.
Uh, I hate filling force, and you know, I'm sure you, you know what I'm talking about, Sam. Your forms are large, they're huge, right? And they're like, you know, 50 signatures that I, I hate that,
[00:16:42] Sunny Choudhry: right?
[00:16:43] Raj Purkayastha: Uh, now. I think about this, that if I'm on a, on a phone with one of your contacts in the person, when I'm talking about the details, it gets filled in the, in the form.
You know, I'd love it. Know I don't have to fill, and then somebody just sends it on DocuSign, you know, I can sign it so I don't have to, you know, know people don't use their hands any much, any which way at this point of time. So you use do DocuSign design. That's experience, but that is expected. Then you can do something which the client doesn't expect, right?
Which is where you, you kind of bring in that delight. Now when you think about all these things, sunny, it's also important to your second part of the question, which is on security. This industry, as I mentioned, and Sam also reflected on, is extremely conscious about policies, the regulations, the securities aspects of it, and it's regional in nature.
Right? Therefore, when I'm using, uh, a new tool, uh, you know, just like Sam mentioned, they've built a, a new tool which does something, which is their ip. Where is it pulling data from? Right? Where is it storing data? Those things become, the entire data flow becomes extremely important because, you know, if you're, if you, you cannot answer where the PIA data is, for example, it, it'll be a red flag, right?
Uh, security from, from, uh, from the way it is happening today is, is mostly, you know, in the. The, the module is not very preemptive in nature, uh, and the industry is saying that it is going to move into preemptive where you don't really wait for the attack. To happen and then take, you know, uh, the next decisions, the models that is typically used.
I'm not gonna be named those models, but it's, it's moving into the preemptive model where, you know, you know, if, if something needs to be done and you do it, and therefore you know, you're more than secure, right? Specifically with AI attacks coming in, you know, these kind of models. I believe Sunny is going to be the next next.
Baseline ask, right? It's, it's not going to be out there. You know, somebody's going to look at it and say, oh, I want that, you know, five years down the line, uh, that's gonna change.
[00:19:14] Sam Burns: Raj, I think, um, you may, you probably agree, but if you, your question, security versus experience, I think probably 10 years ago, maybe even five years ago, um, sometimes they were at odds.
Yeah. Um, I, I think now. They're more closer together than ever. You know, I think, um, I think consumer behavior has changed. We expect security, uh, as consumers. You know, if I don't see an MFA pop up on my, my enterprise that I'm dealing with, I'm what's going on? You're not secure. Like maybe five years ago that would've been.
Oh, I gotta hit another button. I gotta hit these steps. Like, so I think it's changed. I think the consumer behavior's changed and I think the technology now allows it to be actually deliver a good experience, uh, and, and, and not impede it. So I, I see the kind of at odds really, really disappearing. Yeah. Um, even more so in as we we go the next five years.
[00:20:16] Raj Purkayastha: A hundred percent. I totally agree with
[00:20:18] Sam Burns: that.
[00:20:22] Sunny Choudhry: That was a, that was a great, uh, segment, and it's today's reality, um, scaling, securing and, and connecting, if you will. Uh, but as with most, most transformations, the journey here was not linear. Let's s rewind a little bit. Let's take a look back at how things have changed and, and we'll spend a just a few moment, few minutes on this, on this segment.
Because we also wanna talk about innovation a little bit more in future thinking, but the then versus the now and the transformation story behind it. Sam, looking back, uh, you've been in tech leadership for 27, more than 27 years. Um, was there a pivotal moment that changed the way you approach digital infrastructure?
[00:21:20] Sam Burns: Yeah, great. Great question. I, I think there in my head there's um, there's probably three. The first is the in, that's called the scaling of SaaS, you know, software as a service. Um, I think when that started to, you know, really become at scale, that changed, changed things, it changed the way, you know. People who ran technology and, and were involved in technology business teams thought about how to consume, buy, and enable technology.
So I think SA at scale and then, you know, again, you move forward. The next one was a little bit more recent, which was. The onslaught of kind of FinTech, um, and, you know, the innovation they drove and are driving, um, you know, a combination of changing the way traditional SaaS models work. Definitely changing, you know, kind of legacy custom home built stuff and really trying to think differently about a complicated industry and combining that with technology.
And so I think that's the second in my head. And the third, we're just getting into. Um, which is ai. Um, you know, AI has been happening for a long time, machine learning, et cetera, but the ability and the leaps and bounds of generative ai, uh, you know, the onslaughts of agents coming, the, that, that to me is the next wave of change.
