How is multi-cloud technology driving blockchain tech & impacting businesses?

As artificial intelligence becomes more advanced, it has gained much attention for its potential to impact businesses. Companies are exploring ways to gain a competitive edge in this AI-driven environment. In today's data-driven world, by leveraging AI technologies, businesses can analyse vast amounts of data, identify the right customers, and personalise campaigns, enabling them to make informed decisions. 

In these modern times, when AI is creeping into every walk of life and is helping to improve data analysis and reshape marketing strategies, below is an interaction with Anil Chawla, India MD, Verint Systems.

What role does multi-cloud technology play in shaping the future of tech?

A multi-cloud approach always helps in implementing automated, best-in-class solutions in an organisation's existing cloud roadmap. This helps them to fast-track their time-to-market in a fast-paced customer engagement industry.

Verint has been working with organisations across industries including banking, e-commerce, BPOs, etc. to elevate their customer’s experience and brand loyalty. With the adoption of Verint cloud solutions, customers have been able to witness $42 million in savings from improved contact center management, a 20% improvement in employee productivity, a 44% reduction in customer engagement cost, and an overall ROI of 391% in three years.

Can you highlight the readiness of Indian organisations vs organisations in the West in terms of readiness for a multi-cloud approach? 

Indian organisations' readiness towards a multi-cloud approach is at par with their global counterparts, if not higher. In fact, in the past two years, the magnitude of investments Indian organisations have made towards next-generation technologies including multi-cloud, AI, etc., has resulted in their ability to elevate their engagement with customers despite budget cuts and an ever-present pressure to further reduce costs. 

According to the recently published Verint Engagement Capacity Gap (ECG) Benchmark Diagnostic, 87% of organisations in India are highly confident in their company's ability to provide high-quality customer experiences during 2023. Further, over 76% of the Indian respondents said that the investments made during the past two years in AI, analytics, and an open cloud architecture have helped them in elevating both CX and EX.

Does multi-cloud tech help in the acceleration or development of blockchain tech? 

Yes, multi-cloud technology can help in the acceleration and development of blockchain technology. Multi-cloud refers to the use of multiple cloud service providers to host various components of an application or infrastructure. When applied to blockchain technology, multi-cloud offers several benefits:

Improved scalability:

Blockchain networks require significant computational resources to handle the increasing number of transactions. By utilising multiple cloud providers, organisations can distribute the workload across different cloud platforms, allowing for greater scalability and accommodating higher transaction volumes.

Enhanced reliability and redundancy:

Multi-cloud setups provide redundancy and fault tolerance. If one cloud provider experiences downtime or other issues, the blockchain network can seamlessly switch to another cloud provider without disrupting the overall operation. This helps ensure high availability and mitigates the risk of a single point of failure.

Geographic distribution:

Multi-cloud deployments enable the distribution of blockchain nodes across different geographical regions. This geographic redundancy enhances the network's resilience and reduces latency by bringing nodes closer to users. It also helps comply with data sovereignty requirements and regulatory constraints specific to certain jurisdictions.

Flexibility and vendor lock-in avoidance:

By adopting multi-cloud strategies, organisations can avoid vendor lock-in and maintain flexibility in their blockchain deployments. They can choose the cloud providers that offer the best combination of features, pricing, and performance for their specific requirements. Additionally, multi-cloud setups allow organisations to leverage different cloud providers' specialised services, such as AI/ML capabilities or data analytics tools, to enhance their blockchain applications.

Improved security:

Multi-cloud environments can provide an additional layer of security for blockchain networks. By leveraging the security measures offered by multiple cloud providers, organisations can implement robust security controls and monitor for potential threats across different cloud platforms. This can help protect the integrity and confidentiality of the blockchain data and transactions.

However, it's important to note that implementing and managing a multi-cloud architecture for blockchain can introduce complexity in terms of deployment, integration, and orchestration. It requires careful planning, resource allocation, and ongoing management to ensure optimal performance and cost efficiency. Organisations should consider the specific requirements and challenges of their blockchain use cases before adopting multi-cloud strategies.

The top 3 industries that are expected to benefit the most from the multi-cloud approach.

Banking, Retail, BPO, and AMCs are expected to benefit the most from investing in a multi-cloud approach. Being service industries, elevated customer engagement is really critical for these sectors. In fact, considering our operations in the Indian market, it is underlined by a strong customer base number well over 100 that includes all of these sectors. This is a mixture of traditional 'on-premises' customers augmented with a rapidly growing cohort of clients that are investing in Verint's cloud platform.

Verint is already engaging with around 80% of Indian BPOs, 60% of India's top 5 banks, and 35% of top Indian asset management companies. In fact, Verint has a leading market share of 43.6% in India basis its suite of solutions for combined Workforce Management, Quality Monitoring, and Analytics.

Verint's plans for the Indian market with its multi-cloud platform.

We continue to witness double-digit growth in India that is backed by our industry-ready solutions like AI-enabled interaction analytics, Knowledge Management, and Customer Engagement Cloud platforms. In terms of revenue, India ranks second in the APAC region. As we moved into our current fiscal starting February 1, 2023, our key focus in the market is to increase cloud adoption and work through the partner network to offer Verint cloud services to the end customer in India.

Apart from this, we also look forward to augmenting our focus on Real-Time Agent Assist and Interaction Analytics across industries like Banking, Finance, E-commerce, and more along with bringing operation excellence in contextual knowledge to the Back Office customer and providing them with improved SLAs and adherence.