Exclusive interview with Winny Patro, CEO and Co-founder of Recordent

Businesses around the world are gearing up for digital transformation and they need proper guidance on their management. Recordent is an innovative technology platform focused on providing credit management services and enabling businesses in their secured growth. Analytics Insight has engaged in an exclusive interview with Winny Patro, CEO, and Co-founder of Recordent.

Kindly brief us about the company, its specialization, and the services that your company offers.

A large focus of SME businesses should be on growth, which is possible only when their payments and dues are received timely. Recordent is an innovative technology platform focused on providing credit management services and enabling businesses in their secured growth. Recordent's platform enables businesses to submit their customer dues regularly using the various easy models to upload invoices. cRediDue is our Dues Management solution that allows these businesses to receive timely customer payments.

Another problem arising is the lack of information about past payment behavior and its importance. We offer cRediEye, our data aggregation service that allows businesses to access customers' credit and payment history to understand their payment patterns and past behavior on banking and non-banking transactions. This valuable information can help businesses make informed decisions while offering credit to buyers. Our data-powered notifications motivate customers to clear their dues on time and maintain a positive payment track record through a credit-bureau approach.

Recordent's long-term vision is to enable trust and accountability for businesses that offer a service, credit, or a loan to their customers. We work with a single aim to empower businesses to reduce their credit and financial risks through our solutions.

With what mission and objectives the company was set up? In short, tell us about your journey since the inception of the company?

Delayed customer payments were a pain point that both Harish (Co-Founder) and I experienced in the companies we were running earlier. Our inspiration came from this shared peril. Harish started off with a pilot in the school's segment and later we started offering solutions to SMEs for delayed payments and enabling businesses to reduce their credit risks.

The research that went into was first to deep dive into how the trade credit sector operates, how manufacturing to the last mile delivery value chain works, the trade credit practices and how the credit practices are, how the delayed payments are furthermore affecting the value chain. We spoke with key people in the trade credit sector, in trade associations, and with bankers to understand the viability of our idea. That gave us a kickstart to all activities currently happening at Recordent.

Kindly mention some of the major challenges the company has faced till now.

The MSME industry has largely operated in a traditional format of conducting business and there was close to no use of technology in their activities. Hence, the major challenge that we have faced was of creating awareness and convincing MSMES to adopt technology and data platforms for managing their credit risk and growing their companies.

The second challenge was setting up our own teams as we were a company born during the pandemic. While we have been successful in running all operations in a remote setup, we faced a number of challenges initially when we were setting up our teams, work culture and while we were integrating the right practices for our employees. We also faced a challenge in finding the right tech talent in the past 18 months owing to the changing dynamics of the industry, as we were completely taken from a physical setup to having to perform all tasks remotely.

Please brief us about the products/services/solutions you provide to your customers and how do they get value out of it?

At Recordent, we offer a host of solutions that are aimed at a business's growth and financial well-being. We are an End-to-End Receivables & Collection Management on a single cloud platform. Our approach to receivables management is data-driven and neutral. We motivate a business's customers to clear their dues on time and maintain a positive payment track record through a credit-bureau approach.

Through our third-party partnerships with experts & aggregated platforms, we provide Legal notices and E-Arbitration services through a simple click feature to help businesses with defaulting customers in the last leg of their collections process.

Our offering CrediEye simplifies complex credit-related information for customers. Typically, through strategic partnerships with leading credit bureaus, we provide useful information on a business entity or an individual's credit score and usage, payment score, and overdue accounts in an easy-to-read and understand format.

How do you see the company and the industry in the future ahead?

MSMEs at large face issues like invoice reconciliation when it comes to managing their accounts. The mismatching of the data or lack of enough proof of documents land SMEs in a crisis like long payment overdue, imbalance books of accounts, and subsequent loss owing to long term payment overdue from their customers.

The future, just like the present, will be about data. When we talk specifically about the MSME sector, businesses are beginning to realize the importance of data and how it can impact its growth. With this realization, more and more small and medium businesses are moving towards collecting data storing them in easy-to-access formats, and in the coming future, one can say that data handling and using it to correct payment cycles will become one of the most powerful aspects for timely growth.

What are your growth plans for the next 12 months?

Our plan for the next 1-2 years is to cater to at least 40,000 businesses, empower their financial well-being, and fuel their growth. The focus will be to keep up the tech-oriented solutions and spend time on customer acquisition in the coming future. Our major focus areas will be collaborations with complementary fintech and banks to provide financing options to businesses, invoice reconciliation, and add more services and features to the tech platform for further ease of use.

How is your company helping customers deliver relevant business outcomes through the adoption of the company's technology innovations?

Timely payment and a regular and consistent payment cycle deeply impact a business and its success. With Recordent, businesses get access to a one-stop solution for account receivables management, invoice reconciliation, e-arbitration, legal services. We also provide credit reports and valuable information about a business or an entity's financial behavior before making any decision. This information is presented in an insightful and easy-to-read manner. This feature ensures the availability of key information before a business makes any credit or financial decision.

All of the above-mentioned services are completely achieved through technology & data aggregation. And Recordent uses the power of Data & Technology that enable businesses to reduce customer Risk & optimize cash flows.