TBR. HCLT s Intelligent Sustenance Engineering Service Line Unit delivers data insights to extend the product life cycle.

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1 HCLT s Intelligent Sustenance Engineering Service Line Unit delivers data insights to extend the product life cycle July 2014 TBR T EC H N O LO G Y B U S I N ES S R ES EAR C H, I N C. 1 HCLT White Paper July Technology Business Research, Inc.

2 Contents Contents... 2 The HCLT Intelligent Sustenance Engineering SLU takes an analytical approach to product support and development, enabling organizations to learn from prior experience and accelerate product improvement... 3 By applying analytics to ticket data, escalation engineers can extract insights to quickly address customer support issues and reduce issue backlog for developer teams... 4 Predictive analytics potentially reduce issue isolation time and provide more certainty in the fix-test planning process... 4 HCLT eases the transition to the Intelligent Sustenance Engineering Framework with a methodical deployment process and ongoing monitoring of results quality... 5 The bottom line: The Intelligent Sustenance Engineering solution transforms product sustenance from a cost center to a value generator HCLT White Paper July Technology Business Research, Inc.

3 Intelligent Sustenance Engineering SLU: Leveraging historical data and predictive analytics to streamline the product sustenance process SLUs position HCLT to respond rapidly to shifting industry dynamics HCLT recognizes the need to shift its organizational model to targeted engineering and R&D services more nimbly. HCLT describes this as overlaying a standard product management structure onto services delivery to create and launch packaged services called Service Line Units (SLUs). HCLT has 25 SLUs, which TBR attributes to the rapidly shifting nature of ERS customer needs and HCLT s focus on nimble alignment to meet customers needs. Each SLU has a product management team and a dedicated engineering team, enabling HCLT to deliver focused engineering services to clients. The HCLT Intelligent Sustenance Engineering SLU takes an analytical approach to product development and sustenance, enabling organizations to learn from prior experiences and accelerate product improvement The rapid pace of innovation and competition among product manufacturers increases customers expectation of a seamless user experience and a virtually instantaneous response to support issues. Shortening product life cycles challenge organizations to optimize sustenance engineering processes to retain customers and to extract maximum revenue from mature product lines. The product sustenance process, from escalation of customer-reported issues to development and testing of bug fixes and new builds, generates large quantities of valuable data. However, the manual nature of treating each support case individually means organizations are not leveraging insights and efficiencies from their product development history, leading to longer resolution times and negative customer experiences. HCLT s Intelligent Sustenance Engineering SLU harnesses the value in organizations product engineering data by using predictive analytics and natural language processing capabilities to deliver insights that reduce time spent resolving issues, enhance compliance with service-level agreements (SLAs) and enable allocation of engineering resources to higher-priority tasks. The Intelligent Sustenance Engineering solution rounds out the firm s Product Sustenance and Support services, which also include the Intelligent Tech Support SLU. SOURCE: HCLT AND TBR 3 HCLT White Paper July Technology Business Research, Inc.

4 By applying analytics to ticket data, escalation engineers can extract insights to quickly address customer support issues and reduce issue backlog for developer teams With product vendor churn on the rise given the growing number of choices on the market, it is in the organization s best interest to resolve technical support issues as quickly as possible to sustain customer satisfaction. Each call that reaches an escalation support engineer s desk presents a number of variables that will determine the appropriate resolution process, including the impact of the issue to the customer, the number of customers affected by the issue and the costs, risks and benefits associated with fixing the issue. The process of identifying and resolving a customer s technical issue can become lengthy and inefficient without the benefit of past experience, leading to higher risk of customer dissatisfaction and SLA noncompliance. HCLT estimates that 20% to 30% of escalations are false. The Intelligent Sustenance Engineering solution enables engineers to verify ticket escalations and detect duplicate bug reports, saving valuable development time and increasing customer satisfaction. The Intelligent Sustenance Engineering solution streamlines the escalation process by enabling an engineer to quickly determine whether an issue has occurred in the past and apply the appropriate resolution. The tool connects to the organization s ticket database and other available product databases and uses natural language processing to locate and report past issues in decreasing order of similarity. Leveraging a fix that has previously worked for a problem reduces the resolution times (pleasing the customer) and number of issues entered into the ticket system (minimizing backlog for the developers). Predictive analytics reduce issue isolation time and provide more certainty in the fix-test planning process For issues that cannot be resolved at the escalation level, development engineers are tasked with discovering the cause of the issue and determining the appropriate fix. HCLT estimates root-cause analysis of issues constitutes 20% to 30% of the overall issue resolution time. Additionally, unknown code complexity hinders a developer s ability to accurately estimate the time needed to fix and test a resolution, leading to resource management problems. With features such as defect localization, code risk and impact analysis and test case recommendation, HCLT s Intelligent Sustenance Engineering framework provides developers with insights that save time and forecast resource needs based on historical development data. Using the tools, developers can quickly find the root cause of a bug, determine the risk of secondary impacts of a change based on the size and complexity of the code and predict the number and type of test cases needed to verify the success of the fix. The solution integrates analytics directly into the user interface (UI) of the developer s chosen application, 4 HCLT White Paper July Technology Business Research, Inc.