Um, and it's here, but I don't think. Not quite at scale yet in certain areas, but, uh, those are my three. If you kinda look at it tho, those are the ones that if you look back at most firms and whether, what industry, you could probably look at them and go, those were significant pivot points.
[00:23:07] Sunny Choudhry: Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's, that's really interesting.
And, and, and Raj, what, what do you think about, about this, you know, across, across the enterprises you worked with? Uh, I mean, there's. Shifts that have occurred both cultural and organizational and, you know, how has that helped companies leave legacy thinking, not just systems?
[00:23:33] Raj Purkayastha: You know, I, I remember one, uh, say, which, which I heard long time back that, uh, culture eats, uh, strategy for breakfast.
I'm sure Sam referred that. Right. Uh. You know, when you think about legacy, legacy is both good and not so good. Legacy from a culture perspective is extremely good, right? If you be a culture of trust, like for example, what Tara is known for, that's a very good thing and it should be. Okay. Legacy when it comes to technology is not that good because, you know, it, it leads to obsolete.
It leads to, you know, not being in line with your competition, not being in line with what your clients want, right? So when I, when I think about legacy, and when I think about, you know, what the companies represent, it's, it's a balance, right? In lot of companies which have been there for some time, you know, decades, for example, there will be legacy.
You cannot not have that, right? It's if you're a cloud first company, you're born in 2015, maybe you don't have any legacy, but if you're somebody who is. You know, born in early 2000, or, you know, in the late 1990s, you'll have some legacy. It cannot be held because at the end of the day, no CFO in the world will say, okay, I've, I wrote a a hundred million dollars check.
Let's write it off. No worries. Right? Sam, if you, if you meet a CFO like that, please introduce me. I'd be more than happy to talk to him or her for days. Right. So, um. And the point is, sari, how do, do we work together? Right? And, and that's the mix that we need to think about out here. The mix between the culture, uh, the legacy, uh, in terms of it infra or telecom infra, and then the new infra and the, uh, and telecom, right?
How does it work together? How the, the whole thing scales. How the whole thing maps together, right? And, and how does somebody actually, you know, ensure that. The great experience first, you know, the, the, uh, the table stakes, which is earning the right, as Sam mentioned, and then also driving the experience.
How are you doing that with that? Right. And, and Sam, I'm sure you have lot of stories, uh, even now to share in your present architecture. We are driving these through a combination of all three things that I just talked about, right?
[00:26:09] Sam Burns: Yeah. One, you know, um, one of the things when I, when. I joined here and we've been refreshing ever since.
We're in financial services, you know, and you're gonna have a, I agree with you guys. A mix between legacy and new. Um, I, our architecture per se, at the enterprise level is, we really looked at this and said this, we, we gotta have a world where we'll have both, I call it a, we call it a surround strategy. Um.
Meaning, um, we spent a lot of time on building a fairly robust integration layer, uh, that will allow us to plug in and plug out as we, as we, as we move forward on the journey. Um. You know, a plug out would be maybe a piece of legacy tech, like a CRM platform, um, and plug in the new one. Uh, and we, we then said, once we have some of these foundations in place, can we, what, what would then be the roadmap for plugging in and out?
Yeah. And you know, we looked at all, you know, experience, risk, uh, cost, um. You know, what is the, what is the, what does this piece of tech actually do? And that links to the risk piece. And so we kind of put parameters around. Okay. You know, a roadmap that says when do we get the legacy out or, or do we not like some of this stuff?
To your point, we keep and we surround it. With the other non legacy items. So that's how we've looked at o one of the things. Um, and we're not done, you know, we still have some components. Um, I think most financial ser services firms would still always have some, depending on, you know, their life stage and their size and scale.
Um, but one of the things I have found through that journey is on the risk side. Uh, not often is it the technology and some of these legacy, you know, they're, they're built well, they run well. Um, it's more around the speed and flexibility that comes associated with those. And some of those you don't get it, but it's usually the talent I've found.
Um, and that we've done a lot of analysis with, like retiring talent that know these legacy systems that are not around anymore. Um. All languages that nobody really uses anymore. You know, how do you, how do you deal with that? And that's what I find typically is one of the major drivers to say, listen, like we need to get off this piece and we need to unplug it and plug something else in.
It's, so it's really the, that kind of plug and play, mid-tier surround strategy that then drove our roadmap for us on how we deal with legacy.
[00:28:51] Raj Purkayastha: Yeah. And maybe I'll add one thing, Sonny, on top of what Sam mentioned. Specifically when it comes to New Tech. The other thing that Sam, I'm sure worries about is adoption, right?
