Transforming IT To Align With Business: A New Model

By Monideep Chatterjee, AVP at Retail, CPG, and Manufacturing Industry, Mindtree

The proliferation of connected devices, ubiquitous computing and 24/7 access to information has resulted in a sea change in consumer behavior. Within business organizations, this has created a deep sense of urgency to evolve and transform in a continuous fashion to service the new needs of these consumers. The resulting demand this has placed on IT departments, to scale and deliver as a key ally of business in this new digital economy, is unprecedented.

However, meeting the demand is easier said than done. This is because IT was never built to operate in an agile way while continuing to deal with core challenges such as the shortage of needed skills, incompatible systems, cost pressures, and so on. So, aside from scrapping everything and starting from scratch (which isn’t actually an option), can IT think differently and smarter?

Today’s IT needs to operate at three speeds, in order to:

• ensure the stability of core business through a solid services framework
• provide the ability to differentiate and grow new business via agile, DevOps-ready centers
• future-proof the business through innovation and foresight with a digital innovation sandbox

The problem is that most companies don’t have the right support and expertise to operate on all three planes. The traditional ways in which IT partnered with service providers — outsourcing application and infrastructure services to a single offshore provider, or outsourcing just the application development and support to a service provider in order to reduce costs — will most certainly not work. Continuing down that path will only spell trouble through costly delays that will be too much for the organization to bear.

The responsible choice is for IT to change its role by deciding to act as a broker of services for the business, and only bring on board those partners who can very quickly create value for the organization while helping IT operate at three speeds. This is the new “Business IT” organization.

The new Business IT model selects partners based on expertise, not scale. These partners need to deliver on four primary fronts:

• bring agility and collaboration to the table
• have the capacity to co-innovate and invest in new ideas and technologies
• be prepared to transform a business from customer-centric viewpoint
• provide the thinking and ability to connect the dots between innovation, systems of engagement and systems of record

These are what you might call next-generation service providers, who can work in a “Hybrid IT” mode, with every outcome linked to a business impact.

Mindtree has seen this in action, acting within the multivendor ecosystem of companies that have embraced the Business IT model.

As an example, a global automobile manufacturer worked with its IT service provider to create an end-to-end digital asset distribution platform based in the cloud to optimize costs and meet scalability requirements. The new platform improved user experience and increased application usage by 20 percent, while reducing cost of maintenance by 40 percent.

Similarly, a B2B supplier of parts for the manufacturing industry partnered with its service provider to build a $1 billion e-commerce channel for its more than 1 million unique SKUs. The new channel now drives 50 percent of transactions for 300,000 customers, and led to a 50 percent increase in total number of orders.

In each of these cases the service provider was what you might call the “anchor partner” in place, but it collaborated with several other partners within the multivendor ecosystem. Every player does its part, harnessing their expertise to bring agility, innovation and transformation to the client. It’s the new paradigm for a winning formula in this new world of business-aligned IT.

Monideep Chatterjee leads Sales and Strategic relationships in North America for the Retail, CPG and Manufacturing industry group at Mindtree. He brings rich experience and a proven track record of delivering growth for global organizations by harnessing the power of Digital and Enterprise solutions. He has an extensive background in sales management, client relationship management and partner development in IT services, Enterprise applications, Products, Consulting and Outsourcing industry with a focus on Innovation, Business agility and improving speed to market for IT.