Sapient Global Markets to invest in semantic search solutions

Sapient already has 65% workforce based out of India

Innovation to drive growth engine 

Sapient Global Markets (SGM), a division of Sapient, which was recently acquired by advertising conglomerate Publicis Groupe for a $3.7-billion deal, believes India is a huge component of who they are and what they do.

Sapient Global Markets provides technology solutions and advisory to participants in capital and commodity markets. This primarily includes investment banks, intermediaries, regulators, and commodity market traders and investors. In an interaction with Deccan Herald, Sapient Global Markets Vice President- Jarlath Forde said “We understand the business models of these clients and provide solutions to optimize their processes, build and leverage market intelligence, and finally add value to their business.” He further added, “We want to provide one-stop solutions to our client. We advise them on how to cover their data, conduct market intelligence surveys, identify opportunities, and execute operations. In many cases, we are trying to help clients totally transform their business by suggesting the target operating, target architecture, and target data models”. 

The SGM India centre does everything from technology development, to testing pieces, to relevant advisory for the client. They support large complex operations of clients and the India centre is increasingly important for ensuring this. “For one of our global clients in the commodity markets, we built a trading platform in India. Later the platform was successfully deployed in other Asian markets, the US, and Europe.It is like a self-dependent delivery system,” Forde said.

Focus on semantic tech

On research and development (R&D), he said, “the company identifies the areas where we want to invest and learn or develop these technologies. Once we start understanding the different tiers, we are in better position to make R&D investments. SGM is putting more investments in semantic search technology to use it for client business.  

On data analytics, he said Sapient has a dedicated team. “So there are some folks looking at data science perspectives in terms of hypothesis. And source the data for approval, prove the hypothesis. As our different teams work on different aspects of analytics, we connect the dots to provide solutions to our clients,” he said. 

When asked about the impact of the acquisition, Forde said: “With Publicis, we have the ready infrastructure to tap into new geographies. We get a kick start with this new infrastructure. On SGM, going forward, regulations would stabilise and digital transformation would be a big business opportunity. It will start a new business cycle. As we see lot more innovation, new products will drive another cycle of increased regulatory inspection to manage systematic as well as unsystematic risks. We are getting into that innovation cycle right now. In the US we are seeing a lot of hybrid firms which are part-funds and part-ETF.”  

Going high

According to Forde, Sapient Global Markets has always targeted 15-20 percent year on year growth rate.