Sundaram Mutual will leverage technology in a big way to scale upoverall market share, asserts CEO Sunil Subramaniam

Sundaram Mutual will leverage technology in a big way to scale upoverall market share, asserts CEO Sunil Subramaniam

Around the time of 1996 Indian economy prospered and even over took the economy of Germany to became the fourth largest economy after the US, China and Japan. The period helped indigenous enterprises to seize the opportunity.

Wealth management firm Sundaram Asset Management Company Ltd that has been delivering a wide range of financial products, kicked off its finance business exactly in that year – 1996. Since then it has been one of the top asset management companies in South India.

Sundaram Asset Management Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sundaram Finance, is always focused on creating long-term wealth via simple products, with a holistic mission to bridge the gap between savings and investments.

With its root in Chennai, Sundaram Asset Management has not only strengthened its presence across the country but has also delivered outstanding returns over the past few years.

Sundaram Asset Management has presence across business sectors including NBFC, asset management, wealth management and Capital Market investment. Sundaram Mutual, their venture is involved in equity, debt and fund management for retailers.

Over almost six long decades- the firm has gained rich domain expertise by focusing and specializing in wealth management services. Be it equity product or debt product, Sundaram Mutual has helped hundreds of retail investors make a mark of their own and achieve the loftiest business goals.

This full spectrum financial firm's current and previous clientele includes the likes of Wipro, Reliance Indsuatries and Tata. Through its 90 offices and over 10,0000 individual advisers, Sundaram Mutual is serving nearly one and half million customers throughout India.

They run most of their investor awareness programs through their large distributor network. They work with the distributors to identify specific areas of potential and run these template programs.

The company has so far counted Rs 42, 0000 crore in asset management, out of which 20,0000 in debt and Rs 22, 0000 crore in equity asset. Owing to its growth in recent times Sundaram has moved up in the ranking-list of Association of Mutual Fund of India.

The firm ranks 14th in asset management and 9th in terms of equity management. Presently the company is vying with the multinational players in Indian finance and equity market.

Speaking about the most effective mutual fund schemes of their company, Sunil Subramaniam, CEO said, "at the core of our investment philosophy lays our commitment to providing consistent returns through sensible investment management practices.

It is this philosophy that has helped Sundaram Mutual create clearly defined and industry leading products like Sundaram Select Mid Cap and Sundaram Rural India Fund. Select Mid Cap has multiplied 55 times since launch. The other very popular funds are Sundaram SMILE and Sundaram Select Focus."

What are the challenges the industry face currently? asked The CEO Magazine. "The most wonderful thing about our industry is that it's very dynamic and we always say that Change is the one constant in our lives.

Some of the challenges – how can we increase penetration and ensure every individual parks some part of his / her savings through mutual funds, digitization will be a big game changer in our industry – the big question is who can we effectively leverage technology and digital solutions to grow our industry," he replied.

"Digital is at a take off stage for our industry. We are making a serious investment in 2018 in enhancing our digital capabilities. In 2017, we made a big investment in digitizing our internal processes – especially our sales processes.

Mutual funds have to present a digital face to today's new age consumers and investors and that's exactly," he said further on being ask to comment on how they are mitigating those challenges.

Sundaram Mutual is a house of an extremely dedicated and knowledgeable workforce. But the ultimately the credit for achieving this position goes to the CEO, who constantly focus on improving the serviceof the company.

Sunil Subramaniam, CEO of Sundaram Asset Management Company wears the hat of a MBA degree from London based The Open University Business School. There are many feathers on his hat. He is a Certified Associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers. Subramaniam earned his MSc degree from IIT Madras.

He kick-started his journey almost three decades ago and eventually moved to MNC, Public sector and Private sector companies. But through out his career he constantly served the financial universe.

His rich professional experience and excellent business sense proved to be of great value to the business and enabled the company to concrete its position in the market within a short span of time.

Sundaram Mutual assists institutions and individuals to strategically transform and grow in a challenging and fast changing financial landscape. The company has always been a part of growth of small enterprises.

Sundaram Mutual helps SMEs to get best return against short term investment, Invest in Equity and Systematic Invest Plan. With their flagship fund "Select Mid-Cap," the company saw a huge success.

Commenting on their newly rolled out Sundaram Rural India Fund, Mr. Subramaniam said, "Sundaram Rural India fund is a dedicated vehicle to play the Rural Theme that is expected to drive India's growth over the next decade. The Fund has a healthy mix of large caps and mid & small caps which are expected to be beneficiaries of recovery and growth of the Rural sector.

The recent Budget continued to focus on growth of the Rural sector, which bears testimony to our confidence on the structural transformation of rural space with more money and more information in the hands of rural India.

What's your view on cryptocurrency ? Will it anyhow effect your industry in coming years?"I believe bitcoin can be looked at as an alternative to gold. The flow of gold is bit regulated, as central banks the world over keep gold with them and release often at their own will. That's where the origin of bitcoin comes.

The world needs something which cannot be held, cannot be traded but only reflects the flow of money — a flow of thoughts in a particular price. The cryptocurrency is not backed by any fundamental, but the world needs such cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin is a true expression of capitalism in its genuine, saying only demand and supply will drive the value of it," Mr. Subramaniam asserted.

Sunil Subramaniam's passionate zeal and dedication as well as relentless pursuit of his mission have led Sundaram Mutual scale new heights. He is quite confident about the trajectory Sundaram Asset Management Company Ltd will take in the future.

Cementing its position as a dominant player in the market, under the aegis of a visionary leader, Sundaram Asset Management Companyis now eyeing forward-thinking product and service offerings to support business expansion.

"We have our goals set to make Sundaram Mutual a more balanced Asset Management Company in terms of asset mix between equity and debt. We will also leverage technology in a big way to scale up our overall market share", asserts Sunil Subramaniam, the CEO of Sundaram Mutual.