LET’S GO AGILE
As new-age users become extremely demanding, the time is running out for organizations to up their stake and provide a hyper-personalized customer experience
As new-age users become extremely demanding, the time is running out for organizations to up their stake and provide a hyper-personalized customer experience
The year 2020 will always be remembered as the year of Coronavirus and the fact that it has pushed the world into a new reality, and the new normal. Organizations have increased their information technology (IT) capabilities and investments in order to aggressively push digitization and accomplish their transformation goals. While digital transformation can help solve specific business challenges, organizations are using the opportunity to also augment their IT and supply chain capability, and organizational agility.
A big question for many organizations that are looking forward to going the digital path is how to adapt, and what lies ahead in 2020?
Experts point out that businesses need to set themselves up for development today and in the future to improve customer satisfaction and engineering capacity by focusing on quality and bring disciplines together through connected pipelines. No wonder then, most companies – irrespective of their size and scale of operation – are focusing on IT investments to achieve their objectives.
IT capability does contribute to firm agility through enhancing inter-firm supply chain processes and role of ITenabled intermediated processes and the ways in which IT is used by firms to upgrade core business processes. According to a McKinsey Global Survey of executives, over one-third of the companies have accelerated the digitization of their supply chains, over half of them have speeded up digitization of their customer channels, and two-thirds have moved faster to adopt artificial intelligence and automation. Many other workforce changes are also in progress.
Reports also indicate that adoption of digital and innovative solutions has helped improve business environment and increase business sector resilience during the pandemic. In fact, IT is fast emerging as a huge investment opportunity for both the industry and enterprises and today constitutes the largest single segment of the market, obscuring all others, including the financial and the industrial sector.
The pandemic has also brought to forth the fact that a sustainable future is the major need for us and only businesses that make bold moves during challenging times can turn adversity into advantage.
DEVELOPING DIGITAL AND IT CAPABILITIES
Digital or IT capability is the term we use to describe the skills and attitudes that businesses need if they are to thrive in today’s world. At an organizational level, we need to consider the extent to which the culture and infrastructure of a business enables and implies digital practices. The use of ICT-based devices, platforms and services enhance the digital proficiency. It not only has an impact on businesses by reducing paperwork and overall documentation, it also enables the system to become a lot more transparent and plain-sailing.
According to ICICI Lombard Chief of Customer Service, Operations and Technology Girish Nayak, “We have always been at the forefront of using new technologies that help us in acquiring, retaining, or servicing our customers better. With ever-increasing customer expectations, customer-centricity has become more important than ever. Moreover, you no longer have years of time to experiment and get your model right in this VUCA – volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous – world. Either you adapt or you perish.”
He pointed out that the new normal warrants that insurance companies design new products and distribution partnerships that can suit the lifestyle of today’s generation. “So, we continue to move in the direction of helping the customers to buy an insurance policy as seamlessly as possible and in settling claims for such policies in near real-time. Every interaction with the customer is helping us in better understanding their needs, which in turn has helped us in designing some of the new products and services.”
“However,” Nayak added that the agile and fast-moving world requires that organizations constantly keep looking for new and innovative technologies that can help in creating solutions for customers and stakeholders.
Nayak also highlighted that a lot of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) solutions for ICICI Lombard are developed in-house by data scientists who have learnt these skillsets on the job. “We have deployed these AI/ ML solutions on the cloud platform. We have worked with both leading technology providers to arrange for training programs for our employees and in certain cases, company-specific hackathons, which has helped our employees to learn and also create solutions on these platforms,” he stated.
In terms of developing capabilities, the World Economic Forum predicts that by 2022, over 42% of core skills required to perform existing jobs are expected to change and that more than a million jobs are likely to be transformed by technology in the next decade.
YOU NO LONGER HAVE YEARS OF TIME TO EXPERIMENT AND GET YOUR MODEL RIGHT IN THIS VUCA – VOLATILE, UNCERTAIN, COMPLEX, AND AMBIGUOUS – WORLD. EITHER YOU ADAPT OR YOU PERISH
— Girish Nayak, Chief – Customer Service, Operations and Technology, ICICI Lombard
“While it is true that there will be a larger need to develop technological and scientific skills, it is also going to be equally important to develop specialized skills in how people interact, collaborate, and create new products and solutions. The best way to learn some of these skill sets is to learn this in a real-world scenario. We constantly encourage our employees to develop innovative solutions using some of these new technologies,” Nayak said, highlighting the strategy of developing in-house capacity to meet the specific requirements.
Adds Mashreq Global Services ( MGS)-India Senior Vice President and Head of Technology Sesha Sai: “As a global in-house centre for Mashreq Bank, we play an essential role by ensuring that the bank remains at the forefront of all technological development. The disruption caused by the pandemic has enabled us to fast-track our vision to redefine the banking journey by digitizing services end-to-end.”
