Caspar Herzberg |
This article first appeared in the Summer 2017 issue of The Record.
As our society goes through a period of digital disruption, this disruption offers many benefits to both consumers and to businesses. But it can be an existential threat to companies that fail to transform their processes in the face of accelerating change, and no industry or company is immune.
The case for digital transformation is clear, but finding the way to get there can be very difficult. Businesses need proven leaders to help them on this journey – and there are four characteristics companies should look for when choosing their transformation partner.
Partners should operate on a global scale and have a proven platform for attracting and maintaining next-generation talent. They should have a good track record for agility in automating processes. They should have deep client expertise. And they should embrace constant technological innovation.
DXC Technology and Microsoft are IT leaders that meet all these criteria. Strategic partners for more than 30 years, together they support in excess of 6,000 client companies in 70 countries. Their combined expertise and experience enables enterprises to break down the technical and conceptual barriers between platforms, applications and people and move to a digital-first business model. Clients can leverage DXC’s expertise and offerings to deliver solutions integrating the entire Microsoft ecosystem.
Black & Veatch is a global engineering, consulting and construction company that primarily specialises in building critical human infrastructure for the energy, water and telecommunications sectors. Owned by its employees, the company has more than 100 offices worldwide and works on up to 7,000 active projects across the globe.
The company contracted DXC to replace its expensive on-premise Exchange Messaging solution with the Microsoft Office 365 productivity suite. DXC also rolled out Microsoft’s scalable enterprise communication and collaboration platform – with accompanying services such as Skype for Business and OneDrive – to the more than 13,000 users that make up Black & Veatch’s global workforce.
In addition, DXC helped Black & Veatch move its customer relationship management system online and build data lakes with Microsoft Power BI. It also enabled Black & Veatch migrate its engineering design workloads to the cloud. This IT transformation has provided a competitive advantage and aligns with the company’s strategic intent for global growth.
“DXC is the first ‘born digital’ services integrator,” says Dan Hushon, senior vice president and chief technology officer at DXC. “We offer a set of standard solutions running off standard operating systems that increase ROI and reduce the need for internal IT talent. Working with our strategic partner Microsoft, we transform client workplace processes and solutions for success in a virtualised, distributed and mobile world.”
Non-governmental organisation Foundation Paraguay works with local individuals and micro finance companies to eliminate poverty in more than 45 countries in Latin America, South America and Asia. Field workers visit families in underprivileged communities to gather information about poverty levels and access to essential services.
In the past, field workers could spend three hours or more completing paper-based surveys for each family. Then they would have to return to a central office to enter this information into a database so micro finance companies could evaluate the families for loans. Today, field workers use DXC Technology’s Visual Survey Platform, a Microsoft Windows 10 application that is integrated with the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.
Surveys now take 20 minutes, and the organisation can complete five times more surveys per day. They also have instant access to real-time data and loan decisions. All the survey data is stored in Microsoft Azure, where it can be analysed for patterns by Microsoft Power BI. This enables Foundation Paraguay to identify common factors and monitor fluctuations in poverty levels so they can prioritise resources.
Together, DXC and Microsoft have delivered and deployed highly differentiated solutions in a wide array of environments for hundreds of client organisations. Our two companies jointly support more than 800 managed cloud clients representing more than 316,000 virtual machines. Clients benefit from the expertise of 20,000 Microsoft professionals and 3,500 data scientists. This potent combination provides the best support for companies looking for an IT partner to advise, transform and then manage their IT modernisation initiatives.
Change can seem very daunting when the familiar status quo becomes untenable. But Microsoft and DXC have created a tried and tested roadmap for digital transformation. We know how to take legacy IT and turn it from a stumbling block into what business technology always should be – a force multiplier of productivity and efficiency. If that’s not how you feel about your IT infrastructure today, the time to act is now.