AmerisourceBergen, a leading global provider of pharmaceutical products and supply chain services, was facing a challenge with its office expansion at the Fort Mill, South Carolina facility. The expansion included a new parking garage that required the deployment of 23 security cameras and 15 “code blue” emergency phones to enhance the safety of parking garage users. These devices were all Internet protocol (IP) enabled and Power over Ethernet (PoE) capable. The initial plan was to include four intermediate distribution frame (IDF) telecom rooms in the parking garage to support the connectivity requirements for the PoE devices. However, this approach presented a financial and logistical challenge as each IDF would require network equipment, power, HVAC and an uninterruptible power supply, while also consuming valuable space in the parking garage.

Teradici, the creator of the PCoIP® remote display protocol, faced a significant challenge in transitioning from a hardware-based business model to a software subscription model. The company's initial offering was workstation cards that converted high-performance towers, blade servers, or rack workstations into a workstation that delivers high-end images to any remote location over affordable IP networks. However, as CPUs and GPUs became more robust, the company saw an opportunity to port its solution to run on software, offering more flexibility for customers and recurring revenue. The challenge was to implement a flexible licensing system across multiple products, centralize entitlement management for automation and data gathering, and integrate with Salesforce.com and the cleverbridge ecommerce platform. The company also aimed to improve order processing, increase operational efficiencies, and offer an ecommerce channel.

AxFina Holding S.A, an asset and loan servicer focused on Central and Eastern Europe, faced a significant challenge when it acquired Hungarian leasing company Lombard Lízing Zrt. The infrastructure of Lombard had reached the end of its life cycle and needed to be replaced within a few weeks. AxFina, with its ambition to innovate and scale, was also under pressure to meet regulatory requirements. The company had been hosting its IT infrastructure in Hungary with in-house datacenters, but this legacy system was nearing the end of support. AxFina needed an alternative solution that would not only significantly reduce costs but also support its growth across jurisdictions and product innovation. The company was looking at a potential expenditure of about 1.5 million Euros just in Hungary to replace the infrastructure.

Ashurst, a leading international law firm, faced a significant challenge after a major merger that almost doubled its size. The firm's HR function aimed to transform its operations to support the ongoing strategic growth objectives. The merger presented challenges in managing talent, developing skills, and rewarding performance across the global business. Each part of the business had its own systems and processes for managing absences, tracking performance, and rewarding success. This led to increased manual effort and cost, reduced ability to ensure globally consistent definitions of human capital management metrics, and difficulty in generating comprehensive reports. The firm also faced challenges in answering important questions related to employee skillsets, retention, and compensation policies across the organization.

As part of a divestiture agreement with Trinity Industries, Arcosa, a leading provider of infrastructure-related products and solutions, was faced with the challenge of separating its key applications and data while deploying a new infrastructure within a tight deadline. The separation process was critical to avoid strategic distractions, talent departures, and potential changes in shareholder reaction. The divestiture agreement required Arcosa to separate its data, finances, and operational information systems from Trinity with minimal business disruption during the transition. Arcosa entered into a Transition Service Agreement (TSA) with Trinity, stipulating payment to Trinity for ongoing IT services until Arcosa could prove full independence. The task was headed by Arcosa’s CIO, Bob Rosen, who had to stand up all the underlying infrastructure from scratch, a daunting challenge given the aggressive timeframe and ongoing TSA fees.

Low quality of human inspection in EV manufacturing

UBS Arena, a newly built 18,000-seat venue in New York, was designed to host about 150 events annually, with a focus on providing a thrilling yet safe experience for fans. The arena needed a robust cabling and connectivity solution to support its sophisticated sound systems, a 5G network, a distributed antenna system (DAS), New York’s largest scoreboard, and two levels of high-resolution LED ribbon boards. The venue also required a network infrastructure that could support public health and safety measures, such as automated ventilation systems, grab-and-go mobile ordering, and contactless purchases. The wireless network had to support the seamless connection of tens of thousands of devices in the venue’s completely cashless environment. Additionally, smart restroom technology needed to connect to the network to track and report on inventory levels and cleaning needs.

As a multinational technology provider, it is critical for Microsoft’s eCommerce team to keep their global website updated with information and content for all product lines. The content publication process is very complex, involving many levels of approvals and collaboration between resources from several teams to keep hundreds of pages updated across more than 240 regions.For many years, the publishing process was managed via Excel spreadsheets. Content, images, and other publishing information were tracked in different spreadsheets. In some cases, there were 200+ spreadsheets to track updates for a single page on the website. Content approvals were handled manually, often resulting in bottlenecks and delays in the publishing timeline

National Grid, a multinational electricity and gas utility company, had been successful in reducing damages in their downstate New York territory for nearly a decade. However, the damage rate plateaued around 1.6 damages per thousand 811 tickets. The utility was facing challenges in identifying high-risk excavations due to the large volume of tickets, which was around 600,000 per year. Furthermore, the utility was experiencing higher-than-average no call-in damages on Long Island, with 40 to 45 percent of damages resulting from excavators not calling 811 before working. Despite efforts to increase awareness among the excavating community, the utility was still an outlier in the industry. National Grid needed a solution to efficiently identify their highest risk excavations and determine where no call-in damage was most likely to occur on Long Island.

The company wanted to revamp its IT and infrastructure operations strategy. It wanted to bring the functions of the hosting group in charge of computing, storage, and middleware operations under closer in-house management.However, the provider didn’t have the necessary visibility into its operations to determine the scope of these critical processes, which when disrupted would result in huge revenue losses and negatively impact its technology strategy.External management of the provider’s IT infrastructure also left users dependent on manual delivery and provisioning mechanisms, rather than benefitting from automated and self-service processes.

A global business information company was facing challenges with its new customer onboarding process, which is a crucial gateway to its product offerings. The company needed to speed up this process, boost sales through new partnerships, and ensure seamless integration with any partner. The company's match application, which connects each customer's data with a unique identifier, was at the heart of its business process and required modernization and migration to a cloud environment. The company sought the help of Cognizant, with whom it had a long-term relationship, to re-architect and modernize its match application.

A leading US-based provider of advanced network communications and technology solutions was grappling with the challenges of rapid network expansion across multiple locations. This expansion resulted in a complex network with data scattered across various systems and geographies, creating data silos and limiting visibility. The disjointed data hindered the company's ability to gain business intelligence, which in turn affected their decision-making speed and progress. Inefficient resource utilization, ineffective network troubleshooting, and delays in new network rollouts were some of the issues that arose from this situation. The client's situation was further complicated by multiple acquisitions over time, which led to heterogeneous systems that complicated the reporting and analytics of their network data. The scattered data sets from various disjointed systems made it difficult to trace the customizations done on their network systems, jeopardizing the efficiency of their network engineering team, Network Operation Centre, and business users.

F9, an independent business unit of Infor, was facing several challenges with its legacy licensing solution. The solution was not evolving with their needs and was failing to deliver the desired customer experience. The company was looking to modernize its licensing capabilities and add support for new SaaS monetization models. The existing system lacked clear visibility into who was purchasing, activating, and reactivating licenses. Tracking users and the devices F9 was running on was also a challenge. The company was also looking to offer new pricing and functionality within their next major release to strengthen their competitive position. Furthermore, F9 wanted to improve the customer experience by providing a reliable and user-friendly customer portal for self-activation and reducing license-related support issues.

Asahi Beverages, a leading beverage company in Australia and New Zealand, faced a significant challenge when it acquired several Australian beverage businesses. The enlarged group needed to streamline and optimize operations even as further acquisitions joined the family. The company relied heavily on SAP solutions to manage its extended non-alcohol business processes, from manufacturing through to sales and distribution. However, with several new companies joining the group over the past few years, the Asahi Beverages team was keen to reduce system administration effort and maintenance costs. They wanted to use the savings to invest in new business applications and services. The challenge was to cut the number of IT incidents, accelerate the time for resolution of those incidents, and release valuable time for the technical teams to focus on innovation and business development.

Avnet, a global technology solutions provider, was facing a challenge in delivering rapid and reliable data analysis and reporting to its clients. The company's managed services clients relied on Avnet and its partners to convert their enterprise data into actionable intelligence. However, the existing hosted environment used for data warehousing and business intelligence applications was not meeting the desired performance levels. Avnet had experienced issues with their previous cloud provider, which led them to re-evaluate their hosting arrangement. The company realized that they could provide their customers with better performance and more flexibility at a more attractive price by making some changes.

