Traditional measurements of ROI in IT are difficult to verify. While the investment is clear, the returns on investment are not. The means of quantifying returns are different for every organization and hence there is no standard solution to this.In Operations and Management, service levels are measured in terms of IT availability, which leads to a myopic measurement model, so it can be fairly concluded that efficiency is still measured in transactional terms.

Consider an E-Commerce Company having its Shopping Application managed by an IT Services provider managing it. Any downtime on this portal during evenings and weekends has significant business impact as against downtime during mid-day / nights. Hence, the IT Services provider should ensure hyper-monitoring of the application and its underlying components including the Infrastructure during the critical hours and the measurement should also be along the same lines. Any unavailability of the key Application should be measured on potential business-lost-in-rupee terms, rather than as Application/Infrastructure downtime or 99 percent server uptime. Headquartered in Bangalore, CMS IT strongly believes to focus on the business value of IT; primarily on the measurement of IT efficiency in business terms called Business SLA Management.

Similarly, with the advent of technology, System Integration (SI) challenges have also grown. Not so long ago, most SI services focused on a grounds-up setup, wherein the Service Provider had to do the designing, the setup, test and then release to production. Any untoward delays or technology challenges didn’t have a significant impact on business directly. But trends in SI have changed to a great extent. SI projects today deal with migrations, upgrades, cloud adoption and expansion of existing, running IT landscapes. As a result, most SI projects cannot afford the luxury of extended downtimes and there is no scope for error. CMS IT takes a different approach for the successful execution of SI projects in three ways- deploying the right people, who have the skills and experience of implementing new age SI projects; implementing the right technology with the right partners, be it in the areas of Security, Mobility, Cloud & Hyperconvergence; ensuring strong governance to ensure quick and correct decision-making.
For every cost effective IT Service Provider in the country, there is always another Service Provider who can provide the same service at a lower cost. Often proven, as one goes down the cost route, service quality ends up as the first casualty. Hence, it is important to take a holistic view of IT Services. While “cost effective” is not what the company aspires for, “value effective” is essentially a factor when compared to the other players in the market. Working towards “value effectiveness”, CMS IT ensures that only certified consultants work in respective areas of technologies. Also, a “Technology Doctors” Group that consists of technology experts across domains are situated regionally to ensure 24x7 availability to Customers and are sensitive to Customers’ needs.

MOC for Digital Direction
CMS IT’s Mobility Operations Center (MOC) is an ISO 9001 and 27001 certified, avant-garde facility that provides 24x7 Digital Services. This includes Mobility Application Development, Application Maintenance and Mobile Device Management. Being a shared service operation, the digital environments of clients are managed by highly skilled and certified team of engineers. The facility is a secure environment with robust Security and Automation, including Call Management systems and Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions.

“The MOC is a key part of CMS IT’s growth strategy considering the ubiquitous nature of digital devices in Clients’ environments. We have executed some very interesting projects from our MOC that covers digital requirements with a high degree of built-in security”, says Anand. For a client, CMS IT deployed policies on handheld devices across the globe leveraging a cloud based MDM solution. The devices were BYOD devices used by multiple roles within the organization. There were two complexities with the requirement which were met by the company:
• The MDM had to be configured with PCI compliance and hence required a complete understanding of PCI requirements and translating these requirements into the
MDM configuration.
• The devices were spread across countries, in North America and Asia, and hence the configuration had to be done round the clock. All these devices were enabled from CMS IT’s Mobility Operation Centre in Bangalore.

CMS IT’s Security Approach
Expansion of business eco-systems and the consequent spread of IT eco-system have created silos in the enterprise security landscape. Further, new threat vectors have emerged and threats complexity have increased because of quick adoption of SMACI, which are yet to get integrated into Enterprise grade security controls completely.CMS IT’s Information Security Framework integrates “Layered security controls” and “The coverage of emerging IT landscape”.It enables central management of identity and access; contextual visibility to devices, users, data and usage; and behavioral analysis driven monitoring.

CMS IT’s Security as a service offered through Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) enables consistent security posture across traditional physical computing as well as Private and Public Cloud Services. Beyond traditional CASB, the framework seamlessly extends controls to mobile devices and IOT. In addition to all that, CMS IT also helps clients create security awareness programs, tailored to target audience requirements. Immeasurable growth in the volume of information has complicated the discovery of relevant security threat traces. This challenge is addressed using the analytics layer which also enables behavior detection capability.In addition to all that, CMS IT also helps clients create security awareness programs, tailored to target audience requirements.

Assisting with the best-in-class Cloud strategy
With businesses looking towards ‘IT as a service,’ Cloud, today is essential in realizing business value. As Cloud is being implemented in various ways such as private cloud, public cloud, and hybrid cloud, choosing the right technology and the right partner to design and implement a sound cloud-strategy is imperative. “CMS IT’s services are designed to help clients make the right choices to maximize returns from their cloud investments”, quotes the Chief Strategy Officer & BU head for CMS IT, Anand Ramakrishnan. Besides that, the company’s understanding of legacy infrastructure and applications allows them to deploy and manage solutions that coexist on-premise and on the cloud as well.Every enterprise in some form or other has adopted Cloud Computing, such as-mail messaging, communication and applications. Cloud-based services are now the foundation of SMAC adoption. CMS IT identifies the costs of delivering services from on-premises compared to a Cloud service for an enterprise. As a Cloud Service Provider of Microsoft, the company sold Office365 capabilities to medium-sized businesses and is realizing promising opportunities for cloud adoption. Specifically, CMS IT’s Cloud services include Cloud Migration Services, Cloud Security Services, and Cloud Management Services. All the services are delivered through the company’s state-of-the-art Enterprise Command Center.

Journey over the years
It’s a unique challenge for any running and successful organization to transform or “re-startup”. The bottlenecks of breaking the restraints of legacy, re-tuning of structures & technologies for future landscapes are several. “Given the longevity of CMS IT, the brand is associated with a particular set of offerings and hence moving that brand association up the value chain is a challenge”, adds Anand.
SinceCMS IT has the understanding of legacy infrastructure & applications and is able to manage the transition from legacy to new-age technologies for clients, the longevity turns out to be a unique advantage. CMS IT is one of the oldest players in the Indian IT space and began operations at the time when computers were fresher in the corporate landscape. Continued focus on learning & development with an understanding of new technologies, the CMS IT team has been able to bridge technology changes persistently, thereby staying relevant for more than 3 decades.

Value proposition
The CMS IT’s Value Proposition is centered around the three key pillars – Reliable, Robust and Secure.Reliability, here, is evident through the organization’s longevity, experience over the decades, and the vision to continuously change without failing to pay attention to the changing business needs as well as technology changes. Being a mid-sized IT Organization present across 220 cities around the country, CMS IT’s breadth of services that cover the entire spectrum of IT Management including new areas such as Mobility, Security, Cloud and in-house Application Frameworks, talks for the Robustness of the company. The company’s Secure service delivery model stems from the fact that all the workforce on field are their own employees, with little or no subcontracting. Also, the quality standards that the company adopts coupled with process maturity ensures consistency and repeatability. At CMS IT, considering focus on learning & development and with an understanding of new technologies, the CMS team has been able to bridge the technology changes persistently, thereby staying relevant for 3 decades. As the company grows, it intends to continue to be an organization that is focused on growing the business value of IT.