Shulou(Shulou.com)06/03 Report--

From the perspective of software R & D practitioners, there are two kinds of innovation: one is the innovation related to software R & D technology, especially in the rapidly developing field of big data and AI, which needs to keep the same frequency with technological progress; and the other kind of innovation, which is related to the company's business, constantly uses technology to achieve automation, intelligence, standardization, and improve business service capabilities and user experience.

But for many technical people, they often indulge in technological innovation or business optimization, impose new technological trends on the business, or stick to stereotypes to reject some new and effective technical solutions. The real innovation is to use the most suitable technology solution in the place that can best enhance the customer experience after rational thinking, and all technological innovation should aim at enabling business.

In this interview, Mr. Zhang Jun, head of Yixin Science and Technology Center-data Intelligence Research and Development Department, talked with you about "practical experience of enabling business through technology" around the theme of "technological innovation for the purpose of enabling business". And "how to treat the relationship between technological innovation and business development rationally".

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Reporter: on the first question, I think we'd better combine your current work and start with the technical practice of Yixin. It is reported that your data Intelligent Research and Development Department has developed listening intelligent decision-making platform, anti-fraud algorithms and other products and projects. Please take one of these products as an example to introduce what business scenarios these platforms have been applied to? What's the effect?

Zhang Jun: the data Intelligence Research and Development Department I am in charge of mainly does two kinds of work:

One type of work is general-purpose technical services, including the collection, processing and provision of credit data, as well as the application of these data in decision-making to listen to the decision-making platform based on the management and deployment of risk policies and models. This kind of work is the technical basis for the healthy operation of the business, and now it has become an important infrastructure for many businesses of the company.

Another kind of work is to apply intelligent algorithms to the business to help improve business efficiency. These intelligent algorithms are applied to all key aspects of the business, including marketing, credit evaluation, fraud detection and so on.

The second type of work is to use technology to make data more valuable, so as to improve business efficiency. In the marketing link, we use algorithms to dig out potential customers with high intention from a large number of clues, so as to provide high-value clues to the business; in fraud screening, each of our purchase, will be through the anti-fraud algorithm to detect possible fraud points, compared with manual judgment, it is more comprehensive, and more efficient, thus improving the final asset quality. In addition to improving efficiency, another advantage of such technology application is that it avoids the operational risks caused by human participation.

Reporter: in Yixin's technical practice, what are the common motivations and backgrounds for launching a new technical product or project? Is the layout based on current and future business development needs, or does the technology department innovate according to technological development? Can you give an example to introduce Yixin's technological innovation ideas?

Zhang Jun: Yixin is a financial technology company, customer-centered, through the provision of financial products and services to meet customer needs, is the essence of our business. Yixin provides customers with better financial products and services by applying technological innovation to the business. From this perspective, the motivation to launch new technology products and projects must come from the needs, development, and future layout of the business.

Of course, because the business is constantly developing, and the fundamental purpose of technological innovation is to solve business needs and problems, technology itself is constantly evolving with the development of the business. Some technologies that were initially developed to meet a certain demand point of the business will be abstracted, refined and expanded after colleagues in the technical department have more understanding and accumulation of the business itself. as a result, it has developed into a very innovative technology. Therefore, a technical project is not so much designed as evolved with the development of the business.

Take the development of the decision-making platform "listen" as an example. a few years ago, business colleagues put forward only the risk rules that are implemented in the system process and used for risk control. In the technical solution at that time, colleagues in the technical department used a set of commercial rule engine platform to realize the launch of risk rules. With the continuous development of the business and the design and testing of new products, the solution of using the commercial rule engine is facing more and more problems, for example, the deployment of new risk rules online takes a long time and is error-prone; new products rely on more alternative data, which is difficult to use on commercial rule engines.

In this context, colleagues in the technical department proposed to develop a set of their own rule engine, which not only meets the needs put forward by the business department, but also solves the pain points of the business department for a long time. Such a set of self-developed rule engine has become more and more mature as it supports more and more product types and scenarios, and completely replaced the commercial rule engine in the first half of this year.

The self-developed rule engine not only supports the deployment and operation of risk rules, but also undertakes many responsibilities such as the life cycle management and daily operation of risk rules and models. even now many non-risk decisions are using this self-developed rule engine. Colleagues in the technical department have given this rule engine an interesting name, "listen".

Reporter: when there are some new requirements on the business side, what aspects do we use to judge whether this demand should be solved through technological innovation, and how to prioritize the requirements? Do you want to consider the maturity of the technology, the technical foundation, or the difficulty of implementation?

Zhang Jun: for the new requirements generated by the business side, the first thing the technical team should do is to analyze and understand the requirements, which is also a very important process of collision and carding between the technical team and the business team. Because the technical team and the business team have different background knowledge, it is possible to use different languages, and sincere communication with empathy is critical at this stage.

Different teams have different approaches to different business needs and types of technology. For example, some teams set up special requirements management positions to be responsible for docking requirements, some teams have full-time product manager positions to communicate with the business team, and some teams are directly responsible for docking by technical leader. But in any case, understanding the company's business and understanding the feasibility of technology implementation is the key point.

