Interview with Ramesh Munamarty, Group Chief Information Officer for International SOS

Ramesh Munamarty is the Group Chief Information Officer for International SOS. He leads the technology function for the Group that includes the engineering functions for the leading digital products that the company offers. International SOS is the world’s leading Medical and Travel Security Assistance Company and is in the business of saving and protecting lives from more than 1000 locations in 90+ countries. The Group companies also include Aspire lifestyles which inspires the extraordinary in lifestyle services for leading financial institutions and high-end retail businesses. MedAire provides medical and travel safety services to leading commercial airlines, corporate aviation and yachts.

1) What do you feel are the biggest challenges IT leaders are currently faced with within their business?
One of the challenges that the leaders have is balancing innovation with growth. The advent of new technologies such as AI, ML and Blockchain can be a gamechanger to enter to new domains, however the growth with current strategy may prevent organizations being agile to fuel innovation for the next growth wave. The other challenge is driving organizational change management to make the enterprises be more agile. The third challenge is providing superior customer experiences with talent well versed in modern technologies and getting appropriate funding.

2) As an IT leader, what do you feel businesses continue to get wrong when it comes to their IT strategy?
Companies don’t link IT strategy with customer needs and don’t have clear metrics that link the KPIs of IT to the Enterprise KPIs. Many companies are also inward looking and don’t consider IT to be a strategic function that can be a differentiator and gain competitive market share.

3) What are the latest trends and behaviours you predict will be surfacing on the market over the coming 12 months?
One of the key behaviour change will be the agile way of working and leveraging modern technologies such as AI, ML and blockchain. In addition, data analytics will be a key focus area for several companies. There will be an increase in Cloud Adoption and network transformation to be ready for Cloud such as SD-WAN.

4) What is one key takeaway you hope our IT audience leaves with after hearing your presentation on site?
Drive digital transformation by organizing agile teams into pods, reusing tech patterns and focusing on business outcomes.