Adoption of new technology is not what, you know, everybody thinks that, oh, I'm gonna plug in something and everybody's gonna start using it. Never happens, right? Right. So while your business case may look positive in six, nine months, in reality it may actually look positive in 18 months because the adoption never happened in the first six months, right?
People said, oh, I like that last ui. This new UI is not intuitive, blah, blah, blah. You know, a lot of feedback will come, come like that, Sam. Right? And finally there'll be trainings, there'll be push, and then they'll say, oh, you know what? I like this new one. It's better. Uh, and, and then they'll start using it.
And in the, in the beginning also what will happen is people will do mistakes. And that may also lead to some security concerns. Right. Uh, so, you know, it's a, it's a mix of mixed bag of things, which I'm sure Sam has to handle. Uh, you know, when legacy, everything known. Uh, but things are not that flexible.
Due adoption problems, security bugs, uh, people issues and, and you know how to take things forward and, and meet the first two things that we said. Right. Uh, table stakes and experience. Mm-hmm.
[00:30:22] Sam Burns: Yeah. On the adoption front. Yeah. I mean, it's, um. It's funny, you have, uh, you have some things that are just so ingrained in the business process that you're gonna have to do it.
Like I, you know, our workforce productivity tools, you know, I'd say, you know, of the things we use every day, it's 99% adoption. 'cause it's just ingrained in what we do. And then there's other pieces where you go, it's, it's, it's not there. One of the things, um, I've found successful is, is that partnership with your business teams, um.
Is, you know, whether it comes through a product owner type setup in an agile delivery or persistent teams, but really that person who owns it from a business perspective that, um, is, is usually not in technology, but it's a partnership with them that says, okay, well we have this technology out there now how do we get people to use it?
You know, one of the things we've done here is we've actually set up a, a kind of a. SWAT team, if you will, that um, the technology's there. They know our business processes from an advisor perspective and our wealth businesses, and they actually go and support, you know, people do adopt the, the technology.
So that's a, that's an example. Others is the product owner. But engaging with the business teams who know the business process the best to me is what drives the, the highest adoption.
[00:31:40] Sunny Choudhry: Yeah. Great, great perspective, um, for both of you on how far things have come. Now let's turn to the future. Because the next wave of AI is probably a few waves look remaining, uh, data and edge technologies is already reshaping what's possible.
So our final segment here is gonna be about innovation and future thinking. Uh, Sam, first to you. Uh, I want to know as IGM continues to invest in ai. And advanced data platforms. How are you preparing your infrastructure to support things like AI driven insights and IO OT at the edge of client interactions?
[00:32:32] Sam Burns: Yeah, it's, um, as I mentioned earlier, I think it's the next, you know, next step, the, the wave that's upon us now. But, and I agree with you, there's many more to come here. Um. S so the, if I describe a little bit about our journey over the last, and this is a fast journey, many of the others 18 to 24 months.
Um, you know, one of the first things we did is so we, we leveraged our partners and different MO and partnership models we have, but we wanted to get, um. We wanted to get some of these conversational AI components in people's hands, so as quickly as we could, so we scaled that very quickly so people could use it, um, in a secure fashion.
Um, it was conversational ai, it was simple prompts. It was people could get it and they're going, oh, they can use it at home, right? If they're pulling up their, you know, whatever tool they'd wanna use at home. But in the enterprise, we didn't have something yet. And so we went very quickly to say, let's get something.
We know it's secure, we know it's good, and they get people to use it. And so people started using it, but now they're understanding how they move, how they're getting out into their business processes. Um, but I. It, you know, that was kind of step one. And then step two is we said, all right, well this space is moving so quickly.
To your point around architecture and how we think about how we, how we're gonna. Be, be agile enough, if that's the right word, to adopt some of this change, um, and these new capabilities. And so we've really employed and spent some time thinking about an open architecture in the AI space. And what I mean by that is we, we designed a open architecture in a way that we know we will have, I will call it very specific custom bespoke models for specific areas of our business.
Um, we know we will have. Um, more generalist models, conversational components. Some of that might be enterprise, some of that might be specific for business, but we know these different kind of models exist and that's out there. We know we will have, um, agents across our environments. Um, and, and some will be, again, very specialized and so will we general.
So we've kind of set up this architecture in order to be able to accommodate this. Um. With a few things is one is making sure none of this stuff works without the right data and foundational data, as you know, so that, you know, even if we were in a SaaS or um, you know, a commercial off the shelf type of solution, we can get access to that data to enable some of these models, whether they're generic or they're not.
So first is kind of tr get people to try it and understand it in the business process of the enterprise. And second is, um, really. Create an environment that has an open architecture that allows us to kind of build and create these models either on our own or rent them or buy them in a secure manner so that that's how we're thinking about it technically.
