After Kyndryl being separated from IBM in 2021 as an independent technology service company, it has not only expanded its addressable technology areas but also enhanced its addressable market size. Enterprise IT World spoke to Rohit Sachdeva, VP-Account Management and Client Unit Leader, Kyndryl India to understand his perspective on India.
How has Kyndryl’s growth trajectory evolved since its separation from IBM?
Kyndryl has been on a remarkable growth trajectory since 2021, continually expanding the client base and strengthening our position in our existing accounts as the partner of choice.
As a leading technology services company, we doubled our addressable market opportunity to $530 billion and expanded our offerings horizon beyond specific technologies and platforms, which empowered us to create the best and most effective solutions to address the customers’ challenges. Our go-to-market model is aligned with customer needs and domain requirements.
Kyndryl’s strategy focussed on 3A’s that is Alliances, Advanced Delivery, Account Focus—have yielded significant positive results.
On the Alliances front, our partnerships with cloud hyperscalers have proven highly successful. In the first nine months of this fiscal year, Kyndryl recognized an impressive $300 million in revenue tied to these alliances surpassing our initial hyperscaler revenue target, and raised our full-year goal to $400 million.
Advanced Delivery, powered by automation and AI-Ops adoption, has successfully transformed delivery for our clients from a manual reactive corrections mode to a proactive insight based automated remediations, resulting in higher system availability and generating an annualized savings of approximately $500 million.
Accounts-focused execution has helped realize $475 million of annualized benefits and we are on track to achieve the annual goal of $500 million.
Our evolving business mix is driving increased profitability. Kyndryl Bridge, our open integration services platform that harnesses AI to expedite automation and improve efficiencies, has enabled early adopters to realize substantial cost savings avoiding over $1 billion in annual costs. More than 750 global customers are operational on Kyndryl Bridge and is expected to cross 1000 by the fiscal year end. Kyndryl Consult, our technology consulting arm, is a critical part of our wider strategy that provides mission critical technology advisory, implementation, and integration services for customers. It enables us to meet businesses where they are in their digital transformation and provides a framework for flexible and iterative co-innovation.
We have also completed an internal transformation effort to transition to effective and efficient systems that drive fast, customer focused execution. This has built a streamlined future-ready operations model by moving to a platform strategy with industry-standard technologies and reducing our app count from 1,800 to a few hundred.
“We are working with IIT Tirupati to advance research, share knowledge, promote innovation and drive breakthrough developments in AI-enabled 3D-printing technology.”
Rohit Sachdeva, VP-Account Management and Client Unit Leader, Kyndryl India
Could you elaborate on how Kyndryl’s operations in India align with the national imperative of the ‘Digital First’ approach, particularly in the context of the ‘Digital India’ policy
Our work in India ties in directly with our national imperatives. Indian enterprises are prioritizing the ‘Digital First’ approach in their business strategy and we enable our customers to tap into the best talent and best solutions available to realize these goals.
Our skills focus extends to building strategic collaborations and programs with government bodies and NGOs. We have partnered with the Common Services Centres (CSC) under the Ministry of Electronics to run Cyber Rakshak, an initiative that will train over 100,000 women to become Cybersecurity Ambassadors within three years. We are working with IIT Tirupati to advance research, share knowledge, promote innovation and drive breakthrough developments in AI-enabled 3D-printing technology.
In Feb 2024, Kyndryl and the National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) announced an advanced experiential learning initiative in DevSecOps, Cloud Operations, and Resilient Systems for 10,000 students across the country.
Kyndryl Collaborative Centres manages the vital systems of hundreds of customers around the world. A significant part of this talent base is in India whose advanced delivery capabilities are utilized to build customized solutions.
How is Kyndryl integrating AI into its operational framework, and what recent partnerships has it forged with hyperscalers in this domain?
Kyndryl is strategically and seamlessly incorporating AI into its solutions, aiming to provide our customers with enhanced efficiency and innovation. Our recent collaborations with major hyperscalers, including Google and Microsoft, have significantly bolstered these capabilities.
Kyndryl and Google Cloud have worked together since 2021 to help transform businesses with Google Cloud’s advanced AI capabilities. In February we announced the coupling of their in-house AI capabilities, including Gemini, with our expertise and managed services to develop and deploy generative AI solutions for customers.
With Microsoft, we are leveraging our Joint Innovation Centers, Kyndryl’s growing patent portfolio in data and AI, and its access to Azure OpenAI to design, develop and drive new generative AI innovations and solutions across their enterprises. This also includes an AI-readiness program within Kyndryl Consult that provides customers with end-to-end services to explore and adopt gen AI solutions.
We employ AI in customer service engagements to expedite the categorization process, balancing automation with manual tasks. Kyndryl Bridge, our open integration services platform, uses AI to accelerate automation, drive efficiencies, and enhance security and resiliency.
Apart from the AI specific engagements, another key aspect of our cloud hyperscalers partnerships is a commitment to help our employees acquire valuable cloud expertise and certifications. In 2023, Kyndryls earned more than 32,000 cloud hyperscaler certifications.
Can you provide insights into Kyndryl’s key customer base across various sectors such as healthcare, automotive, and banking?
Our proven track record in deploying cutting edge technology and leveraging global partnerships to deliver goal-centric solutions makes us a trusted partner for our customers.
In the telecom sector, we are working with a major telecom company to create a near-edge network across India for deploying applications that need real-time data processing.
For USDC, an online higher education services provider, we developed a state-of-the-art, cloud-based university management platform that provides personalized learner experiences, streamlines and optimizes learner onboarding, and enhances the administration processes of universities for greater operational efficiency and regulatory governance. With Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), we are driving IT modernization by managing infrastructure services, increasing uptime with automation, and enhancing resiliency. In healthcare, Dr. Lal Path Labs chose us to implement a cloud-based IT infrastructure to improve their agility, scalability, and security, enabling expansion into new markets.
We have longstanding and trusted partnerships with a majority of key players in the banking and finance sector. Earlier this year, Canara Bank chose us as their trusted partner to modernize their end-to-end IT operations and streamline services delivery across core banking, IT infrastructure, applications and network operations. We are also working with Suryoday Bank to drive the bank’s technology transformation program, improve operational efficiency, and increase digital banking adoption among its customers.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has partnered with us to build a resilient and modernised next-gen private cloud infrastructure, migrate their datacenters and build a reliable and scalable platform capable of handling almost 15 billion transactions per month. Our Business Resiliency Services works with the National Stock Exchange to transition the NSE’s IT into a modern, next-generation infrastructure and application landscape with built-in automation capabilities, improved security posture and resilience.
How does Kyndryl ensure the security and privacy of data while implementing AI solutions for its customers?
Our Responsible AI approach emphasizes the principles of transparency, fairness, and accountability to provide visibility into decision-making processes and data sources that build trust with our customers. Additionally, we actively detect and mitigate biases in AI solutions, aligning with our commitment to fairness and ethical AI design.
We deploy robust security measures, including encryption, access controls, and data loss prevention to safeguard against unauthorized access or misuse of customer data. This ensures that the data remains secure and confidential throughout the AI lifecycle. We also evaluate our vendor’s data security practices and monitor them to ensure that they hold up to our stringent data security standards.
