Key Takeaways

• An exclusive interview with Thougthworks Chief Digital Officer, Swapnil Deshpande was published in Analytic Insights.

• ITPro published an article with the opinion of McKinsey's executives on digital acceleration.
• SiliconAngle shared an article on Accenture's Cloud First initiative and other topics to be discussed in the Accenture Executive Summit at AWS re:Invent 2020.

Introduction

Thoughtworks

1. "Thoughtworks and Tencent Cloud Signed a Strategic Cooperation Agreement to Work Together to Empower the Digital Transformation of Enterprises"

• On November 03, 2021, Thoughtworks announced a collaboration with Tencent Cloud to combine their leading technical consulting capabilities and product platforms and create innovative and competitive digital solutions that will enable both companies to transform digitally.
• Thoughtworks is a leading digital transformation consultancy and a top-notch software developer, and Tencent provides enterprise cloud solutions. This partnership will help companies improve tech management and information infrastructures by driving advancements for security, agile & DevOps, and microservice consulting.
• China is in an era of big data due to the rapid growth of the digital economy, and many companies are using emerging tech such as cloud computing, big data, and AI to speed up digital transformation. This contract will empower more businesses on their digital transformation journeys and enable both companies to innovate and build together.
• This article was originally published by Thoughtworks and later distributed by China Daily and Sohu.

2. "Exclusive Interview With Swapnil Deshpande, Chief Digital Officer, Thoughtworks India"

• On September 23, 2021, Analytics Insight published an interview with Thoughtworks' Chief Digital Officer (CDO) of India, Swapnil Deshpande. In the interview, the CDO talks about the current challenges experienced by developers, industry trends, spending on digital transformation, and the expected future performance for both Thoughtworks and the digital transformation industry.
• Deshpande also discussed how Thoughtworks' solutions help companies during their adoption of digital innovations, their strategies to ease an enterprise's transformation, and the benefits of their internal developer community, NEO. He claimed that NEO has streamlined the development process and "reduced the time to provision infrastructure by over 90%."

3. "Thoughtworks Shi Yuntao: Cultural Adaption Outweighs Industrial Legacy in Digital Transformation"

• On August 27, 2021, iChongqing published a video interview with Shi Yuntao, Shi Yuntao, Thoughtworks' Head of Enterprise Modernization. Shi discussed the challenges that traditional companies encounter in their digital transformation journeys, highlighting that the fear of failure and lack of cultural adaptation are among the key challenges faced by their customers.
• Shi offered Daimler's "One Touch Retail" project as an example to understand that digital transformation is an experimental process and that companies can be comfortable with failure. The project took years to implement while Thoughtworks and Daimler tailored it to their market needs to satisfy local customers in China.

McKinsey

1. "Using Digital Transformation to Thrive Rather Than Survive"

• On June 3, 2021, ITPro published an article discussing how the COVID-19 crisis has accelerated digital transformation. The article referenced reports from PwC, Accenture, and Gartner with data and insights on the growth of digital transformation. It also mentioned interviews by O2 executives who believe that companies should use digital innovation to thrive and transform the way they work.
• The article includes the opinions of Shubham Singhal and Kevin Sneader from McKinsey about the "great acceleration" and highlights a research from the executives on faster digital transformation rates. They argued that the current acceleration will make way for greater productivity.

2. "Evolving Digital Transformation: McKinsey Presents its 'Business Building' Strategy (CxOTalk Interview)"

• On January 29, 2020, ZDNet published a video interview with McKinsey's Senior Partner, Ari Libarikian. He explains McKinsey's business-building strategy at the height of evolving digital transformation, discusses the company's role in business transformation, and the challenges that business leaders face when making strategic decisions.
• He also stated that many executives with significant experience managing large companies don't have experience building or scaling a business. The Senior Partner then offered his advice to leaders of established and incumbent organizations on how to go about scaling their digital transformation.

3. "What McKinsey Gets Right and Wrong About the 'Analytics Academy' "

• The article published by Springfest Analytics on April 6th, 2021, analyses McKinsey's recent study on bridging the gap between artificial and human intelligence. According to this article, McKinsey, a big-three consultancy company, missed the mark, and the report did not provide a realistic vision of what businesses need. It states that McKinsey's report focuses entirely on AI when discussing the need for organizational transformation to increase data capacities.
• The article argues that McKinsey's report could drive organizations to prioritize building AI capabilities even when they are not ready because AI sells better to executives than 'report automation' and 'business intelligence.' One quote states, "So, the whole article warns against 'jumping past Go' in building data capacities, but encourages organizations to focus on building AI capacities, which is 'jumping past Go.'