Uh, and then outside of that, um, we're really putting a lot of focus in with we're, what I love about the way we're approaching it as a firm is, um, it's not just technology driven. I think AI is, is a technology, um, and we've gotta put the right risks in cyber and controls around it that you would with any piece of technology.
Um, but it, but I love the fact that it is so profound it can change the way we do business and our business processes, so that way. You gotta have a business engaged team and then you have to have your talent and resources and human resources team engaged. So we really treat it that way from a business technology and, and human resources and talent perspective.
'cause I think that's the only way people are gonna be successful in the next, you know, 10 waves of this stuff.
[00:36:21] Sunny Choudhry: Yeah. And, and you know, I want Roger, I want, I wanna ask you, I mean, based on what Sam's saying, I mean, there's. It, it's, let's look a little bit broadly, right? Like where, where are you seeing the most practical use cases for AI and automation in the industry today?
[00:36:41] Raj Purkayastha: Yeah, so, very good question. Practical being the, the, the term out here, right? Uh, there are very cool use cases for ai. You know, you can turn your picture into something else. Uh, that's not that cool. Uh, then, uh, uh, practical is specifically when it comes to enterprise, the biggest area that I'm seeing is customer experience.
Omnichannel has been here for some time now, right? We have, we've been sharing omnichannel for 10 years, but then what, what does it really mean when it comes to a, a, a experience of the client from moving to one to the other channel? And then what does it mean for the enterprise of driving those channels?
Right? Can it become agentless for le level one? Is it possible? Uh, can it be more seamless for a client? Uh, can I give better? Uh, you know, offers back to my client. Can I do pet qc? You know, so, you know, being from this industry, I'm sure Sam knows that, uh, it's mandated that you have to do quality check of your contact center.
Right, uh, Sonny today, if you have to do quality check of your calls, a typical, uh, quality check will cost them millions of dollars. I'm not gonna go into details, but not more than 25, 30% of the calls are actually taken into consideration out there because you cannot do all the calls. The volume is too large.
When you look at ai, you can actually do a hundred percent of the course calls at half the cost. Okay, so you know, this is practical, right? So when you think about ai, what it is doing is it is bringing lot of these things in the customer experience area. Which clients like, you know, uh, IGM wanted to do sometime back couldn't do because of either cost or because it took too much time, can do it today.
And that is where I, I would say that, you know, maybe in the next six months to 18 months, you'll see a sea change in the way the the customer interactions happen. In this industry per se, because, you know, this industry is obsessed with, with, uh, experience, right? And there'll be a flood of things which will happen.
I'm a hundred percent sure of this industry from that perspective.
[00:39:19] Sunny Choudhry: I agree.
Yeah,
that's, um, that's a great perspective, Raj. And, and thank you for that. Uh, Sam, I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna go back to you. I'm gonna ask you a little bit of a loaded question here, right? So bear with me. So if you had. A blank canvas to reimagine IGMs next generation digital backbone.
Would you prioritize speed, sustainability or flexibility, but at the same time, you know, how, how do you see all of that evolving over the next, over the next three to five years? Let's just combine, let's do a two-prong question here. If you could answer that for me. So flexibility,
[00:40:00] Sam Burns: speed, or sustainability?
Um, I, me, I prioritize flexibility first. And why is Because I always believe the best approach is to have options. Um, and not to get anchored or pigeonholed into something you have to do versus something you chose to do. So I think flexibility is one. Um. I think if you have the right, whether you're talking about a flexible architecture or open architectures or you're talking about, um, how you set up your digital backbone, I think if you have that flexibility, you can move at pace.
You can move at speed 'cause you've got the right partners in place. And if I come to our example, you know, the kind of. Plug and play, build approach, um, and or, or buy approach depending on how you wanna plug in for the certain area. But if you select that along the right partner in the right way, I think it's a, I think it leads to your third point, which is sustainability.
And my definition is long term. Um, and that, you know, you've got something that you can build with over time. It's not a acute and limited use case. Um, and so I think of it in that order, you know, flexibility, you know, to drive options so you don't get cornered into something which should drive, you know, the, the, the right speed, you know, if you pick the right partners.
And that should be for the right, right. Duration.
[00:41:31] Raj Purkayastha: Brilliant. Love it.
[00:41:33] Sunny Choudhry: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and you know, before you, Sam, before you get to the other piece of looking ahead, you know, Raj, if you could just jump in here and just provide your thoughts, and you touched upon this earlier, but now how, how are you seeing enterprise's design networks, especially, you know, with the growing risk of cyber threats?
