ENGIE, the world's largest power producer, was faced with the challenge of implementing an enterprise-wide digital transformation and establishing a center for IoT excellence. This transformation was to span across various sectors including customer service, metering, energy management, and maintenance. The project was to be implemented across 24 business units in 70 countries, requiring a significant staffing investment. The first applications to be developed and deployed on the ENGIE digital platform included performance optimization for gas power plants, efficiency optimization of heating and cooling plants, energy analysis and management for enterprise and consumer customers, and anomaly detection of wind turbines.

Pricemoov, a yield management solution provider, faced a significant challenge in handling and cleaning data from old SI systems, Oracle, or MySql. The data was dirty and required a full-time developer to perform long ETL (extract-transform-load) steps in PHP for cleaning. Once cleaned, the datasets were painstakingly entered into a model, as they were custom-built pipelines. The replication and deployment process for the next customer was taking weeks. This slow and inefficient process was hindering Pricemoov's ability to provide optimal pricing suggestions and solutions to its customers in a timely manner.

Veeco Services, a full-service logistics provider, was facing significant challenges with its warehouse lighting system. A lighting audit conducted in January 2019 revealed that the high-intensity discharge (HID) fixtures lighting Veeco’s 615,000 square feet warehouse were inefficient, costly to maintain, and emitted poor levels of lighting. The warehouse, which has 117 dock doors and more than 34,000 pallet locations, had recently upgraded to a new racking system that added more rows and narrow aisles. This change necessitated a revamp and retrofit of the existing HID lighting system to improve safety and efficiency. The challenge was to find a solution that would not only enhance lighting quality but also integrate with IoT technology for real-time adjustments based on environmental and occupancy changes.

British American Tobacco (BAT), a leading tobacco group, was facing a challenge in identifying and employing the best candidates for its management-level vacancies. The company was heavily reliant on third-party recruiters, contracting more than 70 separate agencies each year worldwide. This resulted in a diverse level and quality of candidates, with some regions falling below BAT's expectations. To support its long-term competitiveness, BAT aimed to implement a consistent approach to recruitment across its global operations, enabling it to identify and select the best candidates. The challenge was to encourage the best candidates to apply and to identify top performers in a large pool of applicants, especially in markets where BAT's brand was perceived less favorably.

The frozen food supplier, a leading provider of bakery solutions, was grappling with two major challenges. Firstly, the company was heavily reliant on paper-based processes to record machine downtime and the reasons for it. This method was often inaccurate and difficult to aggregate, leading to a lack of visibility into the plant's metrics. Consequently, line supervisors and plant management lacked the critical information needed to prioritize and address issues impacting throughput. Secondly, the company had to perform cumbersome and time-consuming audits to comply with the stringent requirements of the food and beverage industry. These audits ranged from PPE audits, pre-production checks on equipment, and periodic checks on the metal detector. The combination of these problems resulted in a lack of visibility into the plant's performance and the issues that needed to be mitigated.

Omneo, a software suite aimed at providing connected experiences for customers, was facing a significant challenge in its communications and marketing department. The Communications Manager, Tess, was tasked with collating information from multiple sources to communicate to their existing and potential client base in a way that is relevant and valuable. The team was trying to write long-form content by recording meetings and then reflecting key points in their marketing efforts. However, they were facing issues with this process. They were using a regular audio recording tool, hoping it would solve their problems. But it actually made the entire issue even more frustrating. The tool was fiddly, they'd often forget to press record, and the filing process was cumbersome.

PING, a leading golf equipment manufacturer, faced a significant challenge in managing its supply chain due to the high level of customization it offers. The company custom-fits each club to the owner's body type, swing style, physical strength, and personal preference, resulting in over 7 million possible specification combinations for its irons alone. This complexity, coupled with the need to pre-build finished goods based on projected orders, created a profound manufacturing and supply chain planning challenge. Additionally, PING had to accommodate changing player preferences and trends in playing styles. The company's existing planning process, which relied heavily on Excel, was unable to handle the volume of SKU configurations or exploit the value of real-time sell-through information from retailers.

