The Work Ahead in Intelligent Automation: Coping with Complexity in a Post-Pa...
Transformational RIM Services Power the Agile Enterprise
1. • Cognizant 20-20 Insights
Transformational RIM Services
Power the Agile Enterprise
Today’s automated remote infrastructure management services can more
easily flex to meet the needs of emerging elastic digital architectures
built around social, mobile, analytics and cloud technologies, allowing
companies to continue shifting IT service management from capital to
operational budgets.
Executive Summary enter and exit new markets and delivery channels
in an ever-changing world.
Unprecedented and ongoing changes in
technology, business and society require orga- To provide this elasticity, transformational RIM
nizations to transform themselves in order to services must enable the enterprise to incorporate
remain relevant and drive growth. This fundamen- and support cloud-driven services. These services
tal shift requires businesses to rethink and rewire must, where appropriate, leverage investments
their overall IT strategy and systems, as well as in existing management and monitoring tools.
their customer-facing business operations. If those tools cannot support business require-
ments, RIM service providers need to provide
Remote infrastructure management (RIM) is a
their own ITIL-based operations framework and
critical component in this rethinking and rewiring,
workflow engines.
as it enables the new capabilities and service
excellence that today’s organizations need to Best practices within transformational RIM
compete. Companies that source infrastructure services will enable cloud-based compute, storage
management can free key resources to plan and and application services to be provisioned and
implement new business services that will be consumed as a utility, delivering measurable and
driven and supported by social, mobile, analytics continual improvements to the bottom line. When
and cloud (SMAC) services and capabilities. RIM services are linked to the orchestration of
cloud and other resources, they allow services
Done right, RIM will drive transformation by
to be provisioned according to preset policies
providing capital and operational savings, as well
that specify cost, security, service and availabil-
as the management flexibility and agility needed
ity requirements. By adhering to such policies,
to support a new elastic digital architecture (EDA)
businesses can reduce costs and increase service
that flexes to meet changing business needs.1 This
excellence by ensuring that scarce technical and
elasticity is important for supporting customer
human resources are focused on the most busi-
demand for new business services and to quickly
ness-critical services.
cognizant 20-20 insights | january 2013
2. Finally, pre-built “productized” RIM services — they also support and enable the flexibility, agility
carefully defined with a platform architecture and elasticity offered by SMAC. These services
and documented with ITIL operational processes also provide elasticity through the use of highly
— will ensure high-quality service and consistent virtualized public clouds, as well as private clouds
results. These services also enable businesses to chosen to ensure proper control and security for
selectively choose RIM for only the most appro- critical data and applications.
priate technology or business domains to achieve
the best mix of control and cost savings (see Research from the Everest Group (see Figure 1)
sidebar, page 4). indicates that enterprise buyers of infrastructure
sourcing services expect providers to go beyond
The Challenge lowering the cost of managing their current envi-
As businesses expand into new markets, channels ronment. Today’s customers expect their provider
and partnerships, they need new ways to ensure to transform their operations through industrial-
the availability of their systems, quickly tap skills ized standard services, automation and improved
in modern technologies and expand IT support processes. Enterprises also expect reduced
and services to more sites and users. SMAC tech- expenses and conversion of their cost structure
nologies can help create new from capital to operational expenditures by
Transformational elastic structures that support leveraging cloud technologies and services,
as well as other SMAC technologies that are
RIM services not only just-in-time global wealth provided and supported by their service provider.
provide a lower cost creation viasocial networks.
apps and
cloud, mobile
of managing new These new technologies and Three key characteristics define successful
businesses today: Flexibility, agility and elasticity.
capabilities; they communication channels
optimize core knowledge and
also support and leverage analytics to reveal • Flexibility: Flexibility means being able to
deploy additional applications, systems and
enable the flexibility, insights into new opportuni- infrastructure to support new products and
agility and elasticity ties across internal silos, as services, delivery channels and geographic
markets. Flexible businesses can also rapidly
offered by SMAC. well as with customers and
business partners. incorporate new technologies, using standard-
ized interfaces to link to new applications and
Transformational RIM services not only provide devices, and utilize new off-the-shelf or custom
a lower cost of managing these new capabilities; software to meet changing business needs.
Expectations for Transformation
r Expectations
Increasing Buye
Traditional
Infrastructure Pure RIM Transformation Cloud
Outsourcing
Unique Value Drivers
Asset transfer Standardization, Cap-Ex to Op-Ex
Labor arbitrage automation, process transformational
economics
improvement values
(Usually involves elements of asset
transfer and labor arbitrage models.)
