The cloud computing model has been widely perceived as a threat to the growth of the software outsourcing industry. Here is how Infosys came up with an answer
ShareThis A recent Gartner report predicts that 20 percent of businesses will own no IT assets by 2012 – a significant shift that the research firm predicts will be caused by cloud computing. For Indian IT service providers – this is a massive shift as the traditional sources of revenues – application development, application maintenance and implementation will be massively impacted.
As there is no software to install, maintain or develop – the cloud model has the ability to threaten the main sources, that Indian software service players typically derive their revenues from. Infosys saw this development almost two and half years ago, and\ accordingly started analyzing how cloud computing could be a possible threat, and how it could be converted into an opportunity by strategically positioning itself into areas where it could leverage the cloud computing model.
To better address the opportunities provided by the cloud computing model, Infosys also opened a Cloud Center of Excellence (CoE) that enables enterprises adopt cloud-based capabilities on public as well as internal private clouds. The software giant has already created three cloud-based business process-specific platforms – HR, procurement and processes specific to the advertising industry. The HR platform, which Infosys calls as HR-in-a box solution, has already been adopted by two customers.
With enterprises wary about adopting solutions on the public cloud, Infosys is seeing huge traction from enterprise customers who want its consulting expertise for building private clouds. The firm has close to 25 customers who are using its consulting services to adopt cloud computing solutions.
“Enterprise customers face several challenges in cost effectively migrating to the cloud. In addition to providing specialized frameworks and accelerators to help customers effectively adopt cloud computing solutions, we will also provide the specialists who can deliver the full potential of cloud-based solutions to end users,” says Raghavan Subramanian, AVP, Cloud Computing, Center of Excellence, SET Labs, Infosys Technologies.
This approach is perfect for Infosys and its customers. Customers can outsource their entire business process functions such as HR, and only pay for what they use. Infosys will not only supply the technology platform, but also the people to run it. So one side, it will leverage its traditional skills in helping organizations build private clouds, and on the other side, it will provide the business process management platforms that will be run in the cloud.
“We are naturally built for the cloud as we have similar experience in ramping up and scaling down teams and providing on demand models for our customers,” says Subramanian, pointing out to the synergies that exist between the outsourcing model and the cloud.
The cloud – an alternative delivery model
Almost a decade back, Infosys started laying down the foundation for its Global Delivery Model. This model fundamentally changed the dynamics of the software delivery model, and forced other global competitors to come up with remote offshore-based models.
It also significantly changed the way IT services were delivered. Today, the offshore outsourcing model is standard and most global competitors have perfected the art of providing software services from remote locations. It also significantly changed the way IT services were delivered.
With the advent of the cloud, Infosys has a similar opportunity. The cloud gives it location-agnostic capability to deploy services. It also gives it the capability to rollout services at a faster pace. For example, Subramanian points out that deploying business process platforms in the cloud from a vendor like Infosys will easily give a customer up to 40-50 percent reduction in deployment time.
The seriousness of the firm’s intent can be seen from the fact that till date the firm has filed seven patents related to cloud computing technologies. The world of private cloud deployment offers Infosys opportunities that are much larger than the traditional space that it operates. Infosys is also in talks with a pharmaceutical alliance for setting up a federated cloud – this will allow individual pharmaceutical companies in the alliance to securely select a computing environment on demand on Amazon for a particular workload.
Infosys also has a similar opportunity to offer cloud-based platforms on a pay-per-use model. Besides business processes on the cloud, Infosys is also experimenting with cloud-based app stores. For example, Aircel has used Flypp – a cloud-based application platform from Infosys that allows mobile operators to use ready-to-use experiential applications across devices.
Taking traditional services into the cloud
Besides creating cloud-based IPs, Infosys is also relooking at how traditional services can be delivered via the cloud.
“Traditional services such as testing and business intelligence (for unstructured data) have a clear advantage when delivered via the cloud route,” opines Subramanian. The CoE is actively working with the respective service lines on how existing IPs can be cloud-enabled. It is also simultaneously looking at offering its core banking solution, Finacle on the cloud – targeted at co-operative banks.
While it is still early days before cloud computing actually starts to impact the traditional IT software services ecosystem, Infosys’ approach shows how the cloud can be effectively leveraged as an alternative delivery model.
Source:http://informationweek.in/Cloud_Computing/11-02-28/Infosys_converts_cloud_threat_into_opportunity.aspx?page=1
