AHEAD of the Curve: Delivering End-to-End Digital Transformation

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Navigating Digital Transformation: Expert Insights from AHEAD's Leadership

How critical is digital transformation for enterprises in today’s tech-driven landscape, and what approaches are proving most effective in driving successful transformations? 

Keith Odom: When our clients approach us, we excel by engaging early in the process. We help them build their digital strategy, design solutions, and guide them through implementation to achieve their desired outcomes. But our role doesn’t stop there. We continue to provide support post-implementation, ensuring that clients can maintain, evolve, and improve their systems over time. This end-to-end approach is a key differentiator for us.

Hysam Galal: Having a comprehensive solution enables us to assist clients throughout their entire journey, not just with product purchases or implementation, but in transforming their entire CIO organization.

Could you walk us through the key benefits you've observed, and how this strategy has improved the company’s margins?

Keith Odom: The impact has been substantial, much more than just improving margins. It has allowed us to become more competitive in the market, especially in hard-to-fill areas like security and ServiceNow talent. We've had great success in Gurugram and Hyderabad, where we've built a strong culture that attracts top talent.

From just a handful of people 12-13 months ago, we’ve grown to 500 employees in India, and the influence of our Indian operations spans across all our business units—cloud, data, and internal services like legal and finance. The energy, culture, and skills here are infectious, making it a great place to work and deliver value.

Could you share your thoughts on broader industry challenges and opportunities. How crucial is digital transformation for enterprises today, and which approaches have proven most effective in driving these transformations?

Hysam Galal: Today, more than ever, businesses are pushing CIOs to do more with less. This pressure forces CIOs to rethink how they deliver services. Incremental changes won’t suffice anymore. To truly meet business demands, enterprises need a complete transformation of their infrastructure, moving towards more agile, digital systems that can quickly adapt to business needs. We've guided many clients through this journey—migrating and modernizing their legacy systems into new, flexible infrastructures that allow for rapid feature additions and quick responses to market changes.

What key elements have contributed to successfully setting up and scaling operations, and what best practices would you recommend?

Keith Odom: For us, it all comes down to the people. Our leadership team has been pivotal in building this operation. Great leaders create networks of people who want to work with them, and we’ve been fortunate to have that here. The culture they’ve built in a short period has been crucial. We foster teamwork, a positive, high-energy atmosphere, and a global approach—whether you’re in India, the US, or anywhere else. It’s all about collaboration and considering ourselves one unified team.

As we move into 2025, what trends do you foresee in managed services, and how is Ahead positioning itself to leverage these trends?

Keith Odom: We're already doing a lot in managed services, from data centers and enterprise service management to security. However, there are areas where we see growth potential, particularly in security. We're expanding our security operations center in India, which will cover areas like risk assessment, security awareness, and multi-factor authentication.

Our goal is to have a seamless, integrated team across both the US and India. Another area of expansion is our Foundry group, which focuses on custom equipment builds and automation. We’re bringing automation of software stacks to India, and by mid-2025, we plan to operate multiple shifts here to support this new business line.

India offers a flexible cost structure and strategic location for service engagement. How are you planning to leverage these advantages to support your global strategy?

Keith Odom: At the end of the day, we want India to be an integral part of every aspect of our business. We're not isolating India to focus on one specific function; it's about supporting everything—from our digital transformation and security teams to our data center operations. For example, whether the client is in Chicago or Florida, if it can be done remotely from there, it can certainly be done from here. It's all about tightening our processes to ensure that time zone differences don't hinder our ability to serve our clients efficiently.

Hysam Galal: India is essential to everything we do. Every project we undertake is designed with the idea that we want to utilize the capabilities India provides. It gives us around-the-clock support, which helps us deliver faster and more cost-effectively, all while maintaining or even improving quality. It gives us the flexibility to scope solutions for clients globally.

What advanced measures are necessary for companies to ensure their cybersecurity strategies remain robust?

Hysam Galal: One critical point we emphasize with our clients is that it's not enough to have preventive strategies in place. You have to assume you're going to be attacked at some point. The real question is: What happens when you're attacked? You must be prepared for a breach, and that’s where we focus a lot of our attention. We help clients set up strategies for prevention, but we also focus on recovery—ensuring there's a solid plan in place for data integrity, cyber recovery, and system restoration.

How are you leveraging AI and ML to detect and prevent cyber threats, and how are these technologies evolving to combat more sophisticated attacks?

Hysam Galal: AI and ML are evolving, but it’s a bit too early to say we’re directly leveraging them at AHEAD. We do use AI-powered tools from our third-party vendors, and we’re exploring their capabilities. However, we’re not yet deploying any proprietary AI tools specifically for cybersecurity at this point. We’re waiting for the technology to mature further before making a more direct investment.

What does it mean for a tech company to be future-ready, and what practices do you believe ensure sustainable growth and adaptability?

Hysam Galal: Being future-ready means being AI-ready, as AI is transforming how business is conducted globally. For companies to become truly AI-first, it requires a lot of groundwork. This includes organizing data, digitizing infrastructure, and creating a solid process for integrating AI into business practices. Many of our clients are looking to become AI-first, and to help them with that transformation, we need to have a strong foundation in place.

Keith Odom: To add to that, at AHEAD, we have a dedicated CTO team that focuses on predicting where the market is heading. We actively monitor startups, technology trends, and market shifts to stay ahead of the curve. We want to be early adopters of impactful technologies, so we’re working with partners like Nvidia, Cisco, and Dell to ensure we’re ready for the next wave of innovation. It’s about collaboration—understanding technology roadmaps and aligning with those to provide value to our clients.

What are the critical factors to remain vigilant in this space?

Keith Odom: It’s about maintaining strong partnerships with our core vendors and staying connected with them at the right levels. This way, we understand their roadmaps, challenges, and opportunities. We can collaborate on solutions and stay prepared for market shifts. Understanding the problems vendors are facing can help us address them proactively for our clients.

Hysam Galal: Listening to our clients is key. By foreseeing the problems they may face, we can work with our vendors to come up with solutions ahead of the curve, ensuring we're ready when those challenges arise.

Looking ahead to 2025, what new services, lines, or capabilities are you planning to develop in India to support your global growth strategy?

Hysam Galal: We’re focusing on expanding our security capabilities, particularly in penetration testing. We also want to grow our data practice, including data engineering and architecture, here in India. These are two areas we’re prioritizing for growth in 2025.

Keith Odom: Additionally, we plan to expand our Security Operations Center (SOC) in India. We’re also investing in building an automation team to support our Foundry business. The aim is to offer 24/7 support and enhance agility for our clients, leveraging India’s capabilities in round-the-clock operations.

You’ve had significant achievements at Round Tower Technology. Any key lessons or experiences you’d like to highlight?

Keith Odom: Round Tower was a smaller company, and I learned the importance of staying nimble. As we scaled, we focused on agility and avoided getting bogged down by bureaucracy. That’s something I’m glad to see AHEAD continues—maintaining agility even as we grow, allowing us to respond quickly to market demands and client needs.

What is your leadership philosophy, and how do you inspire and motivate your teams to drive exceptional results?

Hysam Galal: My leadership philosophy is about painting a clear vision and leading from behind. I believe that when people understand the vision and know where we’re headed, they can take the initiative. My job is to clear any obstacles in their path, empowering them to execute the plan.

Keith Odom: I agree with that approach. I also believe in surrounding yourself with a diverse group of people. Different perspectives are invaluable for problem-solving. It’s important to have team members who aren’t afraid to challenge you and provide honest feedback. Leadership is mostly about listening—letting your team run with their ideas and offering support when necessary, but also knowing when to step back and let them lead.