Figure 1
cognizant 20-20 insights 2
3. An organization is flexible when it can: Transformational RIM Requirements
>>Cost-effectively deploy software as a service Earlier approaches to RIM focused on reducing
(SaaS), along with in-house applications, in costs through labor arbitrage and improving pro-
order to engage in needed activities, such ductivity. Transformational RIM goes further by
as reaching a new market segment or ex- standardizing, automating, measuring and con-
perimenting with a new business model. tinually improving IT processes to deliver service
excellence through dramatic levels of flexibility,
>>Tap data from a point-of-sale system or a agility and elasticity.
social media comment stream to analyze
sales trends or customer sentiment.
The new generation of RIM enables the
>>Easily and securely share data from corpo- monitoring and management of private or public
rate systems with mobile social collabora- cloud services, shifting reliance on fixed IT capital
tion platforms for employees and customers. expenditures to variable operational expenses
that rise and fall with demand. Using RIM to more
• Agility:Agility is the enterprise’s ability to effectively integrate cloud-based services into the
support changes in business model, application overall management of the enterprise IT environ-
mix and required service levels more quickly ment provides control and visibility that ensures
and cost-effectively than its competitors to the proper delivery of enterprise applications and
seize and maintain a “first-mover” competitive business services.
advantage. An agile enterprise infrastructure,
combined with transformational RIM, reduces Dramatic improvements in user and customer
the cost of implementing and supporting new satisfaction, as well as reduced support costs
channels, technologies and business models so and downtime, also require greater visibility
that organizations can gain experience quickly into the health of critical business applications.
and change direction if a given technology or Transformational RIM provides this by integrat-
business model does not deliver. ing application and infrastructure monitoring and
management support into a single team with a
• Elasticity:
Elasticity is the ability to quickly
unified view of performance, reliability, availabil-
and cost-effectively scale the IT infrastruc-
ture up or down to respond to changes such ity and other key metrics. This integration, using
as decreased demand, the decision to exit a proven ITIL standards and processes, provides
service line or the closing down or spinning faster incident resolution and more efficient
off of a business. In an elastic problem management to drive overall improved
business performance.
The new generation enterprise, economies of
of RIM enables the scale shift up and down with
business volumes rather
These benefits change the relationship between
monitoring and than remaining fixed when the RIM service provider and the customer.
Rather than focusing only on reducing costs, the
management of business slows, as with tradi- RIM service provider and customer must partner
private or public cloud tional ITthe capital investment
inating
infrastructures. Elim-
on strategic, transformational initiatives that will
services, shifting and matching the operating drive not only innovation but also measurable
business results and capabilities.
reliance on fixed IT costs of the business’s IT
capital expenditures platform to its reduces needs
significantly
current
the
The Road to Transformational RIM
to variable operational cost and risk of adding new To move toward transformational RIM, customers
need to rethink their current sourcing strategies
expenses that rise and features, business partners, to consider how they can meet fundamen-
fall with demand. products new markets.
entering
and services, or
tal technology and business challenges. It
is not enough to simply source static, ineffi-
Transformational RIM will, in fact, be the best way cient processes that manage legacy systems.
to meet the management challenges of SMAC Companies should seek a RIM provider that
technologies and services that are changing the can proactively evaluate and improve their
future of work. It also introduces enterprise-level management processes to deliver the increased
management, security and compliance to growth flexibility, agility and elasticity required to support
initiatives such as massive analytics projects or the business and drive growth.
allowing millions of customers to access corporate
data through mobile and social environments.
cognizant 20-20 insights 3
4. Companies should also continuously distinguish Given this mandate, transformational RIM
between which IT functions are core to their providers must deliver against the following
business and provide competitive advantage imperatives:
vs. those that are contextual and thus better
provided by a RIM provider. Such a partner should • Value creation. Does the service provider
offer high-touch, high-value services based on offer technology architecture, strategy and
the provider’s own intellectual property, such management capabilities that provide true
as management systems and tools, business value to the client? Buyers need to ask pro-
improvement plans and business transformation spective sourcing partners specifically what
frameworks, along with domain knowledge and value they bring in terms of overall operational
expertise. improvements, IT/business alignment and the
ability to drive innovation and growth. Service
Companies should expect their RIM provider providers must also provide real-time mea-
to understand their business domain, proac- surement of the value they are delivering in
tively identify emerging market requirements business terms.
and understand the needs of different types
of customers and end users, as well as the
• Automation. Does the service provider offer
technologies and processes that automate
connection between the IT infrastructure and management functions for ongoing reductions
the application services used by the enterprise. in cost and improvement in service levels? Do
With this holistic view, the right RIM service they have the tools and processes to orches-
provider can suggest transformational services trate various parts of the IT infrastructure,
and programs that differentiate the enterprise in including the SMAC stack, to provide needed
a fast-changing business environment. flexibility, agility and elasticity?
