Shift Ahead: Smarter IT Outsourcing for Enterprises

Optimize Enterprise Success: Discover how Shift Ahead Technologies revolutionized IT operations for a leading global automaker with cost-effective outsourcing and innovative solutions.

At Shift Ahead Technologies, we aim to be a “Tenured Pro” with a long-term, strategic partner that enterprises trust to not just manage IT operations, but to continuously optimize, innovate, and scale them. Software now controls every part of automobiles, which affects the way conventional automobile manufacturers perform business. They have to maintain their old systems working on one hand.

On the other hand, they have to abruptly change their ways to the new reality of Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Autonomous Driving Systems (ADS). This is the story of one very large, global automotive manufacturer, and we’ll call them our “Auto Client.” If you ask them, the burden of running their internal IT operations was quite distracting to them from their main purpose.

However, at Shift Ahead we came up with a strategic outsourcing model that did not only save on budget but it also resulted in the client’s ability to create once again.

Strategic Balancing Friction: Cost Vs. Agility

So, the automotive industry finds itself quite small and a "once-in-a-century" change. There are tons of analysis showing that by 2030, software-enabled features and services will generate 30% of the overall automotive revenues.

Meanwhile, our Auto Client was using almost 75% of their IT budget just to perform "keeping the lights on" activities — attending to the on-premise data centers, legacy ERP systems, and fragmented help-desk support. Hence, they have only 25% for performing high-value R&D activities.

The Challenge:

Our client was forced to spend more and more on operations due to scarcity of skilled manpower, they were getting out of hands with delivery of services timeline, and finally, their employees were so overwhelmed with maintaining old stuff that they had no time for the Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) development.

Hence, they are looking for a solution that not just provides them with a right balance between cost-effectiveness and level of skills but also the very presence of the partner itself helps in the confidence level of various aspects of the service.

Step-by-step plan for a new beginning from Shift Ahead

We saw this as a very different and quite complex problem that a pure on-demand labor solution can shoot it down right from the start. On the other hand, Shift Ahead exploited a new “Managed Services 2.0” paradigm for their clients. One of the fundamental pillars of this model is that buyers pay for value rather than the number of seats, which in turn helps our incentives to be on the same line with client’s performance and operations.

Step 1: Unlocking the Legacy Debt

We started with a complete evaluation of their IT ecosystem which helped us discover that nearly 40% of the server related troubles were actually recurring and could be avoided only by introducing automation.

Our auto-client was delighted with the way our team shifted IT operations from a reactive "break-fix" method to a proactive maintenance strategy. This was possible with the utilization of AI-driven IT operations (AIOps).

Step 2: A Mix of Outsourcing and Hybrid Governance

Choosing to fully outsource might mean that your firm will lose expertise for good. The easiest way to prevent these kinds of problems was to use a Hybrid Governance Model.

Shift Ahead took care of the "Standardized Operations" (cloud management, cybersecurity monitoring, and network ops), while our client's own staff was educated to focus on "Core Competencies" such proprietary vehicle software, customer UX, and obligatory programs.

Step‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌ 3: Putting the Innovation Fund into Action

Our team along with client decided to set aside 10% of the money we saved via operations for a "Innovation Sandbox" to keep our collaboration fresh and exciting. With the help of the program, our client was able to create tiny, test models of edge computing solutions for their assembly lines without having to seek fresh financial approvals.

Statistical Impact: By the Numbers

The shift was so enormous that our Auto Client was still thinking about it even while they were on the phone. In the initial 18 months of our collaboration with our Auto Client, the strategic changes are observed as the following:

• 35% Less Opex: By moving 60% of their old workloads to a managed hybrid cloud environment, our experts were able to minimize their energy and maintenance expenditures and improved efficiency.

• 50% Faster Speed-to-Market: Setting up dev environments for their self-driving engineers is the best thing our team created, initially this used to take weeks, but now it just takes a few hours.

• 99.99% System Availability: Our live monitoring system has almost completely stopped serious production downtime on the floor, which can cost a vehicle maker up to $22,000 a minute.

Balancing the Iron Triangle Analysis: Control, Cost, and Innovation

Maybe‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌ the main triumph here was the instant when "Control" was given back to the Auto Client. For a lot of companies, outsourcing concerns mostly revolve around losing control of their business.

Nevertheless, in this example, the Auto Client completely getting the "what" (strategic direction) back again in their hands, after giving over the "how" (technical execution) to Shift Ahead, really portrays a scenario of control being handed back to the customer.

Today's automobile business can't exist as an IT shop; it must be a mobility provider. Turning over the partner like Shift Ahead, who is a specialist, with the difficulties of continuously running IT operations, means that IT is no longer just a cost center but rather a high-velocity innovation engine.

Not only did we look after their systems but by doing that, we enabled them to make available the transport of the future ‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌concept.