Divya Baranwal, Research Director at Quadrant Knowledge Solutions, had a stimulating conversation with Jitendra Sardesai who is the founder and CEO of i-Source Infosystems. With over 30 years of industry experience, he is the key to leading the company’s global footprints in the IT managed services and solutions market.
Evolution of IT infrastructure Market and Impact of the Pandemic
Divya started the conversation by asking Jitendra to shed light on how the IT infrastructure service market has evolved in the last decade, especially on the impacts of the global pandemic in the sector. Jitendra responded that the scope of the IT infrastructure market has expanded greatly in this decade. It started long back with mainframe and minicomputer management as well as getting into managing specifics of network devices, servers, and applications. This gamut has increased with time to the extent of managing end-to-end IT infrastructure for all sorts of devices and applications.
Interestingly, the advent of better technology has enhanced overall uptime management. AI and ML-based tools conduct predictive analysis and assure the uptime of devices and applications by up to 99.99 percent, reducing the load on IT teams. It is one of the big changes that happened in the sector with the emergence of technology-integrated tools and platforms in the past decade.
Then talking about the effects of the pandemic, Jitendra mentioned that it helped organizations serving their clients remotely. A hesitation that clients used to feel in allowing these businesses to provide their services in either remote or hybrid form before the pandemic is now fading, bringing more opportunities to such organizations. The service providers are also addressing the challenge of security so that these remote/hybrid models can be more prevalent.
Hence, acceptance of customers and the advent of cloud and other technologies helping businesses in offering flexible, efficient, and remote services are key changes that the IT infrastructure market has witnessed in this decade. Moreover, there is traction from not only the enterprise customers but also from the SMBs and smaller businesses as well.
Key Technology Trends in the IT Infrastructure Market
Upon being asked about the key technology trends happening in the IT infrastructure market, Jitendra first pointed out cloud technology changing the industry with all kinds of customers and businesses adopting it in a hybrid manner, having their presence in public as well as private cloud platforms. Hence, there is a shift from MSPs (Managed Service Providers) to CSPs (Cloud Service Providers) taking place in the IT infrastructure market.
Other noteworthy technology trends are the occurrence of IoT, AI, ML, and Big data-based solutions as well as the growing importance of cyber security in the market. These technologies are playing important role in enabling businesses to provide better services to their clients and in making better decisions.
Major Challenges and how to cope with them?
Next, Divya asked Jitendra what some of the major challenges faced by enterprises in the IT infrastructure services market are and how businesses can overcome them. Jitendra expressed that it became difficult to offer IT services remotely utilizing relevant technologies. Moreover, this was accelerated as the pandemic required them to work from home and provide services in a scattered form, without a central network/command center. The clients and businesses both needed to change their mindset and accept this new normal.
Hence, Jitendra strongly recommended being flexible in these changing times to utilize advanced tools and processes effectively and quickly adopt the changes to stay ahead of the competition in the market. The expanding market, according to him, offers plenty of opportunities to the ones who can put the right processes along with establishing a sense of security and confidence in the customers’ minds; and keeping up with the ever-evolving technologies with flexibility is the best way to do that.
Moving ahead, Divya asked for Jitendra’s opinion on how a business can ensure that they work with the latest technology and simultaneously do not lose out in the global competition. In a very simple manner, he suggested that adopting new technologies and aligning perfectly with the changing business requirements of the clients is the key to it. Constant innovation, learning, research, and a strong grip on evolving market conditions are extremely crucial for a business to gain a competitive edge in the market.
Data Security
Next, Divya pointed out the importance of security as a key area for consideration in any domain. She inquired about the changes happening in the security landscape and whether there are any standards or guiding principles for the users.
Jitendra replied to her that the standards that act as guiding principles for the enterprises are already in existence, such as ISO 27001, the IT Act in India, and GDPR. In fact, they are constantly updated to keep up with the changing dynamics. Hence, the users and businesses can easily refer to these standards, ensure that they are certified, and are constantly in compliance with it.
Talking about the changes happening in the security landscape, he continued stating that logical, physical, perimeter, and all other kinds of security tools are becoming more intuitive in identifying and solving potential issues. Some tools are designed to automatically solve such security issues, and some tools such as SEAM, as referred to by Jitendra, provide UI such as dashboards for the user to take a look at and solve. This also requires a trained team of professionals in order to maintain the security framework using such advanced tools. In summary, more intuitive tools and processes along with trained professionals and compliance are the key noteworthy changes happening in the security landscape.
In the end…
Moving ahead to the end of the discussion, Divya asked him to give some words of advice for the next generation of entrepreneurs so that they can remain relevant, competitive, and sustainable in the dynamic changing environment. To summarize the words of Jitendra, success is a constant individual journey for an entrepreneur that must be taken with patience. One must keep on innovating, learning from mistakes, and expanding knowledge.
Author :
Vaishnavi Dave is a Content Writer Quadrant Knowledge Solutions