Bharti Infratel Ltd., a leading communications passive infrastructure provider, was facing a significant challenge in managing and maintaining its over 30,000 communication towers across India. The cost of tower infrastructure management and maintenance was consuming 60 to 70 percent of the operating budget for communications service providers. To keep rates low and expand service into more areas, providers sold off their passive infrastructure to third-party companies that now rent tower space back for a much lower rate. However, Bharti Infratel needed to keep their operating costs low as well. The company wanted to apply business analytics to spot inefficiencies, but with 16 TB of data and growing, it needed a solution that could handle high volumes and still run smoothly. Furthermore, the company had no way to identify how many low-tenancy towers it had overall due to business analytics systems being in silos across the business.

Infineon Technologies AG, a global top 10 semiconductor company, faced significant challenges in managing the volatility in demand and the bullwhip effect in their supply chain, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. The semiconductor industry is characterized by capital intensity and high demand volatility, which is highly dependent on innovation cycles. The bullwhip effect, a phenomenon where order fluctuations are amplified as they move up the supply chain, was a major concern for Infineon. During the pandemic, the demand for automotive semiconductors dropped significantly due to reduced commuting, leading to excess inventory. However, when the market rebounded, the increased demand coincided with a global computer microchip shortage, exacerbating the bullwhip effect.

The client's goal was to develop a custom e-commerce solution that works with Amazon and eBay affiliate systems. It had to be integrated with Amazon PA API and eBay API as well as synchronized with the MailChimp subscription system for sending product newsletters. One of the most challenging aspects was to ensure the secure transfer of products between online stores and affiliate databases.

In the real world, installed machines come from different machine suppliers that are equipped with different products from different component suppliers. Challenge for manufacturer X (component supplier) to access the data of his delivered product X.Current barriers to implementing collaborative business models:Lack of trustLack of corporationLack of scalabilityLack of business modelLack of framework for digital intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship

The case study compilation presents a variety of challenges faced by different organizations across various industries. Medical Industrie GmbH & Co. KG needed to optimize and streamline their B2B sales. Bank Sinarmas needed to comply with Indonesian Open-API Standards and exploit the opportunities of the ecosystem economy. MUDUM was looking to harness the power of the API-driven ecosystem economy. OCP Group needed to standardize their APIs. Al Barid Bank was undergoing a digital transformation and needed to strengthen its position as an inclusive bank. Marsa Maroc was looking to advance the digitalization of its business workflows. PharmLog needed an integration platform solution that improves their overall efficiency and creates maximum transparency. Lufthansa Technik AG needed a B2B integration environment that standardized customer engagement. Socomec needed to boost security, improve efficiency, and achieve total visibility over its business workflows. Hellmann needed to integrate more than 750 application interfaces and over 500 customers.

The client aimed to create a multi-vendor eCommerce platform that would allow multiple vendors to sell a wide range of products, from electronic gadgets to beauty products, through a single storefront. The platform needed to provide personalized panels for each vendor, enabling them to post their products and maintain their records privately. The client also wanted to streamline the product management and listing process for vendors. Additionally, the platform was to offer features to assist buyers, such as the ability to compare products from different vendors and create a wish list. The client also wanted the platform to support the running of multiple advertisements through premium listing. The challenge was to convert these requirements into a fully-functional, technologically advanced multi-vendor eCommerce platform.

GRZ IT Center specializes in providing IT services for leading regional banks in Austria. Headquartered in Linz, the company employs more than 450 people to support 86 banks, which collectively operate 458 branches and serve more than a million customers.In the last few years, competition in the IT services market has intensified dramatically. In particular, global public cloud vendors are using their economies of scale to compete aggressively on price. With this trend set to continue, local providers such as GRZ IT Center face a choice: Find ways to cut costs and compete more effectively, or risk watching services being moved off into the public cloud.

Centrifuges, critical assets in the upstream stage of the biomanufacturing process, were experiencing unplanned failures that halted operations and caused significant revenue loss for a biotechnology company. The existing rules-based monitoring systems were producing an overwhelming number of false and inadequate alerts, with an average of 60 alerts a month. However, these alerts only captured 13% of actual failures and 71% of them were false alarms. The system also provided an average of only 45 minutes of lead time before a shutdown, leaving operators with a narrow window for preventative actions. The existing system was unable to flexibly incorporate new data sources or adjust preset sensor thresholds to improve the accuracy or comprehensiveness of alerts. The company needed an AI-led approach that could integrate all relevant data sources and apply advanced machine learning techniques to improve the recall and precision of failure predictions.

The Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) in question, one of only seven in India to hold the esteemed 'Maharatna' status, was facing significant challenges in its operations. The company, which provides comprehensive services related to power projects, from concept to commissioning, was struggling with a paper-based system that was reducing productivity. The company had to manage thousands of documents to comply with standards and processes, and strict timelines necessitated effective resource management. Manual processes were causing delays and errors, and the company was finding it difficult to manage multiple packages for multiple projects. The cost and engineering estimation of projects was a laborious task, and the company was also struggling with back-office operations and managing customer change requests.

American Eagle Outfitters (AEO), a leading global specialty retailer, was facing challenges in delivering high-quality shopping experiences across all its digital channels. The company relied on limited information from customer feedback forms to understand digital customer experiences. This approach resulted in incomplete information, making it difficult to replicate the exact circumstances that prevented customers from successfully completing their purchases. Consequently, it was challenging to identify 'sticking points' on the online and mobile journey that frustrated customers. The company was also struggling with low conversion rates due to issues such as a corrupted shopping cart and incorrect discount codes. Additionally, AEO was facing difficulties in understanding customer interactions on the mobile channel due to the complexity of multiple mobile devices, browsers, and screen sizes.

ARTESP, the São Paulo State Transport Agency, was facing challenges in managing its vast road network, which spans over 6,400 kilometers and serves more than 20 million people across 271 cities. The agency was struggling with a lack of clear visibility into traffic and road conditions, which made it difficult to prioritize highway maintenance and management activities. This lack of clarity could potentially cause delays to inspection activities. Furthermore, the inconsistency in data reports and responses to problems by the private contractors responsible for day-to-day road maintenance, toll collection, and responding to traffic accidents, hindered ARTESP’s capacity to manage the contracts proactively and risked jeopardizing road quality. The manual effort of identifying road hazards through physical inspections and correlating service issues with accidents was increasingly time-consuming and prone to human error.

A business outsourcing company that provides human capital management solutions, including HR, payroll, talent management, tax and benefits administration solutions, was faced with the challenge of modernizing its mainframe applications. One of the company’s groups, responsible for maintaining a complex payroll application, was tasked with providing web services for its front-end systems, which are written in Java. The payroll application runs on mainframe servers and processes payroll requests in large batches. The group, consisting of developers, testers, quality assurance staff and statutory research analysts, needed to find a development application that would facilitate this modernization effort.

The police forces in the German federal state of Lower Saxony were facing challenges in fighting crime and improving traffic flows due to the lack of efficient use of information from various sources. The existing systems stored information about suspects, incidents, victims of crime, and traffic accidents in several systems, making it difficult for officers to gain an overview without consulting multiple data sources. This process was time-consuming and inefficient. Moreover, the technical demands for analyzing and evaluating incidents had increased over the years, necessitating a more advanced business intelligence solution. The police force needed a solution that could provide officers with individually compiled reports about specific locations and types of crimes in near real-time, supported by a unified, consistent event processing and evaluation system.

Christian Brothers Services, a nonprofit service provider to Catholic and faith-based institutions, faced a challenge with its increasingly dispersed workforce. The company needed to enhance employee access to collaboration and social networking tools. The company's field employees frequently traveled within and outside the country, and many of their customer service agents worked from home full time. The company had been relying on IBM collaboration solutions to keep its workforce connected. However, the existing system of electronic teamrooms was proving to be inefficient. If an employee was involved in multiple projects, a meeting affecting all those projects appeared on each project’s team room calendar instead of as a single entry on the person’s Notes calendar. This led to a lack of centralized information and increased difficulty in managing multiple projects.

Advantech Co., Ltd., a Taiwan-based company offering hardware, software, system integration, design services, and logistics support, was preparing to construct two new buildings. The company wanted to avoid the issues that had plagued its existing facilities, particularly in terms of energy efficiency. This was not only due to the high costs associated with wasteful operations and reactive maintenance procedures but also because of the strict energy efficiency standards imposed by the Taiwanese government for new buildings. The challenge was to develop a solution that would enable Advantech to meet these standards and improve its overall energy efficiency.