Building off Commercial Banking and Business Consulting Expertise
After spending 18 years in the financial services industry and having specific domain expertise in the area of commercial lending, commercial real estate lending and wholesale banking, a vital need and gap in solutions was exposed. After being classically trained as a commercial banker, Zubin Mehta spent many years as an executive business consultant and liaison between the IT staff and the executive teams he represented.
Drawing on this very background, Mr. Mehta conducted preliminary market research on an end-to-end solution for commercial lenders. He found that a handful of companies offered a similar solution, but not all of them provided the flexibility of Credit Track. Furthermore, he was disappointed to see many of them did not offer a consultative approach to their implementation. While working at MUFG Union Bank of California (a $135 Billion Regional Bank), he managed vendor alliances and negotiated large projects on behalf of the bank. As part of the UBOC team, he was disappointed to learn how many of these vendors used young and inexperienced consultants to work with executives at the bank. They had software expertise but had never worked for a bank. These were the very same consultants that were supposed to understand the complexities of the commercial lending process and provide a customized solution to the bank.
It was during his final year working on his MBA at Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management that he wrote his capstone project on this idea to develop a complete platform to address the needs of banks, credit unions and financial institutions to better manage their loan portfolios and mitigate credit and economic risks.
The business model was fairly simple; provide the best possible solutions to the client banks and finance companies with a consultative approach in understanding their requirements and proposing an optimum solution. Too many software vendors are quick to offer a solution without fully understanding the client’s needs and engaging consultants with no industry expertise. Global Wave Group has an edge on its competition not only in our products and services but also in the fact that all our client facing associates have a banking background.
During his tenure at various banks, Mr. Mehta was convinced that in order to have a successful project, the client should not have to bear the burden of managing a technology project. Furthermore, by directing the sales focus to the Chief Credit Officer (CCO) and the corresponding credit organization at the bank, there was a better understanding of the product offering and a consultative approach to add value to the client organization. Being able to speak to the bankers from a credit and risk management perspective and to show how value may be derived from the product was paramount in Global Wave Group’s marketing strategy.