Accenture

1. "Cloud First initiative and Embracing Change Lead Agenda for Accenture Executive Summit at AWS re:Invent"

• On November 30, 2020, SiliconeAngle published a report that discussed Accenture's rebranding campaign, as well as a $3 billion investment in the "Cloud First initiative." The initiative is a "three-year investment to help clients focus on the transition to cloud as part of digital transformation." Accenture's move will take advantage of the accelerated growth in both digital transformation and enterprise cloud adaption.
• The article also highlights the upcoming Accenture Executive Summit at AWS re:Invent, which will host discussions on the cloud's future and its impact on digital transformation, among other topics. The event will feature interviews with Accenture's thought leaders and executives.

2. "7 Enterprise Cloud Strategy Trends for 2021"

• On February 10, 2021, Software Contract Solutions published seven cloud strategy trends based on executives' opinions from leading companies. The article featured thought leadership from executives from Accenture, VMWare, and CloudBolt. It also leveraged examples from reports and activities of other industry leaders, such as Azure and AWS.
• The article quotes a November 2021 report by Accenture that stated that only 37% of the 750 IT and business executives interviewed had achieved cloud value, and only about 29% expected to achieve timely value from their cloud migration efforts. Accenture Cloud First's Lead added that failure to depart quickly from legacy systems and delays from migrating applications may cause hurdles in generating ROI.

3. "Cloud Hybrid Cloud: Fundamental Centerpiece of Digital Transformation"

• On December 8, 2021, PRWeb published an article with the emerging trends in hybrid enterprise cloud transformation, based on the Avasant Hybrid Enterprise Cloud Services report. The report recognized Accenture as one of the leaders in the hybrid cloud industry for enterprises.
• A Senior Partner from Avasant noted that the COVID-19 pandemic nitro-boosted an "already growing cloud adoption trend." Which has caused a reduction of the cloud implementation cycles from years to weeks as enterprises battle with pressure to increase resilience and agility via increased cloud use.

Cognizant

1. "IT Companies Target Growth From AWS, Google and Azure Units Within Cloud Practice"

• On November 16, 2020, the Economic Times of India published an article on how IT companies like HCL Technologies, Winpro, Tech Mahindra, Cognizant, Tata Consultancy, and Infosys are creating revenue units to work with cloud hyperscalepartners like Google, Azure, and AWS. Most IT providers that established partnerships with cloud partners in the past months were "doubling down on revenue from specific practices in their cloud units."
• According to Cognizant's CEO, the company had doubled down on its cloud partnerships with the three hyper scalers in the first half of 2020. The company further strengthened its partnership commitment with the three hyper scalers forming dedicated business groups for AWS and Microsoft.

2. "Paul Roehrig of Cognizant: Digital Transformation Trends"

• On June 11, 2021, FuniTech published a short article with a video interview with Cognizant's Head of Strategy, where he discussed the major trends in the digital transformation space. The executive also defined the term 'digital transformation,' highlighted the complexities it faces and touched on the impact of technology on the future of enterprise transformation.
• Cognizant's Head of Strategy noted that companies face challenges linking the technology pieces (software, experience, data, foundation infrastructure, intelligence) together. Cognizant helps streamline the process, identify pressure points, and facilitate straightforward decision-making for more human outcomes.

3. "Global Digital Transformation Market"

• On August 31, 2021, an article published by Yahoo provided insights into the global digital transformation, including its market size and growth expectations. The paywalled article defined the term 'digital transformation' and outlined strategies employed by several players in the digital transformation market. These strategies include collaborations, partnerships, and agreements.
• Cognizant is among the companies that have made efforts to secure a beneficial partnership. Cognizant's April 2021 partnership with SailGP would allow Cognizant to use its software engineering and digital transformation expertise to improve the audience insights and user experience for SailGP's 257 million viewers. Other companies that have employed similar strategies include Accenture, Adobe, HCL Technologies, Oracle, and SAP.