According to Sai, to develop industry best IT capabilities, MGS has adopted a multi-fold digital transformation approach. “As the industry is working remotely, it is critical to adopt a cloud-native strategy and embrace a data-led culture by leveraging big data to ensure seamless and personalized experiences for customers. At an enterprise level, cloud enables us to induce collaboration amongst teams across various geographies. AI and blockchain have also significantly changed the technological dynamics in the financial services sector,” he said, adding that the organization has invested in these leading technologies to increase automation, reduce error rates, utilize resources better, leading to higher cost efficiencies for the bank and an overhaul in customer experiences.
“Another component which has helped us in our journey towards building robust IT infrastructure and solutions is ongoing partnerships with promising fintech companies.
The ecosystem comprises various players who bring their unique capabilities to the table. We believe in optimizing our solutions for our customers, whether by investing our own resources in building those capabilities in-house or engaging in fruitful collaborations with fintech startups to leverage their expertise,” he stated.
MGS has, so far, partnered with over five fintech startups that has enabled it to create quick go-to-market solutions across green banking, trade finance and payment investigations”
Still, many businesses that seek to go digital are not clear about the best way to set up their IT organizations and develop the tools and talent required to manage digital information and establish and maintain online services and automated processes.
According to Thoughtworks Chief Operating Officer Saptorsi Hore, “We build the organizational and technical capabilities needed to transform our clients into a modern digital business. We prioritize growing their experimentation and delivery muscle, which ensures clients are ready for any disruption that comes their way. We do this by applying design thinking, business strategy and tech to solve our client’s most pressing problems.”
Talking about the approach, he stated that the company focuses on delivering software incrementally, with cutting edge and relevant practices and tools. “This allows clients to market-test early and pivot, if needed, thus, constantly improving customer experiences. In our partnerships, we consistently help clients build software excellence into their organizations by leveraging a lean and agile culture. This ensures technology’s always at the core of the client’s business and stays an enabler.”
For telecom infrastructure major STL, the IT under digital transformation construct has four verticals centred on process design, it stacks, data science, and strategy
MOST BANKS, IN THEIR JOURNEY OF ADOPTING NEW TECHNOLOGIES, FACE CHALLENGES IN INSTITUTIONALIZING PROTOTYPES AND TAKING THEM TO AN ENTERPRISE-WIDE SCALE
— Sesha Sai, Senior Vice President and Head of Technology, Mashreq Global Services – India
execution. “We are a forerunner in setting up its IT capabilities using the first principle design. We are investing heavily in building technology products and platforms to seamlessly manage our complex business needs and have been very successful in also making this all work in a location free world,” the company’s Chief Transformation Officer Nischal Gupta said.
Gupta further pointed out that STL’s investment in shifting cloud capabilities from over 10% to almost 70% has helped the company balance security, flexibility, and mobility, as also giving it the advantage of always keeping the company IT landscape up to date.
“We have developed a product in-house called InterSTLer that allows us to view the neural network of our global IT landscape from application to databases to server locations and all the STL platforms. This comes handy when we are planning our B2B integrations or even while deploying a new application, any new releases, or even to assess the upstream or downstream impact of any sunsetting legacy app,” he stated.
But, in the fast-moving world of digital, finding the necessary tools and talent can be challenging. So, why do some digital transformation efforts succeed while others fail?
According to Sai, “Most banks, in their journey of adopting new technologies, face challenges in institutionalizing prototypes and taking them to an enterprise-wide scale. For many global banks, adhering to different regulatory requirements across multiple regions has proven to be challenging. However, we implement the best governance practices, and this has helped us in good stead. At an industry level, a common challenge we faced prior to COVID-19 was the adoption of digital banking among non-tech-savvy customers.”
He also highlighted that the pandemic-induced lockdowns has forced non-digital customers to embrace the digital banking space. “In the UAE, akin to India, the government has encouraged customers to move away from manual transactions which has, in turn, supplemented our efforts towards digital banking education, and towards enriching user experiences. Our online front office representatives have played an essential role in getting them on-board and comfortable.”
While the bank and financial institutions may just be a case in the point, the same principle applies to all other sectors and the age-old best practice of think big, start small and scale fast still holds good.
DRIVING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Post-COVID businesses have fast paced their journey and had different experiences with regard to the business continuity and future of work. Most companies recognize and strategize for these digital differences and scaled up their online capabilities at short notice. To give themselves the best chance of success, CIOs and boards seeking to build their digital-leadership capability should start by understanding their current level of digital acceleration and where, specifically, they need to improve to meet their strategic goals.