As for prioritization, it will be sorted according to the importance and urgency of the business side on the basis of full communication. One of the questions often encountered by technical teams is: should upgrades of technical architecture be included in the schedule? Should the repayment of technical debt arising from rapid research and development due to the previous pursuit of the speed of business development be included in the schedule? Therefore, while doing a good job in empowering and serving the business, paying off technical debts, upgrading the technical architecture, reasonably scheduling and arranging R & D resources are the basic skills of an excellent technical leader.

In the process of technology selection, it is also a time to evaluate technology applicability and technology maturity. although we will continue to track the current trend of technology development, it is not necessary to introduce the most fashionable technology into the project. Technology selection depends on the specific problems to be solved, using more mature and more maintainable technology solutions, using simple and mature technology solutions to do a good job of architecture and continuous delivery. It is also the ability that a technical leader must have.

Reporter: when deciding to develop a new technical product or project to solve a specific business requirement, whether to consider the ease of use of this product in the business scenario. After all, in the business scenario, the front-line business staff are not familiar with the technology. The use of newly developed technical products requires a stage of familiarity and running-in. How to improve the use of technical products in business scenarios?

Zhang Jun: ease of use is a very important indicator of technical products. Front-line business personnel do not need to care about technical architecture and technical implementation details. They are customers of technical products. Making them easy to use is also one of the pursuits of the technical team.

There is a famous saying in the technology industry: "Eat your own dog food". Colleagues on the technical team first use their own products and actively collect feedback from front-line users to better understand the first-line usage scenarios, so as to know how to improve ease of use.

The following questions would like you to talk about the topic of "how to treat the relationship between business development and technological innovation rationally".

Reporter: in the software research and development industry, some new technological trends appear every year, such as big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain, China Taiwan, and so on, but many enterprises are not rational enough in looking at technological innovation, but blindly follow the trend. What do you think of these emerging technologies? In the actual work, from what aspects will you judge whether or not to use these new technical ideas or methods to solve business problems?

Zhang Jun: with the development of science and technology and the media industry, new technology trends appear in the media every year. For us, the most important point is to look at the reasons behind these technology trends and the problems we want to solve. Instead of chasing hot spots and blindly pursuing fashionable technology trends, not to mention that there are many so-called technology trends that may only be for marketing purposes.

At the same time, the technical team should also have a deep understanding of the company's business goals and strategic objectives, so as to plan what new capabilities and muscles need to be built in technology, and plan the direction and goals of technology more strategically.

Of course, we will continue to learn and pay attention to new technology concepts and new applications, if we can solve business problems, or make our technology architecture safer, more efficient, easier to expand, and easier to maintain. we will also evaluate and introduce these new ideas and approaches while continuing to deliver the business.

Reporter: many people think that technical people pay more attention to the development of technology, and their understanding of business is relatively weak. how can technical departments innovate by combining technology with business?

Zhang Jun: technical leader plays a vital role in this issue. if the members of the technical team do not know what the company's strategic and business goals are, it must be that the communication and communication of technical leader is not enough.

The technical team does not need to understand the business like many business experts, but at least be able to understand the jargon and business logic of the business team, which is very important to carry out technical research and development. The technical team should recognize from the concept that "only the achievement of business goals is the success of the technical team", so that they are more willing to learn business and carry out technological innovation.

Reporter: what are the difficulties faced by the technology department in the innovative products or projects initiated by the company? How to overcome these difficulties?

Zhang Jun: the biggest difficulty comes from whether it can be recognized by the business department. A deeper understanding of the business and continuous communication with the business team to identify which pain points can be addressed by new technical products and projects is the key to overcoming difficulties.

Reporter: in the financial technology industry, is technological innovation at the current stage driven by technological development or by business development? What do you think of the relationship between technological innovation and business development?

Zhang Jun: for a financial services company like Yixin, the ultimate technical goal must be to achieve the goals of the financial services business we are engaged in.

Therefore, for the technical team they are responsible for, they should not only do the technology for the sake of technology, but should have a better understanding of the company's business, processes and customers, and work with the business team to achieve the company's business goals through technology.

Technological innovation does not appear out of thin air, technological innovation must be to meet the development of the business and solve the pain points of the business.

Reporter: finally, I would like to talk about a slightly broader issue. The development of AI and big data technology has been relatively mature, and it has been widely used in Yixin. From the perspective of the financial technology industry, what business problems have been solved by data intelligence applications? What are the problems in the business scenario that cannot be solved by technology and must be solved by people? What is the future development direction of data intelligence?

Zhang Jun: AI and big data technology have been widely and deeply applied in Yixin. For example, we use alternative data and artificial intelligence algorithms to evaluate customer credit and detect fraud risk. We apply AI technology in the process of interacting with customers to realize the automation and standardization of interaction with customers. Use AI algorithm to do KYC for customers, so as to better understand customer needs and provide customers with appropriate financial services; and also use a large number of big data technology to form a deep insight into the customer group.

With the further accumulation of data and the further improvement of computing power in the future, big data and AI algorithms will be more and more widely used in the financial industry. They can not only be used to solve the problems of digitization and automation, but also replace some simple repetitive mental activities, and can be applied in key business scenarios such as credit audit, insurance underwriting, customer interaction and so on. Improve the efficiency of financial services and the quality of financial assets.

However, it is difficult for machines to replace people when it comes to complex mental work, such as providing warm services to customers, and face-to-face wealth management advice to clients.

In the future, science and technology can help people to free themselves from their sexual work, so that they can have more time and energy to provide intimate service to customers.

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