pay homage to the role of pioneers like dr pylee whose vision for establishing a business school in kochi enabled several of us to partake of these critical skills which have enriched our lives and hopefully the effectiveness of organisations that we serve. thank you for your attention. namaskaar!! inputs provided by pradeep kumar and saurabh pratap singh are gratefully acknowledged. 5 / 5 bis - central bankers'speeches

of services shifting beyond traditional financial offerings of banking services to offering up a suite of products including wealth management and other financial products. what this means is that that the financial institutions would need to continuously reinvent their business models and update their product offerings. for this to happen, a vital cog in the wheel, so to say, is having a set of skilled employees and a motivated workforce. the pace of change we encounter nowadays is swift, and by all indications this pace will only increase, riding on the crest of the digital transformation playing out in the financial services industry. therefore, it is imperative that the financial institutions and their employees have the capacity to not only deliver on the expected service levels 1 / 5 bis - central bankers'speeches continuously, but also have the capacity to adapt to both foreseen and unforeseen challenges. in current times, building the capacity of employees and continuous upgradation of their skills is not an option but a necessity. in any service industry, amongst the four factors of production, human capital is the most significant which fundamentally determines the growth trajectory of the institutions and organisations. human capital is not just important in the areas of the organisational structures and functioning but is also critical in fostering innovation and increasing productivity which contributes substantially towards both individual and institutional growth. this is true in the case of banking industry as well. the agility demonstrated by banks and financial services firms during the pandemic is a testament to their investment in human resources and technology. as their focus shifted towards digital mode of interface, they scaled up remote engagements and quickly reshaped overall working models. employees were dynamically redeployed amongst verticals based on evolving business needs. this experiment served the institutions well in various aspects – in optimal utilisation of human resources, in timely on - boarding new customers and in ensuring business continuity. in my view, this exploratory experience would have given many of the banks a sense of comfort and confidence in agility - driven dynamic allocation of a future oriented workforce. here, let me emphasize that when i say skilled workforce, i do not mean the to say that the focus should be on the functional and technical knowledge of the employees alone. soft skills are equally, or dare i say, more important in a service industry like banking. an effective customer engagement together with an empathetic approach acts as a major differentiator in a highly competitive market. also, unlike technical skills which frequently get obsolete with changing business environment,