Companies must also assess the digital expertise among their current leadership team to understand any gaps and determine the right expertise and model to meet their needs. Also, Digital technology has transformed consumer habits. Mobile devices, apps, machine learning, automation and much more allow customers to get what they want almost exactly at the moment they need it.
What’s more, these new digital technologies have caused a shift in customer expectations, resulting in a new kind of modern buyer who is constantly connected, appnative, and aware of what they can do with technology.
According to GPX Managing Director for India Manoj Paul, digitalization is now firmly embedded across all segments of Indian society. “The rise of new digital business models has played a crucial role in the rapid adoption of the cloud.
DECENTRALIZATION, ALONG WITH INTEROPERABILITY AND FOCUS ON THE EXPERIENCE OF DATA CONSUMERS ARE THE KEY TO THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF INNOVATION USING DATA
— Saptorsi Hore, Chief Operating Officer, Thoughtworks
Enterprises are looking for on-demand scalability as the uncertainty of markets increases. Having a robust and agile architecture where the 3rd party datacenters and clouds are used optimally, is not an option anymore, but a mandate to be able to stay ahead in the game. With the usual office structures collapsing, enterprises are facing a massive challenge of re-establishing a new system relevant for the current times and that too, seamlessly.”
He also informed that enterprises can deploy “Enterprise Edge Nodes” at low-latency edge datacenters allowing them to choose from the multiple network and cloud connectivity options available and connect to them via a direct cross-connect owned and run by the company operating the data centre. “With the growth in WFH, digital financial transactions and growing use of video conferencing, the role of an edge data centre will become more critical. Enterprises will evaluate data centres with an eye on the ecosystem, which constitutes an essential parameter,” Paul added.
Sharing his experience from the financial sector Sai said, “The impact of technology has been profound on the banking sector as most of the systems and operations have moved from the traditional into the digital space. Digital and analytical tools will help banks scale, build flexibility and resilience for long term growth.”
In this dynamic, yet cluttered environment, organizations that accurately leverage new-age technologies like AI and ML and are able to hyper-personalize customer experiences and journeys, will stay ahead of competition. “We are in an age where customers expect seamless experiences and quick turnaround to queries. Through automation, not only can we cater to their requirements in a swift manner, but also fast track deployment of innovative products and solutions which would otherwise have taken months of planning,” Sai stated, adding that MGS has enhanced the use of AI across its operations during COVID-19 due to the sudden increase in incoming digital volumes.
“AI in payments investigation protects our customers by identifying conspicuous or fraudulent transactions. We can now prevent credit card fraud using real-time data analytics and meet regulatory and legal requirements for corporate customers with complex needs with increased operational risk. We can thoroughly carry out Anti-Money Laundering (AML)/Know Your Customer (KYC) checks with minimal to zero human intervention. Further, the use of robotics and vision robotics has enhanced operational efficiency within the company,” he explained.
Sai further said that having spent six months in 2020 working remotely, devising, and implanting plans to introduce newer digital solutions to stay ahead of trends, he has seen the role of captives transform completely.
“Global capability centres have fast gained ground as business continuity and innovation partners in this critical time. The banking industry must reinvent technology which will help leap forward in terms of increased productivity and speed. The year has also taught me that digital readiness is critical at any given point in time. We must future-proof our systems in a holistic manner to create more flexible and secure platforms for any potential crisis or unexpected changes we may witness,” he stated.
FUTURE PRODUCTS AND SOLUTIONS
COVID-19 caused people to adapt to working from home and in isolation. We have seen a lot of data analysis using internet of things (IoT) technology, big data and AI. In fact, AI is an ideal partner in this development because it can accelerate and complement human endeavours. Our current reality will inform future efforts to deploy AI in future development. In this new reality, ICT offers solutions to overcome some of the challenges thrown up by the pandemic.
PRODUCTS AND SOLUTIONS NEED TO PROVE THEIR ROI BY DEMONSTRATING VALUE BY SOLVING REAL BUSINESS PROBLEM
OR BY SUCCESS-BASED INVESTMENT RATHER THAN BY RING-FENCING YOU IN A LICENSING BATTLE
— Nischal Gupta, Chief Transformation Officer, STL
Looking ahead at the future technology and solution trends, Hore stressed that Thoughtworks has been focusing on number of areas that include Continuous Delivery for Machine Learning (CD4ML), which is a software engineering approach that enables cross-functional teams to produce ML applications based on code, data, and models in small and safe increments.
“These applications can be reproduced and reliably released in short adaptation cycles. Data mesh claims that for big data to fuel innovation, its ownership must be federated among domain data owners who are accountable for providing their data as products. Data mesh also requires a new form of federated governance through automation to enable interoperability of domain-oriented data products. Decentralization, along with interoperability and focus on the experience of data consumers is the key to the democratization of innovation using data,” he stressed.