The Bank of Thailand, in collaboration with SCG and Digital Ventures (DV), was exploring the potential of blockchain technology for the development of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). The challenge was to develop a proof-of-concept prototype for a CBDC project that could meet both the functional and non-functional requirements of a retail CBDC. The bank aimed to test the use of a CBDC to simulate daily commerce, automate payments, and support a procurement and financial management system called Procure-to-Pay (B2P) developed by DV. However, the bank needed a technology partner to develop and test this prototype.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and the Bank of Thailand (BOT) initiated Project Inthanon-LionRock in May 2019. The project aimed to explore the application of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) for cross-border payments. The challenge was to develop a technology that could support a proof-of-concept for a central bank digital currency. The technology needed to prioritize scalability, security, and interoperability. The project was in its second implementation phase and required a partner with experience in designing and delivering decentralized payment networks.

Macquarie Telecom Group, a leading data center, cloud, cyber security, and telecom company based in Australia, was facing challenges in its financial planning and analysis (FP&A) processes due to significant growth. The company was struggling with disparate data sources across the Office of Finance and the wider business, which made it difficult to standardize financial data. This lack of standardization was hindering the company's ability to gain clear insights to lead planning effectively. The group needed a platform that could add structure and capability to its FP&A processes, enabling it to enhance essential finance functions and gain clarity into its business.

STREETS, a leading Swiss fully-SaaS Real Estate portfolio management platform, was seeking to integrate analytics into the natural navigation of their solution. The company required a tool that could provide fully customized branded dashboards, advanced analytics, and modeling capabilities to match their sophisticated data model requirements. Additionally, they needed a solution that could handle complex user-defined data security. The challenge was to find a partner who could take full responsibility for these specifications within cost and time-effective constraints. The partner would need to understand the unique needs of the real estate industry and be able to deliver a solution that would enhance the digital management of real estate portfolios.

Techedge, a company that aids organizations in accelerating their digital transformation, was facing a challenge with its Kubernetes-based services and solutions. The use of public cloud platforms, while initially beneficial, was proving to be costly and barely scalable when operating on a large scale. As their new line of business began to grow, it became necessary to move from the public cloud to a larger platform with more containers. This new platform required special customization, not just for the apps but also for the container-based model in general, in terms of both security and optimization settings, and customer preferences. This level of customization was not possible in the public cloud.

A global manufacturer of aircraft engines, avionics, and other aviation products was grappling with the complexity of managing its supply chain. The company maintains 90 major product lines that require tens of thousands of parts from hundreds of manufacturers spread across the globe. The costs of maintaining inventory were significant, with just two components of its aircraft engines accounting for $600 million in parts inventory, including $400 million in fast-moving inventory. The company was seeking ways to optimize inventory levels to mitigate supplier delays and improve gross margins and revenue.

The mass rapid transit system, with over 20 lines spanning nearly 1,500 kilometers, transports billions of passengers annually across urban and suburban districts. The system relies on specialized industrial networks for railway electrification, signaling, communications, and an extensive building management system (BMS) for station and tunnel ventilation, lighting, and physical security. The rail operator faced challenges in maintaining visibility and control across these networks while adhering to stringent international safety integrity level (SIL) standards. The digitization and connectivity demands of passengers and vendors, who require timely updates and access to OT, IoT, and IIoT assets, posed a significant challenge. The legacy OT systems, designed with isolation in mind, were not equipped to connect and communicate with IT systems and the internet. The rail operator had no visibility into their industrial networks, making response and remediation of system failures difficult. Compliance with SIL standards was mandatory, and any third-party equipment introduced into the network had to work independently from safety-critical systems or integrate without affecting these systems and triggering recertification. The multiple layers of legacy OT systems, designed for a lifespan of 25 to 50 years, added further complexity to modernization efforts.

AgustaWestland, a leading helicopter manufacturer, was faced with the challenge of developing a new safety-critical avionics display for a military helicopter upgrade program. The military helicopter had previously used avionics display control units within the cockpit and cabin of the aircraft. However, the new project aimed to enable the implementation of additional functionality to meet new operational requirements. The challenge was to adopt an innovative approach that would not only meet the current needs but also allow for future upgrades using a standards-based approach. The traditional turnkey black-box approach used by traditional suppliers was not suitable for this project due to its lack of flexibility and adaptability to changing requirements.

