TURBOCHARGING DIGITAL INNOVATION

XERXES COOPER, PRESIDENT OF STRATEGIC MARKETS AT KYNDRYL, EXPLAINS HOW THE COMPANY IS HELPING ENTERPRISES IN THE REGION ACCELERATE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION.

Can you give us the low-down on Kyndryl’s operations?

When Kyndryl was formed, one of our key goals was to have a much flatter, more focused speed of execution in terms of our business. So what we’re trying to do is to empower our teams on the ground. We have ten major markets, including France, Germany, Italy, US, Japan, Canada, Spain, and Portugal. And then, we have our strategic markets, which are 50 countries spanning all of Asia, the Middle East and Africa, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe. So in total, it’s about 50 countries and it comprises about 25 percent of our company. And the common thread we have in many of these countries is that we’ve got a strong group of clients looking to modernise their IT infrastructure. Many of them are at the same maturity curve with the cloud, and what we try to do across these 50 countries is find those intersection points and how we can drive those synergies.

What kind of opportunities do you see in this market?

We are the largest infrastructuremanaged services company in the world. We started with that scale - with 90,000 employees, we operate in about 60 countries and bring nearly 30 years of experience. So think of missioncritical. Think of resiliency. Think of clients who need help managing those systems. And as many of our clients are undertaking their modernisation journey, they need the help of a company like Kyndryl, which can help them do it at scale. And that’s where we see such opportunity in the region where many clients are looking at a hybrid multi-cloud environment; they need resiliency of their existing environment. They’re looking at the modernisation of critical applications and need a partner to help them bring all of that capability together.

Kyndryl is agnostic but with a point of view. And that’s something our freedom of action now as an independent company allows us to do. So we bring an agnostic point of view, but we bring opinions of what we think would be the right action, which partner, and so on, based on their industry. We see a fantastic opportunity here, not only in the public sector but also in the private sector.

This region doesn’t have much legacy. What are your clients here needing help with?

We don’t see legacy. We see data security, employee experience, and how we’re enabling the strategy for our clients. So when you think of Kyndryl, think of us as the company that will help clients modernise, build, design, and manage their complex environments. If I look across the region, there’s not a single client that is not thinking about how do they modernise . There’s not a single client that is not thinking about how they manage the complexity of a hybrid cloud world. That’s where Kyndryl steps in. That is the scope of services we bring – it is about helping our clients accelerate their digital journeys.

How does this region stack up compared to the other markets that you handle?

What I see is a lot of similarities. For example, when I think about the Middle East, Asia or Latin America, I see many similarities in terms of strong GDP growth, population, and significant demand for services. You’ve got companies reaching enterprise level here, needing support and help to advance their digital journeys. There is now a need for scale, and that’s an area where Kyndryl is helping our clients manage that complexity along their digital transformation journeys.

What does digital transformation mean to you?

When I think about digital transformation, I think about the end user, the customer experience, and how they can seamlessly, without any friction, consume your product and have that fantastic experience. So then, now think about how companies do that. And how do you not just do it once but do it repeatedly? How do you do it at scale? Digital transformation is also about knowing your client and understanding your client’s needs before they have that. Digital transformation is also a seamless experience. So again, this is where Kyndryl provides the resiliency and the support services for that seamless experience. So digital transformation can mean a lot of different things to different people. But digital transformation is about the end user’s experience and how a company can continue to enhance that. And the key word is continue.