Hore further pointed out that in the Extended Reality (XR) space, hand-tracking allows a user’s hand to make the leap into virtual reality. An example is Stratos, Ultraleap’s underlying haptic, sensors and software platform, and it can use targeted ultrasound to create haptic feedback in midair. “A use case for this is responding to a driver’s hand gesture to change the air conditioning in the car and providing haptic feedback as part of the interface. We’re excited to see this technology and what creative technologists might do to incorporate it into their use cases,” he said.
Experts also point out that as of now, there’s no single blockchain that could achieve “internet-level” throughput. “As various blockchain platforms develop, we’re seeing new data and value silos. Cross-chain technology is a key topic in the blockchain community. The future of blockchain may be a network of independent parallel blockchains,” Hore said, adding that an example of this is Cosmos, which, through Tendermint and CosmosSDK, lets developers customize independent blockchains.
“These parallel blockchains could exchange value through the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol and Peg-Zones. ThougthWorks teams have had great experiences with CosmosSDK, and the IBC protocol is maturing. This architecture could solve blockchain interoperability and scalability issues.”
He also pointed out that there is a visible shift from accidental hybrid or whole-of-estate cloud migration plans to intentional and sophisticated hybrid, poly or portable cloud strategies, where organizations apply multidimensional principles to establish and execute their cloud strategy to host their data and functional assets based on risk, ability to control and performance profiles.
So how can organizations utilize their on-premise infrastructure investments, while reducing cost of operations? Also, how can they take advantage of multiple cloud providers and their unique, differentiated services without creating complexity and friction for users building and operating applications?
In a decentralized identity system, entities – discrete, identifiable units such as people, organizations and things – are free to use any shared root of trust. In contrast, conventional identity management systems are based on centralized authorities and registries such as corporate directory services, certificate authorities or domain name registries.
The development of decentralized identifiers, globally unique, persistent and self-sovereign identifiers that are cryptographically verifiable, is a major enabling standard. Although scaled implementations of decentralized identifiers in the wild are still rare, experts and IT heads are excited by the premise of this movement and have started using the concept in their architecture.
According to Hore, the technology landscape of organizations today is becoming increasingly complex with assets – data, functions, infrastructure and users – spread across security boundaries, such as local hosts, multiple cloud providers and a variety of SaaS vendors. This demands a paradigm shift in enterprise security planning and systems architecture. The move is from static and slow-changing security policy management, based on trust zones and network configurations to dynamic, finegrained security policy enforcement based on temporal access privileges.
Zero trust architecture (ZTA) is an organization’s strategy and journey to implement zero-trust security principles for all of their assets, such as devices, infrastructure, services, data and users, and includes implementing practices such as securing all access and communications regardless of the network location, enforcing policies as code based on the least privilege and as granular as possible, and continuous monitoring and automated mitigation of threats.
Similarly, security policies or rules and procedures that protect systems from threats and disruption are equally important. For example, access control policies define and enforce who can access which services and resources under what circumstances. Network security policies can dynamically limit the traffic rate to a particular service. “The complexity of the technology landscape today demands treating security policy as a code: define and keep policies under version control, automatically validate them, automatically deploy them and monitor their performance,” Hore said.
In STL, the company is looking at IT products and solutions that enable self service, self configuration, and are very agile to implement, particularly that do not bind the organization to any archaic licensing regime. “Many large plus traditional software providers have till now made money from their customers by locking you into long term license based agreements and by strategically spending more money on a battery of lawyers and compliance management than on a battery of developers and product managers with an agile framework and mindset,” Gupta pointed out, adding that these providers will soon lose the competitive advantage as the world is waking up to open source, disaggregated solutions or very lite cloud offerings.
“Products and solutions need to prove their RoI by demonstrating value with application to solving a real business problem or by success-based investment rather than by ring fencing you in a licensing battle. The solutions have to get closer to solving real business problems. It has to be viewed as one with the eyes of the (business) customer and not to be pushed as a solution by the software provider. Else it is not a solution,” he stressed.
Gupta also highlighted that STL is eyeing products and platforms that provides integrated business insights, small bits of pre-configured ML codes which can work on the most critical business metrics without having the company to worry about the speed of deployment or its adoption as the latter two should be a given.
To sum it up, he said that it will greatly enhance many ongoing trends that were already well underway before the outbreak and that will continue as companies shift their focus to recovery. Immersive new technologies can increasingly get their experience-based status fixes from virtual experiences.
HAVING A ROBUST AND AGILE ARCHITECTURE WHERE THE 3RD PARTY DATACENTERS AND CLOUDS ARE USED OPTIMALLY, IS NOT AN OPTION ANYMORE, BUT A MANDATE TO BE ABLE TO STAY AHEAD IN THE GAME
— Manoj Paul, Managing Director – India, GPX