Cambridge Technology Enterprises (CTE) is a global business and technology services company, which specialises in IT modernisation, business process outsourcing, cloud enablement, enterprise mobility, and application and infrastructure managed services. The company provides IT and business process management (BPM) services to industries such as banking and financial services, life sciences and health care, energy and utilities, government and defence, media, publishing and entertainment, manufacturing, retail, education, and real estate. Sudip Kar, vice-president, delivery, CTE, talks about how technology is reshaping the Indian BPM and IT-enabled services (ITeS) industry, as well as the challenges in adopting new technologies and the future trends in the industry. Excerpts…

What are the technology changes that are shaping the BPM, IT and ITeS sectors?

Currently, the industry’s focus is on adopting new-age technologies, migrating to the cloud platform and ensuring that the IT infrastructure being established is scalable. The core objectives of adopting new technologies are to ensure an improvement in business performance and a reduction in operational costs and business risks through in-depth data analysis as well as to make better business decisions through predictive analysis.

What does the company’s current telecom and IT set-up comprise?

Cloud is our preference for meeting all our communication and telecom needs. The company uses Citrix and also avails of offerings from a few VOIP service providers. A centralised electronic private branch exchange is used at CTE for routing phone calls globally. Our IT infrastructure set-up relies on VMware for virtualising server spaces, and on Amazon Web Services for our development and testing needs.

What are the enterprise solutions that the company currently deploys?

CTE is an enterprise solution provider to global companies across verticals. It helps them achieve their IT, business and operational objectives. The company’s popular product offerings to customers include the energy reporting platform, laboratory information management systems for pharmaceutical and life sciences companies, the automation and testing platform for testing embedded systems, and the bill management system. The company also uses some of these platforms to enhance its internal business processes.

How has telecom and IT helped the company add value to its customers’ business?

The energy reporting platform developed by CTE has been recognised as the best reporting platform across energy management companies. Reportedly, customers have benefited immensely through the insights extracted from the data provided by the platform. An in-depth data analysis has helped companies significantly reduce their risks as well as business costs, thereby increasing business potential and operational efficiency. On the other hand, the bill management system has assisted companies in adding customers to their business database without having to add additional personnel, hence decreasing the operational costs incurred to a large extent.

What are the challenges faced in implementing new technologies?

The shortage of skilled resources is one of the primary challenges faced by companies in implementing new technologies. While implementing new technologies, chief information officers (CIOs) often take into consideration the benefits of a short-term strategy while sidelining the huge benefits that the company may obtain in the long run. Budgetary constraint is another issue, and in certain cases, it is observed that the budget for sustaining an existing technology is more than that for implementing a new one.

What are the major trends in the technology space that the BPM, IT and ITeS companies are likely to witness?

Cloud and big data are undoubtedly the two big technology trends that will continue to grow in the coming years. CIOs realise the benefits associated with migrating to the cloud and adopting big data.

India is highly aware of the emerging technologies and is adopting them at a rapid pace. In the US, most companies have already started benefiting from these technologies. CTE and other leading IT companies are taking the lead in adopting cloud and big data internally and educating their customers about the benefits offered by these technologies at different stages of adoption.