By: Sriram K, EVP and CBO, LTIMindtree NxT

The accelerating pace of change in the business world is not only increasing the urgency of digital business transformation — it’s turning that transformation into a continuous, holistic process. In a previous blog, I talked about how LTIMindtree’s unique approach to cloud is helping our customers achieve transformational outcomes to lead in the rapidly accelerating tech landscape. But that accelerating change and urgency is also shifting some of the basic paradigms around cloud in powerful ways:

Transformation to Cloud → Cloud-Led Transformation

Cloud used to be an enabler of technology transformation. Businesses look to cloud tools to let them enhance their existing operations — to drive their traditional business models faster and more efficiently. This resulted in a piecemeal and siloed approach to cloud transformation: businesses deployed discrete cloud tools to specific, existing business use cases.

But the approach today has moved from business transformation to the cloud, to cloud-led business transformation. They’re embracing the “cloud at core, cloud at scale” mentality. The difference? Rather than enhancing their existing business models with cloud, they’re using the cloud to completely redefine, reimagine and redesign new, future-ready and cloud-powered business models. This is cloud at core.

And they’re recognizing that they need to move from applying cloud in silos to connecting cloud solutions across the entire organization. The back offices use cloud to drive efficiency; the middle offices use cloud to improve effectiveness; and the front offices use cloud to enhance customer experience. This is cloud at scale.

Speed + Experience → Speed + Experience + Cost

The early phases of the pandemic forced every business to accelerate digital transformation — it was sink or swim. Speed and experience were prioritized above all else; companies couldn’t afford to worry about the cost. In the rush to move as quickly as possible to deliver a seamless, digitally connected experience, most wound up building multiple silos of cloud fabric.

Now, organizations are recognizing that this siloed ecosystem is complex and difficult to manage. Moreover, as they apply a cost or value lens, these cloud silos or islands are riddled with redundancies and inefficiencies, as well as ad hoc applications that don’t make sense from a cost or value perspective.

Digital resilience and customer experience are still paramount, but as enterprises move out of reactive stances, they want cost visibility and predictability. And they’re reconciling the cost of cloud infrastructure against the value it delivers.
This is driving companies to connect and consolidate cloud infrastructure, as well as to scale valuable applications across the organization. The goal isn’t just to cut costs, but to achieve business-wide synergies.

One great example of this is a major airline for which LTIMindtree developed a customer app to handle the enormous demand for flight rescheduling in the wake of Covid. With a pure focus on speed and experience, the app was offered free to frustrated customers.

But coming out of this volatile period, the airline recognized that customers loved the empowering convenience of self-service rescheduling — and LTIMindtree helped the airline monetize the app to create an additional revenue stream, while enhancing customer satisfaction. Applying that value lens, LTIMindtree then helped the airline connect the app to other service lines within the business — including self-service check-in and check-out, managing streaming in-flight entertainment, and more. This has greatly expanded the cost-to-value ratio of this custom cloud application.

Data-Driven Decisions → Data Driving Differentiation

The original promise of Big Data was that it would drive better, smarter decision-making. You could look at real-time sales data and make fully informed decisions on what inventory to buy, for example.

Today, the much bigger promise of Big Data is that it will drive meaningful business differentiation. More specifically, as businesses in every sector increasingly compete on the basis of customer experience (rather than product or price), companies are harnessing customer data and using analytics to deliver differentiated, hyper-personalized offerings and experiences.

This new approach might use that customer data and intelligence as the foundation to create an entire customer experience platform, with customer intelligence fueling the entire, seamless journey. That platform and that experience is much more than a competitive advantage — it’s a completely differentiated offering.

As an example, LTIMindtree helped a well-known personal care brand re-imagine its business model from primarily retail to a direct-to-consumer subscription service. The key to this transformation was building out the cloud solution to collect, analyze, and activate customer data from various online and offline channels to deliver a differentiated customer experience based on personalized and predictive product recommendations.

Buy vs. Build → Construct vs. Collapse

Businesses have traditionally debated single vs. multi-cloud. But today, the decision is multi-cloud vs. managed multi-cloud. Businesses increasingly recognize that optimizing cloud transformation cannot be achieved fully in-house, nor can one product or platform deliver full value across all use cases, at scale. Enterprises want the best-of-breed approach. They want to use one platform for the front end, something else for the back end, and a third solution to stitch it all together to ensure a seamless customer experience and smooth business operations.

But business leaders are also wary of the inefficiencies, complexities and difficulties of having multiple, siloed cloud fabrics within the organization. The new ideal is to construct a best-of-breed multi-cloud layer that sits above the organization — and collapse that into a centralized, monolithic layer that delivers a seamless experience within the organization.

Wherever you are in your cloud transformation, LTIMindtree offers the consultation and technology architecture services to compete in an always-shifting landscape. We work with companies every day that are making these shifts.

When you’re ready, we’d love to talk about how LTIMindtree can help you redefine, re-imagine, and redesign your business through a cloud-led transformation.

To find out more about our cloud services click here or email us at info@ltimindtree.com