Globant

1. "Accelerating Digital Transformation in the Energy Industry"

• On December 6, 2021, Woodlands Online published an article discussing how Globant and Siemens are accelerating digital transformation for companies in the Energy Sector. At a luncheon hosted by Woodlands, attendees got an opportunity to discover the latest trends in the digital transformation space within the Energy, Mining, and Oil & Gas industries.
• The name of the luncheon was "Accelerating Digital Transformation in the Energy Industry — Focus on Adaptability, Scalability and Accelerated Development to Survive in a Competitive Environment." Siemens is a leader in software solutions, while Globant grows businesses by combining digital trends, strategy, culture, and AI. Their combined expertise offers a business potential via agile and frictionless digital transformation.

2. "Digital Transformation is About Ensuring you can Transform Over and Over Again"

• On February 21, 2020, Silicon Republic published an article featuring the thought of Globant's CTO as he discussed the major trends in the tech market that are likely to change the world. He also offered insights on how companies can prepare for them and shared his thoughts on how digital transformation, emerging tech, and effective training are important to cybersecurity.
• He stated that his Globant team of over 50 employees is working on developing artificial intelligence tools for design, culture, coding, recruiting, and retention. The team is leveraging artificial intelligence to enhance the software capabilities of developers in complex and large repositories, thus enabling them to reduce software implementation times.

Endava

1. "Endava Acquires ComTrade Digital Services"

• On August 18, 2020, True Blue Partners published an article outlining Endava's acquisition of ComTrade Digital Services. On top of providing the deal's details, the article discusses the recent surge in M&A activities in the digital transformation/IT services markets.
• The article highlights several acquisitions in the two spaces, including Cognizant's acquisition of New Signature to enhance its cloud transformation capabilities and Deloitte Touche Tohatsu's acquisition of KeyTree for data visualization, high-quality analytics, and business intelligence. It notes that businesses globally are investing in digitization and cloud as remote working continues to grow.

2. "Digital Transformation is Changing What it Means to Work in Tech"

• On October 1, 2021, ZDNet published an article about how digital transformation was changing all aspects of a business, including the responsibilities of those charged with guiding their companies into new tech environments. The past few months caused rapid changes as CTOs and CIOs struggled to balance rapid changes with long-term digital transformation initiatives.
• According to insights from Endava's CIO, digital transformation has significantly expanded the role of the CIO. Initially, tech/digital transformations were characterized by multi-year, multi-million dollar initiatives with ambitious goals. She said that the past 18 months had shown that tech rollouts should be done regularly.
• The need to constantly improve, update, and re-examine use cases for digital tech makes it necessary for companies to view digital transformation as a continuous process. The CEO of Transposit and the CTO for Lumi also gave their insights in the article.

3. "Digital Transformation Specialist Endava Enters Australia"

• On December 6, 2021, the spotlight on Endava's CIO published by IDG Connect talks about her role as a CIO and the responsibilities she holds. She explains that her role as CIO in Endava has changed, and so have the roles for other CIOs.
• According to the CIO, data and automation will be the first two themes that will drive tech investments for Endava in 2022, especially for digital transformation. The third theme will be user experience since the movement to digital-first living had made it a priority to offer intuitive user interfaces.

Slalom

1. "5 Questions with Dave Rogers and Sameer Karim, Product Strategy & Analytics Experts at Slalom"

• On March 21, 2019, Amplitude published an article that featured interviews with two of Slalom's experts, who provided insights into their roles, and why many digital-first enterprises prefer them. They also outlined the issues/challenges companies face with product analytics and the meaning of data analytics for the company.
• The experts explained that Slalom is preferred for its mix of capabilities and large portfolio, which is often the biggest challenge with product analytics for knowledge acquisition and application. They pointed out that the development of Slalom's strong analytics capabilities is founded on an immense data strategy.

2. "How Slalom and WordStream Used MLOps to Unify Machine Learning and DevOps on AWS"

• On April 20, 2020, AWS published an article that explained how WordStream and Slalom used machine learning operations (MLOps) to integrate development operations and machine learning on AWS. AWS noted a growing trend in production deployments, which indicates that companies are getting value from artificial intelligence.
• However, the deployment of machine learning with AI solutions has been a challenge. The article explained the project undertaken by WordStream and Slalom, the challenges they faced, and the resulting solutions.

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