Ikon Science, a global provider of knowledge management solutions for subsurface discovery, faced a challenge with its homegrown license generator. The company wanted to offer its customers a wider range of licensing models, including usage or pay-per-use, token-based models, and the option to use cloud-based license servers. However, the existing license provisioning process was outdated and did not deliver the experience that Ikon envisioned for its customers. The homegrown solution was difficult to maintain and required significant engineering resources to improve. Ikon Science wanted its engineers to focus on its core products and decided to retire its homegrown solution and leverage a standard product.

Yieldmo needed to deploy this solution quickly because it wanted to include sessionization capabilities in its soon-to-be-launched data platform.Plans for the capabilities of the new platform included in-depth insights into customer engagements, making campaigns more effective for advertisers, more profitable for publishers, and, ultimately, more relevant for consumers.

Barclays, a global bank operating in over 50 countries and serving nearly 60 million customers, faced a significant challenge in improving and streamlining the customer experience. The bank's relationships with customers were multifaceted, with customers engaging with the bank through various channels such as mobile, online, and branch locations. The bank had identified 400 different customer journeys, and the challenge was to align these across the enterprise and improve them in a way that positively impacted customers quickly. The director of operations at Barclays, Mike Gamble, recognized the need to transform the bank's processes around customer journeys. He aimed to enhance the understanding of how various functions contribute to delivering customer experiences and then expedite the rollout time of these new processes to achieve the end goal for the customer.

In the modern digital era, enterprises and military organizations are facing the challenge of integrating and orchestrating vast amounts of data from various sources such as sensors, computer vision, wearable devices, and other streaming data sources. This data, if properly harnessed, can create situational awareness, improve decision-making, and enable intelligent automation. However, the challenges of interoperability, resiliency, and complexity often hinder the effective utilization of this data. Furthermore, the use of Generative AI and IoT devices often results in data that only ends up on a dashboard, which according to McKinsey, is a sign of failure. The challenge, therefore, is to turn this data into actionable insights that can trigger comprehensive business processes and workflows.

The company needed a trusted and long-term strategic partner to provide technical and engineering support to its video engineering unit. It wanted to focus on investment and resources to develop new product concepts for next-generation offerings while continuing to deliver high-quality service to its existing customer base in Europe. The company turned to Cognizant.

With its high initial cost and ongoing expense, is becoming harder to defend in a market increasingly reliant on software-as-a-service (SaaS). One major technology player saw an opportunity to increase its revenue by adding a subscription payment model to its traditional on-premises licensing.Adding subscriptions meant changes to product and solution pricing, support, and billing as well as the underlying technology for these processes. A new technology platform would be required to support these business model changes.  

There are endless ways to configure Montana modules. Whatever the room, the customer is able to find the perfect solution and thus fulfill the company’s slogan of ‘creating space for individuality’. The sheer number of available options used to be a challenge for Montana, because in practice the salespeople had to provide considerable guidance. The time from initial interest to final sale was long and involved extensive use of physical catalogs.But according to Jan Axelsen, store manager of Montana Store in Copenhagen, the biggest challenge was that the customer could only imagine what the assembled solution might look like in their own home. Would the color be right? And how would the modular configuration actually work in practice? There are without doubt some customers who were a little surprised when they opened their boxes.

Termotex S.A., an international company specializing in the design and assembly of industrialized insulating construction systems, was facing challenges in coordinating crews, deciphering blueprints, and matching 2D blueprints to the 3D construction at the site. The company had to rely on a project engineer and a quality control inspector on site, but this was often insufficient to avoid mistakes and clashes resulting from incorrect or outdated information. To overcome this, Termotex started creating Building Information Modeling (BIM) designs and switched to tablets instead of paper blueprints on the job site. However, the CEO, Andres Casanova, realized that a good BIM model alone was not enough to increase speed and precision in their construction projects. He sought a combination of technologies and new workflows that would enable automation and data-sharing from start to finish, and wanted to leverage mixed reality to better utilize their BIM models in the context of the actual job site throughout the entire construction process.

