Ramesh T. Kumar General Manager,
Corporate Information Systems,
Mindtree
The information technology-enabled services/business process management (ITeS/BPM) industry has been leveraging information and communication technology (ICT) solutions such as video-conferencing and cloud to enhance business efficiency. Being early adopters of technology, enterprises in the ITeS/BPM industry are now experimenting with big data, artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things (IoT), etc. to streamline business processes and automate operations. They are looking forward to interesting times with many of these technologies set for mainstream adoption. Leading enterprises in the ITeS/BPM industry discuss their IT roadmap, the technology trends and key challenges in implementing new technologies….
How have telecom and IT solutions helped in increasing business efficiency in the ITeS/ BPM industry?
Mindtree minds are spread across multiple geo-locations and thus, enabling collaboration to increase their productivity is a big challenge. Availability of information for them through mobile phones is a key requirement. We use Skype for Business as one of the channels to collaborate for audio requirements and web collaborations to share information between various parties. This solution has been rolled out across the organisation and is used extensively for its daily collaboration needs as well.
For collaboration within small groups, we have rolled out Microsoft Teams, a platform that combines workplace chat, meetings, notes and attachments. Many use-case scenarios have evolved in using this platform. For example, our central proposal team is able to collaborate and share information effectively.
What is your company’s telecom and IT/ICT roadmap? How are the ICT initiatives implemented by the company benefiting the organisation?
Currently, we use Skype for Business for web, audio and video collaboration as well as third-party audio bridges with local dial-in numbers. At Mindtree, we are exploring a solution that gives integrated web collaboration as well as the audio dial-in feature for users to have seamless collaboration, especially users who need to join the meetings over the phone.
Key initiatives like chatbots enabled with AI are helping Mindtree minds to access HR-related information effectively and the management dashboards are helping businesses to visualise data from a single source of truth.
What is the current level of adoption of technologies like IoT, automation, AI, big data analytics and cloud in your industry? What are your plans in this regard?
At our Global Learning and Development Center in Bhubaneswar, we induct 400-500 campus minds every quarter, and we also have lateral users joining various locations. One of the biggest challenges is how to disseminate information to them without them having to reach out to anyone. We have implemented a chatbot called Maci, which is an interface for users to get information. For example, users can check their leave policy, apply for leave and have it approved by managers through the chatbot.
Our central helpdesk was supporting 25-30 per cent requests to change passwords or unlock accounts. We have automated this process through a self-service portal, which enables users to reset their passwords or unlock their account securely.
From the IT standpoint, we have created a security dashboard for tracking end-point compliance. We have taken out a list of all assets allocated to our users and are tracking agents, patches and antivirus signature status on the endpoints. This mapping has helped us to ensure that we are compliant with critical patches. We have created different levels of dashboards, which is relevant for different groups to ensure compliance.
Of late, with growing instances of cyberattacks, even our customers are asking for periodic compliance reports. These dashboards have created the flexibility to share information in no time, which, in turn, has enhanced user productivity as well as security measures.
What are the some of the challenges faced by the industry when implementing new ICT technologies?
Security has been of prime importance to us and the industry in general. Our organisation has grown multi-fold, which brings its own challenges in ensuring security. Some of our applications are on-premises while the rest are on the cloud, and integrating them in a secure way is a challenge. In view of new technologies coming in, skilling and re-skilling and availability of talent are always a challenge. Currently we have Y orbit, which is our learning portal, to overcome some of these challenges. With cloud adoption increasing, speed and higher bandwidth capacities are the need of the hour. The cost of increasing the bandwidth should be more competitive.
What are the key technology trends that will shape the industry in the next few years?
Automation, AI and cognitive computing will shape the services rendered to end-users. This will bring in a lot more efficiency and enable teams to take up higher-level jobs rather than mundane jobs. At Mindtree, we are closely looking at these technologies to enable various internal services.
