Research in Action

Russ Owen, President of Computer Sciences Corporation’s (CSC) Managed Services Portfolio, in a discussion with Sana Khan, shares his views on the myths around cloud, the importance of outsourcing and CSC’s quest for innovation. Excerpts:

Q:CSC has many frsts to its credit: designing the frst automated air cargo system at London’s Heathrow in 1968, the frst web- based tax fling system in Denmark and so on. What motivates the people in CSC?

A: Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) started when the frst computers were delivered on fatbed trucks and we wrote the operating system (OS) on the compilers. We gave the industry its name. There was no computer science department in universities before our company was formed.

So, this is the kind of spirit that CSC grew up with before entering the commercial and public sector businesses. We have a heritage of valuing technology and innovation.

CSC has the ‘Leading Edge’ forum for research and we publish technology trends irrespective of whether those technologies are being produced by us or not. This has been in place for the last 40 years. We predicted a lot of technology shifts in our ‘Disruptive Technologies Report’. We have a lot of people who continuously research these trends.

Q:What are these trends? Are these practical, usable technologies? Have you been able to pinpoint?

A: Our R&D recognises these trends and the Leading Edge forum, which develops solutions, recommends them internally and to our clients. For example, the consumerisation of cloud. Cloud is more hype than reality. Same is true for “on-demand computing” and other things.

A lot of CIOs don’t understand the cyber threat. A lot of software that the service providers offer can provide a good level-one security. However, security that is based on detecting the signature of the text and other product-based security is not robust enough because a professional hacker does not come in with a signature so you really need to be thoughtful about being intrinsically secure. If your phone directory is stolen, it would affect your business in a limited way. But if your pricing table is stolen, it would hurt your business a lot. So you make relative judgements about the value of infor-
mation and you apply an architecture design that recognises the value and moves things at relatively lowrisk into the public infrastructure and the high-risk ones in the private infrastructure.

Q:So, in a way, you are suggesting the hybrid-cloud approach?

A: I think we will have the hybrid could environment for the next one decade. I don't think you and I will ever see the day where a CIO will put all of the company’s proprietary information in the public infrastructure. We are working on some projects like ‘Jericho’ with an assumption that someday the world will have a common identity and a common authentication standard. Some day we will have the ability to detect non-signature based attacks.

Q:To have a sustainable solution, do you also work with application providers?

A: We have good relationships with some of the top vendors. It often happens that we customise a solution using their products and then trade it back to the vendor as a ‘hosted offering’ or that we license our products though them. You can see that with SAP and Oracle. They are offering some of our banking and insurance products. We sometimes collaborate in the future evolution of products because we do not want to be in the software business but need the capability. Similarly, in security, we have relationships with some suppliers and there is considerable sharing of information. We value our independence and ensure that we are not a mere channel for suppliers' products.

Q:How would you differentiate yourself from some of the large local Indian companies with a global presence specially as their offerings are cheaper?

A: We had our roots in systems integration so we have always prized our programme management, global enterprise management and security management skills. Even the tier-one providers in the global industry can’t match our level of expertise and depth. The combination of large scale programme management and service integration and global service model are really good competitive edges.

Q:How did you sustain your pricing and the premium you charged in the last two years of recession?

A: Our relationships with clients are really like marriages. We are embedded in their business. When they were going through the downturn, we were helping them cut operation costs. There was a shift from projectbased discretionary spending to reengineering of applications portfolios, virtualisation and consolidation, more offshoring etc.

We helped our clients bring down costs and stay competitive. In a down market scenario, we say to our clients that you need to modernise your portfolio and pay for it (the modernising) from the savings generated. Now that is a value proposition for the client.

Q:Can you give an example to substantiate?

A: In a large automotive company, we started with a bid to virtualise their servers, desktops, etc. but as we stepped in we saw that the storage was not being used very effciently. We gave a proposition to virtualise their storage and drive their capital cost down by half by bringing in effciencies. The customer was very satisfed with us and we have since collaborated with it in other areas as well.

sana.khan@9dot9.in