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• 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
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
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
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
•	 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
About Cognizant
Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process out-
sourcing services, dedicated to helping the world’s leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in
Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant combines a passion for client satisfaction, technology innovation, deep industry
and business process expertise, and a global, collaborative workforce that embodies the future of work. With over 50
delivery centers worldwide and approximately 150,400 employees as of September 30, 2012, Cognizant is a member of
the NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500, the Forbes Global 2000, and the Fortune 500 and is ranked among the top performing
and fastest growing companies in the world. Visit us online at www.cognizant.com or follow us on Twitter: Cognizant.


                                         World Headquarters                  European Headquarters                 India Operations Headquarters
                                         500 Frank W. Burr Blvd.             1 Kingdom Street                      #5/535, Old Mahabalipuram Road
                                         Teaneck, NJ 07666 USA               Paddington Central                    Okkiyam Pettai, Thoraipakkam
                                         Phone: +1 201 801 0233              London W2 6BD                         Chennai, 600 096 India
                                         Fax: +1 201 801 0243                Phone: +44 (0) 20 7297 7600           Phone: +91 (0) 44 4209 6000
                                         Toll Free: +1 888 937 3277          Fax: +44 (0) 20 7121 0102             Fax: +91 (0) 44 4209 6060
                                         Email: inquiry@cognizant.com        Email: infouk@cognizant.com           Email: inquiryindia@cognizant.com


©
­­ Copyright 2013, Cognizant. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written permission from Cognizant. The information contained herein is
subject to change without notice. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

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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
  • 6. About Cognizant Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process out- sourcing services, dedicated to helping the world’s leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant combines a passion for client satisfaction, technology innovation, deep industry and business process expertise, and a global, collaborative workforce that embodies the future of work. With over 50 delivery centers worldwide and approximately 150,400 employees as of September 30, 2012, Cognizant is a member of the NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500, the Forbes Global 2000, and the Fortune 500 and is ranked among the top performing and fastest growing companies in the world. Visit us online at www.cognizant.com or follow us on Twitter: Cognizant. World Headquarters European Headquarters India Operations Headquarters 500 Frank W. Burr Blvd. 1 Kingdom Street #5/535, Old Mahabalipuram Road Teaneck, NJ 07666 USA Paddington Central Okkiyam Pettai, Thoraipakkam Phone: +1 201 801 0233 London W2 6BD Chennai, 600 096 India Fax: +1 201 801 0243 Phone: +44 (0) 20 7297 7600 Phone: +91 (0) 44 4209 6000 Toll Free: +1 888 937 3277 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7121 0102 Fax: +91 (0) 44 4209 6060 Email: inquiry@cognizant.com Email: infouk@cognizant.com Email: inquiryindia@cognizant.com © ­­ Copyright 2013, Cognizant. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written permission from Cognizant. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.