Industry Thought Leadership

The history of human civilization is full of stories of men and women constantly pushing boundaries in every sphere of life. Whenever inventions and discoveries led to an evolved way of life, it has defined that era. The growing fusion of business and technology that has occurred in the last century defines this era and shall determine the course of the future too. It is in this context, that we must view the rampant growth of digital technologies globally and their impact, though not only limited to how companies are run, but also how they engage with their customers as well. It is in this ‘last mile’ that change has been both drastic and dramatic. Moreover, these factors in essence have let companies free to decide their ‘digital’ course.

As has been the case always, the ‘back office’ has to follow suit. Often, with astounding results. The initial wave of offshoring of IT services, that made India into an IT powerhouse; with Ireland, East European nations and Philippines amongst others following suit; might be in for another jolt. This is because the initial wave that depended on passing on benefits of cost arbitrage has more or less plateaued out as a business model. The infusion of ‘digital’ seems to have given it a new lease of life. However, therein also lies the danger for IT service providers that fail to see the impact of this change. Add to this mix, nationalist regimes calling out outsourcing of services as a ‘theft’ of opportunities for the native workforce. It is in this milieu that both the large global companies and the IT service providers have felt the need of making their operations completely digital thereby reducing the dependence on manpower. So, the entire value chain gets impacted in a never seen before fashion.

What makes a company truly ‘digital’? The key impact elements remain the same – social, mobility, analytics, cloud and sensors (SMACS). These were the initial foundation stones of the new digital wave. Automation, robotics and AI have added to this mix and, lo and behold, we have a comprehensive kick-off of the ‘digital’. In soccer parlance, this would be akin to a Ronaldo with Messi-like wizardry at his disposal! Or combining the power of an Airbus A380-800 with the agility and speed of an F-16 fighter jet.

In the IT services business, the pillars of people, process and technology have become hygiene issues today - The emphasis no longer is on the process and people part of the services trinity, but on the technology pillar as it is single handedly driving transformation. With extensive possibilities of new disruptive digital technologies, technology is becoming limitless. After all, Digital Transformation involves a radical rethinking of how an enterprise uses technology to create and deliver value to customers. We have all seen an interesting turn of events in this digital era of technology progression where next-generation technologies have found way into the back office of IT, i.e., operations.

Some of the leading Tier 1 Indian IT service providers have caught on to this ‘digital’ transformation like fish to water that has transformed the way the IT services is being run as well how the services have been delivered. In the recently released ranking of ‘100 public companies shaping digital economy’ by Forbes, Tech Mahindra is the top ranked non-US company listed at #15 and also the only IT service provider company in the top 15 ranked companies. Some of the ‘digital’ led investments that has made Tech Mahindra a tour-de-force in this esteemed list of DX-companies (read digital companies).

So, what makes Tech Mahindra a stand out “DX” IT services provider. In the slew of digital platforms that Tech Mahindra has launched over the last 3-4 years, one of the leading platforms has been Meridian. A leading Europeam telecom major deployed Meridian to acquire a single pane of glass view with integrated maps of the entire IT landscape with built in tools for analysis, correlation and visualization needed to quickly determine the root cause of performance issues. Similarly, a leading aircraft manufacturer uses Meridian to provide a converged view of multiple data centers, reducing MTTR and improving capacity planning and reporting. While there are similar platforms in the marketplace, these platforms do not have the same magnitude of built-in analytical, cognitive and AI based capabilities to provide predictive data inputs.

Another key introduction has been the TACTiX automation platform that has constantly evolved in terms of its depth over the last couple of years. TACTiX employs AI and cognitive computing to provide actionable intelligence and insights from application data with NL/ML capabilities and advanced data analysis. This has resulted in a drastic upturn in operation metrics and other KPIs leading to agile operations, better resource utilization and increased CSAT ratings. One of the leading European telco majors saw its operations cost reduced by upto 40% with sustained usage of the platform.

As the DX-companies continue their march to the new frontier, we are in the midst of what you may call the fifth industrial revolution. At Tech Mahindra, we refer to this as the ‘revolution of IT intelligence’. Be ready or sit out!