The Enterprise Startup – Kyndryl
Kyndryl is a spin-off from tech powerhouse IBM, or more specifically its Global Technology Services unit.
Being officially independent since last November, Kyndryl still maintains its inherited role of managing its clients’ infrastructure via services, support, and consultancy.
“So, we design, build, manage and modernise complex mission-critical information systems for our enterprise clients across the world. This also earns Kyndryll the title of being the world’s largest IT infrastructure services provider,” said Gina Wong, Managing Director of Kyndryl in Singapore.
Established, but agile
Kyndryl is not just a system integrator but sees itself as having three roles to fulfill, as a trusted advisor, a large-scale system integrator with managed services, and an innovator with clients.
Being totally independent of IBM now, Kyndryl is now able to advise and recommend the best-of-breed solutions in the marketplace.
Kyndryl also has 30 years of experience helping customers bring different technologies together, seamlessly for their clients to integrate and then migrate, or implement and manage, Gina explained.
What’s interesting however is the innovator role that Kyndryl has had with their clients over the years. Previously, as IBM’s Global Technology Services unit, the organisation had managed infrastructure for their clients, during across the span of 3 decades it has inherited/developed intellectual property data insights into IT.
Kyndryl is not just a system integrator, but sees itself having three roles to fulfil, as a trusted advisor, a large-scale system integrator with managed services, and as an innovator with clients.
“So, we know what’s happening in the customer’s environment when an outage happens, for example. We have the ability to remediate and try to pursue and find the root cause earlier and relatively easier because we have inherent knowledge and data insights.”
But it does not stop there,
These data insights are embedded into automation tools and automation capabilities which Kyndryl brings to the table as automated workflow processes and templates for their clients.
The aim is to help clients achieve specific outcomes for their operations like self-service, self-healing, and automation.
Independent
According to Gina, their independence from IBM also gives them the freedom and flexibility to reshape their strategies and enable Kyndryl to reach a much bigger ecosystem of clientele and partners.
The aim is to help clients achieve specific outcomes for their operations like self-service , self-healing, and automation.
“We are agnostic now and can go beyond the traditional IBM ecosystem to reach a broader market of technologies out there. We are looking at different multi-vendor technology capabilities, expanding our ecosystem, and building some strategic relationships with a much broader group of players than we ever had before,” Gina said.
Now, Kyndryl also becomes the glue that brings different technologies together by offering, for example, multi-cloud management services (MCMS), and multi-cloud data management services (MCDMS).
“We are able to build this up with ease because we have inherited a lot of legacy infrastructure knowledge about IT patterns, as well as helped customers transition to the cloud no matter which stage of the cloud journey they are at,” Gina said.
Having worked with the many global cloud players out there, from Amazon Web Services to Google, to Tencent to Alibaba Cloud and Microsoft, Kyndryl has the capability to build a single pane of glass for customers and manage their different hyper-scale cloud environments.
Now, Kyndryl also becomes the glue that brings different technologies together by offering for example, multi-cloud management services (MCMS), and multi-cloud data management services (MCDMS).
Customers and partners are excited
Globally, Kyndryl has announced over 25 global partnerships with the likes of AWS, SAP, VMware, and so on.
There are also many local or regional technology players active in the region, who have expressed interest to collaborate with Kyndryl and work on joint go-to-market strategies, joint marketing, and joint account planning activities.
“We are in a very unique position as an enterprise startup. And when I say unique, I mean very unique because how many companies out there have what we have – 30 years of enterprise legacy experience, plus starting out as a brand new company, like a startup.
“We design our own culture, we shape our own vision, strategy, and ecosystem, and strategic partnerships, and so on and so forth.”
This local country operating model also means each market like Singapore makes its own decisions when it comes to hiring, investments, partnerships, and pricing.
“We are in a very unique position as an enterprise startup. And when I say unique, I mean very unique because how many companies out there have what we have – 30 years enterprise legacy experience, plus starting out as a brand new company, like a startup.
That being said, this new enterprise startup also enjoys a flatter hierarchy and direct reporting to headquarters in the United States. This flat hierarchy allows them flexibility to tap into offshore expert talents at customer innovation centres (CICs) located in nine different global locations.
So, despite having started the company from scratch, as Gina puts it, there is a breadth of resources and expertise, and experience Kyndryl has at their fingertips and which they call upon at a moment’s notice.
Six domain areas
Kyndryl’s business spans six global practices, which encompasses not just cloud but enterprise applications, digital workspaces, security & resiliency, and network & edge.
This is an end-to-end technology stack that Kyndryl focuses to provide services in.
Gina emphasised, “We are very focused. We don’t try to do ten things. Our ambition is to be the world’s best technology services company. We don’t sell products per se, but we have to stitch together different technology products for clients, in an agnostic way.
“We are focused and go deep into the six global practices I have mentioned, and we dive deep into building our expertise, our capabilities.”
Our ambition is to be the world’s best technology services company.
Kyndryl’s nearly 90,000 employees serve over 4,000 customers in over 60 countries around the world, including 75 percent of the Fortune 100. In Singapore, they boast two offices; one in Cecil Street and the second in Changi Business Park.
They work with leading brands and Government agencies in Singapore with key clients in the banking & insurance, travel & transportation sectors.