AiThority Interview With Ricardo Madan, Vice President of Technology At TEKsystems

By Sudipto Ghosh On Jul 7, 2020

AiThority Interview With Ricardo Madan, Vice President of Technology At TEKsystems

What are some specific business processes, philosophies or mindsets that will change as a direct result of the virus?

Before COVID-19, organizations had to innovate and deliver faster and better because customer expectations were higher than ever.

Now, customer expectations remain, but digital transformation initiatives intended to enable that optimization and to deliver more value to customers have shifted. Maintaining business continuity has been the focus as organizations navigate the new landscape, but the current state is only temporary. The rate and scale at which organizations had to react will shed light on what does and doesn’t work. Organizations that lacked a common vision and failed to consider their entire ecosystem will have to shift their mindset to move their business forward.

Companies that weren’t well-versed before or simply hadn’t made the shift should seek to embrace DevOps and cultivate a mindset of building and aligning the right people, process, and technologies to support fast and secure delivery of operationalized business value to their customer.

Are there things that NEEDED to change, and finally found a catalyst in the virus?

Organizational silos, bloated decision trees and office politics hinder growth in the best of times. Those impediments are magnified during a crisis. You must have strong leadership that can streamline and unify decision-making.

Aligning business goals and expectations across the organization is crucial to maintain business continuity. Prior to COVID-19, we surveyed technology and business decision-makers, and our research found that while the C-suite expects a 41% increase in top-line revenue growth, the rest of the organization expects 26% top-line growth. There’s a disconnect in expectations. COVID-19 likely highlighted that for many organizations. It’s critical to secure consensus among senior leaders and stakeholders regarding business goals.

Identify the right metrics and make data-driven decisions to ensure digital transformation success.

What technologies or habits might take-off during this time, and then stick?

The capability to empower and scale a digital, remote workforce will continue, which directly relates to an organization’s Cloud strategy. Now more than ever, enterprise cloud-based technology and solutions are critically utilized, and we’re likely to see an acceleration of migrations to the Cloud. But, organizations still must navigate monolithic applications and legacy systems; that’s where microservices come in.

Containerized microservices power organizations’ digital transformation efforts by delivering better, more seamless, and more iterative technology by enabling faster, more efficient deployments.

Exactly what you need when you’re suddenly forced to scale a digital, remote workforce. Some organizations are further along on their cloud enablement journey, but no matter where you are, evaluate your current infrastructure, scaling, controls, cloud partners, and governance to plan for the future.

Hypercloud environments are securing their applications with InfoSec applications. What are the key parameters of any information security framework?

An information security framework’s mission is to lower risk, exposure and vulnerability of a company’s data and information.

The framework defines how the company manages that information with detailed processes and procedures.

The Cloud and advanced hyper-Cloud or multi-Cloud environments haven’t really changed information security, but it’s certainly made it more complex.

What the Cloud has done is force companies to focus on identity access management or IAM, one of the last things they can still control as they move infrastructure or platforms or even software-as-a-service to the cloud. In a strictly on-prem environment, organizations could make less of an investment in identity. But once the cloud became a factor, identity became the one thing you can—and must—tightly control.

Some key considerations that should be part of any framework include:

Align IAM goals with business outcomes.
IAM is a program—aligns your business strategy to your tactical execution.
Secure buy-in from the appropriate stakeholders.

Tell us more about the immediate and long-term planning involved in creating a resilient IT and enterprise technology infrastructure, especially to tackle challenges arising from email and contact center security attacks.

To start, ensure that the proper stakeholders are involved and consider the impact of IAM on HR, help desk, compliance, IT, and security. A holistic approach leads to better cooperation and in many cases can assist with the procurement of the funds needed for success.

Complex solutions require preparation and planning—organizations must recognize that.

Data cleansing, business process reengineering, and building might not be exciting, but they are critical to success. You can’t rush to deploy complex and expensive solutions until correct processes are defined and data is properly aligned. Companies should start with a clearly defined roadmap, and think of several phases:

Discover – Define, document and describe the problem.
Measure – Conduct a maturity and capabilities assessment.
Validate and Plan – Review initial findings from the discover and measure phases—business alignment is critical.
Present and Support – Deliver an actionable plan supported by a solid business case. Then execute your plan.

Thank you, Ricardo! That was fun and we hope to see you back on AiThority.com soon.

About Ricardo
About TEKsystems

About Ricardo

Ricardo Madan is an executive leader of TEKsystems Global Services with 20 years’ experience developing people, serving customers, designing and building technology services/products, and driving a seismic array of growth venues all with the goal of significantly improving the lives and circumstances of his team, customers and community.

About TEKsystems

We’re partners in transformation. We help clients activate ideas and solutions to take advantage of a new world of opportunity. We are a team of 80,000 strong, working with over 6,000 clients, including 80% of the Fortune 500 across North America, Europe and Asia. As an industry leader in Full-Stack Technology Services, Talent Services and real-world application, we work with progressive leaders to drive change. That’s the power of true partnership. TEKsystems is an Allegis Group company

Sudipto Ghosh

Sudipto Ghosh is a seasoned marketer and currently works at ITechnology Series as a Director- Content. He has helped his organization scale readership and reach for 6 publications: MarTech Series, CIO Influence, AiThority.com, HRTech Series, Global Fintech Series, and Salestech Series.

His articles are quoted across the Martech and AI B2B SaaS industry. He coined the words MarTech RADAR and HRTech RADAR to amplify the reach of Martech and HRTech articles published at Martech Series and HRTech Series. He is currently focusing on CX, EX, AIops, Cybersecurity and data storage domains.
Sudipto Ghosh is a tech buff with industry-recognized experience in creating B2B web, social media, and event-focused content for digital agencies and publishers covering the space in Automotive, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Shipping, Metallurgy, Textiles, Pharma and Health, Media and Entertainment. Apart from digging into MarTech, HR Tech, SalesTech AI labs and interviewing the C-suite executives, Sudipto enjoys watching nature and paintings. He has covered B2B events in the US, such as Perceptyx Insights 2022 (AU, TX), and Qualtrics X4 Summit 2024 (SLC, Utah).

The darkest gym in the city’s outskirts is the next best place to track Sudipto on the weekends.

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