The consumer goods arm of a global conglomerate, manufacturing a wide range of products, faced significant challenges in securing its operational technology (OT) environment. The company's manufacturing sites are spread globally, with some being decades old and others relatively new. The company had to manage a multitude of devices and systems, along with remote access for numerous third-party contractors, which added to the complexity of its industrial cybersecurity posture. The company was relying on traditional, IT-centric security tools that were incompatible with its OT environment. This, along with the prevalence of legacy systems, inconsistent documentation of OT assets, and diverse geographies and local practices, made gaining full visibility into its OT environment a daunting task. The company also struggled with unmonitored remote access and misconfigurations, which led to downtime. Furthermore, the company's growth through acquisitions resulted in a patchwork of systems from multiple vendors, complicating its IT and OT security. The company also lacked OT anomaly detection capabilities, which are crucial for quick response to operational disruptions.

AmerisourceBergen, a leading global provider of pharmaceutical products and supply chain services, was facing a challenge with its office expansion at the Fort Mill, South Carolina facility. The expansion included a new parking garage that required the deployment of 23 security cameras and 15 “code blue” emergency phones to enhance the safety of parking garage users. These devices were all Internet protocol (IP) enabled and Power over Ethernet (PoE) capable. The initial plan was to include four intermediate distribution frame (IDF) telecom rooms in the parking garage to support the connectivity requirements for the PoE devices. However, this approach presented a financial and logistical challenge as each IDF would require network equipment, power, HVAC and an uninterruptible power supply, while also consuming valuable space in the parking garage.

Teradici, the creator of the PCoIP® remote display protocol, faced a significant challenge in transitioning from a hardware-based business model to a software subscription model. The company's initial offering was workstation cards that converted high-performance towers, blade servers, or rack workstations into a workstation that delivers high-end images to any remote location over affordable IP networks. However, as CPUs and GPUs became more robust, the company saw an opportunity to port its solution to run on software, offering more flexibility for customers and recurring revenue. The challenge was to implement a flexible licensing system across multiple products, centralize entitlement management for automation and data gathering, and integrate with Salesforce.com and the cleverbridge ecommerce platform. The company also aimed to improve order processing, increase operational efficiencies, and offer an ecommerce channel.

AxFina Holding S.A, an asset and loan servicer focused on Central and Eastern Europe, faced a significant challenge when it acquired Hungarian leasing company Lombard Lízing Zrt. The infrastructure of Lombard had reached the end of its life cycle and needed to be replaced within a few weeks. AxFina, with its ambition to innovate and scale, was also under pressure to meet regulatory requirements. The company had been hosting its IT infrastructure in Hungary with in-house datacenters, but this legacy system was nearing the end of support. AxFina needed an alternative solution that would not only significantly reduce costs but also support its growth across jurisdictions and product innovation. The company was looking at a potential expenditure of about 1.5 million Euros just in Hungary to replace the infrastructure.

Ashurst, a leading international law firm, faced a significant challenge after a major merger that almost doubled its size. The firm's HR function aimed to transform its operations to support the ongoing strategic growth objectives. The merger presented challenges in managing talent, developing skills, and rewarding performance across the global business. Each part of the business had its own systems and processes for managing absences, tracking performance, and rewarding success. This led to increased manual effort and cost, reduced ability to ensure globally consistent definitions of human capital management metrics, and difficulty in generating comprehensive reports. The firm also faced challenges in answering important questions related to employee skillsets, retention, and compensation policies across the organization.

As part of a divestiture agreement with Trinity Industries, Arcosa, a leading provider of infrastructure-related products and solutions, was faced with the challenge of separating its key applications and data while deploying a new infrastructure within a tight deadline. The separation process was critical to avoid strategic distractions, talent departures, and potential changes in shareholder reaction. The divestiture agreement required Arcosa to separate its data, finances, and operational information systems from Trinity with minimal business disruption during the transition. Arcosa entered into a Transition Service Agreement (TSA) with Trinity, stipulating payment to Trinity for ongoing IT services until Arcosa could prove full independence. The task was headed by Arcosa’s CIO, Bob Rosen, who had to stand up all the underlying infrastructure from scratch, a daunting challenge given the aggressive timeframe and ongoing TSA fees.

FMC Corporation, a specialty chemicals manufacturing company, was facing challenges with its indirect procurement processes. The company's decentralized approach to procurement across its global business units made it difficult to manage and control how employees purchased goods and services. This lack of visibility and operational efficiency prevented FMC from leveraging its global scale to negotiate better deals with suppliers, and made it difficult for the company to understand and manage total procurement spend effectively. The company needed a solution that would allow it to take control over global sourcing and spending, and manage global procurement more efficiently through standardized, automated processes.