5 eliminating the need for multiple tools and accelerating time to insight within the developer s workflow. In a perfect world, test engineering teams could run an infinite number of tests to uncover every possible regression resulting from a code change. However, resource constraints and SLAs require organizations act strategically when it comes to test planning. The Intelligent Sustenance Engineering solution enables test engineers to generate customized test plans tailored to the particular release, features and environment distribution, with the advanced capability to configure tests based on a set probability threshold, failure rate and maximum number of test cases. Historical testing data makes it easier to match test cases with known attribute combinations, but the solution is also able to recommend test plans for orphan defects (i.e., new issues for which test cases are not yet developed) by mapping to similar cases in the system. SOURCE: HCLT Intelligent Sustenance Engineering Framework: How it works HCLT eases the transition to the Intelligent Sustenance Engineering Framework with a methodical deployment process and ongoing monitoring of results quality HCLT recognizes the challenges organizations face in adopting new systems, from technical concerns with connecting existing data sources to new tools to change management problems inherent in transitioning engineers to new workflows. The firm designed the Intelligent Sustenance Engineering framework to minimize organizational disruption and intrusion, setting forth a clear road map to evaluate the client s data availability and potential use cases, assess data quality and execute a proof of concept, connect the analytics tools to live data in the client s environment and turn the day-to-day operation of the solution over to the delivery team. Following HCLT s guidelines, deployment can be completed in a 5 HCLT White Paper July Technology Business Research, Inc.

6 matter of weeks, with a one- to two-month transition period before the final hand off to delivery. Throughout the deployment process, HCLT monitors results and fine-tunes algorithms to ensure the framework generates the client s desired outcome. HCLT provides delivery teams training and reference resources such as tutorials and how-to manuals regarding the relevant features of the solution. By integrating the framework into the UIs of existing development applications and tools, HCLT eases the learning curve for delivery teams. The bottom line: The Intelligent Sustenance Engineering solution transforms product sustenance from a cost center to a value generator HCLT s Intelligent Sustenance Engineering SLU, while still in the early stages of deployment, is generating interest among the firm s larger clients, indicating the solution is well-timed to address key pain points associated with product sustenance. Leveraging historical engineering data to drive predictive insights through analytics is a natural extension of HCLT s established engineering and R&D capabilities, enabling the firm to add value to client engagements beyond cost reduction. As the rate of innovation and competition continues to rise, the Intelligent Sustenance Engineering framework provides organizations with the insight and agility to maintain customer satisfaction and extract maximum value from product investments. 6 HCLT White Paper July Technology Business Research, Inc.

7 About HCL HCL is a $6.2 billion leading global technology and IT enterprise comprising two companies listed in India: HCL Technologies and HCL Infosystems. Founded in 1976, HCL is one of India s original IT garage startups. A pioneer of modern computing and a transformational enterprise, HCL s diverse range of hardware and software offerings span a wide array of focused industry verticals. The HCL team consists of 88,000 professionals of diverse nationalities that operate from 31 countries, including more than 500 points of presence in India. For more on HCL, please visit About TBR TBR Technology Business Research, Inc. is a leading independent technology market research and consulting firm specializing in the business and financial analyses of hardware, software, professional services, telecom and enterprise network vendors, and operators. Serving a global clientele, TBR provides timely and actionable market research and business intelligence in formats that are tailored to clients needs. Our analysts are available to further address client-specific issues or information needs on an inquiry or proprietary consulting basis. For more information TBR has been empowering corporate decision makers since For more information, visit This report is based on information made available to the public by the vendor and other public sources. No representation is made that this information is accurate or complete. Technology Business Research will not be held liable or responsible for any decisions that are made based on this information. The information contained in this report and all other TBR products is not and should not be construed to be investment advice. TBR does not make any recommendations or provide any advice regarding the value, purchase, sale or retention of securities. This report is copyrightprotected and supplied for the sole use of the recipient. Contact Technology Business Research, Inc. for permission to reproduce. 7 HCLT White Paper July Technology Business Research, Inc.