Quick Take
Our transformational RIM services are already was unable to do this using its current IT infra-
helping clients make the leap from mere cost structure. However, the company realized it had
reduction to generating business value by delivering an underutilized set of system resources across
revenue-generating applications and services. For a mix of operating system environments that led
example: to excessively long provisioning times, high costs
and unnecessary complexity. With our Cloud3602
• We saved a major investment bank more than RIM services, we enabled this pharma company
$4 million per year by migrating its legacy infra- to implement on-demand, self-service provision-
structure to a modern, highly available, tightly ing and management of its development/test
integrated solution equipped with business environments, leveraging existing IT assets.
service management (BSM) tools for proactive
fault monitoring, service management reporting • A major U.S. insurer wanted to reduce the
elongated time it took to provision test and
and automation. We also crafted a five-year trans-
development environments, which were increas-
formational technology roadmap for supporting
ingly impacting it overall business. The solution:
private and public clouds, big data and a bring-
free data center resources through the imple-
your-own-device (BYOD) capability. This “living”
mentation of a public cloud and deploy Cloud360
roadmap will be updated and refined on a regular
to monitor the new hybrid environment.
basis to ensure that the IT services stay ahead of
Cloud360 reduced the provisioning process for
the adoption curve for the business. (For more
the test and development environment from
insights on our BYOD thinking, read “Making
months to minutes, improved performance by
BYOD Work for Your Organization”.)
monitoring resource consumption and presented
• A top-10 global pharmaceuticals company the management team with optimized usage
needed to deploy development and test scenarios.
instances for its agile research environments but
cognizant 20-20 insights 4
5. • Transparency and visibility into service answered? Can it offer customized SLAs to
delivery. If problems arise related to IT service meet a company’s specific needs? Are these
delivery, how visible will these be to the orga- SLAs backed by penalties and rewards?
nization? How soon will it take to realize a
problem occurred, the root cause and how it A Competitive ‘Must’
was addressed? As important, what changes Today’s ongoing changes in business, technology
will be made in service delivery to address and society are so fundamental that companies
problems to further minimize — and ideally need to move beyond incremental improve-
eliminate — their impact on the business? ments and drive transformational IT services
initiatives. This transformation must allow them
• 24x7 global operations. Can the service
to continually cut costs while scaling services to
provider deliver consistent service across all
the geographies and services needed now and reach new markets, improve service levels and
in the future? Can the provider leverage this grow the business. Organizations must be “ambi-
global experience to put best practices to work dextrous” — balancing cost-cutting with growth
for each customer? and innovation — and this requirement will only
intensify as work becomes more globalized and
• Maturity of processes and delivery. Does the virtual, mobile device usage soars and virtualiza-
provider utilize a framework such as ITIL and tion technology rises in importance.
strive for continuous improvement? Does it use
a metrics-driven approach with an operational Businesses that rely on traditional RIM models by
framework that clearly defines operations and sourcing inefficient or ineffective processes will
milestones, measures continuous improve- not only fail to reduce their costs; they will also
ments and regularly reports back to clients? be stuck with rigid, unresponsive systems that
hinder change. The transformational RIM model
• Security and data privacy. Can the provider relies on standardization, automation, persistent
prove its compliance with all the internal and
external rules and regulations facing the orga- measurement and improvement, as well as
nization? Does it understand the customer’s developing technology and business roadmaps to
business well enough to help it prioritize its continuously improve IT infrastructure to deliver
security and data privacy efforts? service excellence that boosts the bottom line.
Only those organizations that embrace trans-
• Stringent service level agreements (SLAs). formational RIM — and the partners that can
Is the provider willing to commit to specific provide it — will achieve both the cost reductions
levels of availability and performance for and enhanced flexibility they need to survive and
critical business applications, the intervals thrive in today’s turbulent global economy.
at which operating systems must be updated
and how quickly calls to the support desk are
Footnotes
1
William Strain, Nick Vitalari and Haydn Shaughnessy, “Creating Elastic Digital Architectures,” Cognizant
Technology Solutions, Elasticity Labs, September 2012, http://www.cognizant.com/InsightsWhitepapers/
Creating-Elastic-Digital-Architectures.pdf.
2
“Cloud360,” Cognizant Technology Solutions, http://www.cognizant.com/Cloud/cloud360.
About the Author
Satish Thiagarajan oversees the Technology Office within Cognizant’s IT Infrastructure Services (ITIS)
Business Unit. In this role, he is responsible for keeping the business unit ahead of the technology
curve by identifying, incubating and institutionalizing new technology capability and driving technology
strategy across its portfolio. In his 22-year career, Satish has overseen application development and
management, testing as well as IT infrastructure services portfolios in various capacities, including
consulting, delivery, building and managing centers of excellence, and practice management functions.
Satish received a BTech degree in chemical engineering from REC Warangal, India and a post-gradu-
ate diploma in business administration and a CFA from ICFAI business school. He can be reached at
Satish.Thiagarajan@cognizant.com.
cognizant 20-20 insights 5