[00:41:59] Raj Purkayastha: Um. You know, it's still a mystery, but then, uh, it's a good problem because, uh, see what, what Sam just mentioned is, is extremely interesting because many CIOs will agree to Sam. Uh, and if, if they're not, they do not have a concrete thought, I'm sure after this podcast, they're gonna say, let me follow Sam.
Right? I'm Sam. You'll get some mails, I'm sure after this. The, uh, you know, in, you've heard me before, uh, you know, I, there is one recording word that I use, blueprint. It is so very important. Many a times people just dive into execution. Without the strategy and the blueprint, it's not gonna go anywhere. And, uh, you know, blueprints, sunny is never, never about one thing.
It's, it's about the entire thing. Uh, you know, when you think about the network, what is it serving? It's serving the business. Business is serving the clients. Okay. How is it playing a role now if you just build a, a network blueprint for connecting the offices. Believe me, it's, it's not what Sam mentioned, right?
When he is talking about flexibility in the core, flexibility in the blueprint, what he's saying is, in my blueprint, which is serving the, the client or the, the entire business flow, where does network play a role? Where does, you know, compute play a role? Where does the applications play a role? And so on and so forth.
In that, what can I plug in, what can I plug out? You know, who will be my partners? And so on and so forth. Now this is where, you know, think about, you know, to simplify network. Network is connecting. Left to the right. Left is the users, clients, iot devices, so on and so forth, and right is the application which is on cloud or data center or, or you know, wherever else, right?
SaaS. So you connect left to the right in a secure manner at the most optimal cost, right? Without complicating the whole thing. Now, when you think about connectivity, it's a combination of lan, then van, then overlay, which is SD on top of it. Then multi-cloud, and then taking care of the security and the landing zone so that you know, you're not making a huge mess of the multicloud and, and the MCN architecture, right?
Please, once you define that, this is how my blueprint is going to look like tomorrow. When you add a cloud instance, it's going to be easy for you tomorrow. When you add an application, it's going to be easy for you tomorrow. When you go to a SaaS layer, it's going to be easy for you, right? So the repetitive mantra out here, it says blueprint.
Ensure that it can take plugins as Sam correctly mentioned, and choose the partners who can actually scale. And then is sustainable, or, you know, somebody who can take you to the future and doesn't either become, you know, vendor risk is they become bankrupt and tech risk is, you become obstinate, right? So these two things should not happen, and they should actually take you to the future.
[00:45:22] Sunny Choudhry: Oh, thank you for that, Raj. Okay, Sam, final statement here. All right. Um, just we wanna know three to five years ahead or. Or however long you see fit Collaboration platforms, how are they going evolve to help advisors, clients stay connected?
[00:45:40] Sam Burns: I, I I, I'm gonna steal, I was at an event last week. Uh, I'm gonna steal, uh, an individual who posed a question.
He says, I don't know if we're ever in, we gonna need websites in the future. Um, I, I, I think we're gonna be interacting with a conversational. Bought an agent. Um, and, and then I think humans will be able to interact with that. So it'd be a tri-party. I don't know if it's five years, maybe some of that's happening in five years at this pace.
But I think that collaboration, this traditional, it'd be multim mediums, it'd be agents, people. Clients in our space, advisors, um, could be institutional clients, but you know, I, I do think that whole hardening of that agent's capability in collaboration is gonna happen.
[00:46:34] Raj Purkayastha: Can I, can I add something here, Sam?
Just one step forward. What I really think is gonna happen is that there'll be an agent of Sam, which we'll be talking to, whichever agent that Sam wants to talk to, you will not be doing the talking anymore. Right, because, and that will be the next level of collaboration where you will say, for example, today what we we do is to a typical AI like chat, GPT, we ask a question, it goes, searches, gives you a consolidated report, right?
What you will do is you'll tell your agent, I wanna do this following things. This is my calendar. What can you automate? You know, go and talk to. You know, for example, my broadband clear to do this, my insurance agent to do that, and so on and so forth. And that is the new, you know, task layer, which will come in and, uh, you know, your productivity, my productivity will just go up is, is what I really think.
[00:47:34] Sunny Choudhry: Excellent, excellent. So that brings us. To the end of this episode of Hyperconnected Journeys. A big thank you to the both of you, Sam, for sharing how IGM Financial is building a resilient and innovative technology foundation. And to you, Raj, for bringing us the broader industry lens. We hope this conversation gave you a glimpse into how financial services are embracing digital transformation, scaling with purpose, and preparing for a future shaped by ai.
And connected collaboration. Don't forget to subscribe and hope you can join us again. Thank you. Thank you.