System Designed for Policy Shock, not Policy Stability: BLS International

With the sequence of the visa application journey, and finally when the visa is delivered to citizens, what kind of digitisation has BLS International rolled out across the value chain?

At BLS International, digitisation is not treated as an overlay on operations; it is the operating fabric of the entire visa lifecycle from intent to travel to the return of passport to the applicant. We have digitised this journey across five tightly integrated layers:

The citizen interface - Applicants interact with a fully digital front end appointment scheduling, document checklists, fee payment, status tracking and notifications that has been designed for clarity, predictability and trust. We are always at the forefront of technology niche focused at citizen-first approach to ensure that even first-time travellers or digitally less confident users are not excluded.

Document and identity handling - Paper-heavy processes are now governed by digitally orchestrated workflows, secure scanning, metadata tagging and real-time validation of identity through liveliness check. This ensures traceability of every document movement, reducing both risk and turnaround time.

Mission-facing systems - Our platforms integrate seamlessly with diplomatic Missions and Government backends, respecting sovereign data boundaries, rules of engagements and compliance norms while enabling real-time visibility, auditability and SLA adherence.

Operational intelligence - Every application generates operational telemetry queue times, exception rates, processing bottlenecks which feeds into dashboards used by supervisors and missions to dynamically rebalance workloads.

Logistics and last-mile delivery - Courier integration, chain-of-custody controls and applicant notifications ensure that delivery is predictable, transparent and secure.

The key design principle has been ‘no black boxes’ for citizens, missions or regulators and this is delivered across the customer journey.

What have been the key challenges along the way, both IT-led and business-centric, and how have these been addressed using digital technologies?

The challenges were not just technical. On the IT side, scale and variability were the hardest problems. Visa volumes fluctuate sharply due to a variety of reasons including academic cycles, seasonality and other factors. Traditional static systems fail under such stress. 

We have successfully addressed these challenges through cloud-native deployment, elastic architectures, event-driven processing and automated capacity scaling based on demand signals.

On the business side, the biggest priority is customer-centricity, winning the trust of missions and governments. Any perceived opacity damages confidence. We are continuously strengthening our technology suite by leveraging AI and digital tools in every practical way right from AI assisted document quality checks that reduce rejection loops.

Importantly, our approach to AI has always been disciplined. We consciously avoided “AI for AI’s sake.” Every deployment was evaluated against clear business outcomes, whether it reduced friction, lowered error rates, improved turnaround times or strengthened operational integrity. This focus ensured that technology investments delivered tangible value while reinforcing trust across the ecosystem.

Can you discuss the challenges arising from recent US visa-related changes, how they affect companies like BLS International, and how these challenges are being managed or solved?

As I said, our priority is to maintain high customer satisfaction and leverage technology for uninterrupted service delivery.

We are focused on three core areas to address this:

First, policy abstraction layers -- Instead of hard-coding rules, our tech implementations allow for rapid adaptation without system downtime.

Second, proactive citizen communication – AI-driven communication engines now explain what has changed, why it matters, and what the applicant should do, reducing confusion-driven support volume. 

Third, operational resilience – Scenario simulations help us pre-empt demand spikes and redeploy capacity both digital and human before backlogs form. The lesson here is clear and distinct -- visa ecosystems must be designed for policy shock, not policy stability.  

What role do IT teams play in BLS’s journey, and how much of the IT and digital work at BLS International is handled in-house?

At BLS International, IT is not a support function, it is a strategic co-owner of outcomes. Our IT teams sit at the intersection of overall compliance, citizen experience, operational efficiency and risk management.

A significant portion of core platforms, integration layers, data governance frameworks and security controls are built and owned in-house. This is deliberate. In-house ownership gives us faster response to sovereign requirements, better security posture and deeper domain intelligence embedded into systems. That said, we complement this with specialist partners where it accelerates innovation but architecture, data and control always remain with BLS International.

How does BLS International approach vendor partnerships and startup engagements, and what are the criteria for listing or rejecting vendors?

We do not view vendors as suppliers, we view them as collaborators in a long-term mission. Our evaluation criteria are rigorous and multi-dimensional. Key focus areas for us have always been security-by-design and compliance maturity, proven scalability in regulated environments, transparency in AI models and data usage and ability to integrate into our platforms without creating lock-in. We always give boosts to startups but only if they solve real operational or compliance problems, not just showcase technology. Our experience has shown that in regulated citizen services, credibility beats novelty that looks innovative but may fail.

What are BLS International’s plans for the future when it comes to digital transformation?

My focus would be to position the company as a technology-led global digital services platform by tightly aligning IT with business outcomes, citizen trust, and sovereign requirements. 

Drawing on my experience of leading national-scale digital transformations such as Public Sectors, National eGovernance Plan, Passport Seva Program, ePassport and Digital India, I foresee  our future-ready transformation through the 5W framework ensuring  that technology is fully aligned with Workload (scalable, cloud-native and resilient systems), Workforce (AI-augmented productivity and digital skilling), Workflow (re-engineered, compliant and API-driven applications), Workspace (secure, zero-trust digital operations), and the Web (citizen-centric platforms with cyber security and privacy by design). 

This approach will enable BLS International to scale efficiently across geographies, strengthen trust with governments and citizens, and our journey into a future-ready, secure and innovation-driven global GovTech partner. 

Our future technology roadmap is anchored in three strategic shifts - 

1. From digitisation to cognition - AI will increasingly move from automation to anticipation predicting surges, detecting anomalies and recommending interventions before issues surface.

2. From process-centric to citizen-centric intelligence - We are working towards systems that understand applicant context, not just applications without compromising privacy or sovereignty.

3. From service provider to digital trust partner - BLS International will continue evolving as a trusted intermediary between governments and citizens, where technology underwrites confidence, compliance and continuity.

Ultimately, technology at BLS International will remain guided by one principle I have followed for decades in public digital infrastructure - ‘If citizens don’t trust the system, the system has failed, no matter how advanced it is.’