Harnessing the Power of Cloud to Accelerate Digital Transformation

By Larry Solomon, Chief People Officer, EPAM

EPAM, a leading global provider of digital platform engineering and software development services with 36,000+ employees in over 30 countries, is on a mission to engineer the future. With nearly 30 years of software engineering heritage supported by continually expanding strategic capabilities, the company converts breakthrough ideas into real outcomes for its global customers. EPAM understands that technology alone cannot enable a company to digitally transform, which is why they are committed to helping its customers think holistically about people, processes, platforms and data – key components to successful transformation programs. With hundreds of Fortune Global 2000 customers and a team of practical visionaries with experience in human-centric design thinking, innovation strategy consulting, and education and learning platforms, EPAM’s end-to-end service offerings are ideal for businesses needing to evolve as adaptive, digital organizations to disrupt the market.

It is this proven and varied wealth of experience that caught the eye of EF Education First, an organization in need of an experienced team to help shape its technology vision. “EF wanted an expert opinion; a fresh pair of eyes,” says Laszlo Szacsuri, Solution Architect at EPAM. “The company was looking to harness the power of cloud to provide more flexibility, release more valuable features and reduce time to market. EF had already embarked on a three-year plan, which included moving the majority of their code to the cloud, but they had a complex tech stack with over 10 years of custom development. From the beginning, we realized this could be a really amazing partnership.”

Laszlo and his team performed an initial tech stack review, which resulted in a proposed target architecture to overcome the legacy technology challenges. The team implemented a technical plan and a set of MVP applications iteratively over the course of eight months, proving their trust and reliability along the way whilst helping EF raise their own engineering standards. The automation involved has unlocked time for the business to focus on value-adding activities, as well as reducing overall time to market for new features. “The work we’ve done together has cemented EPAM as a partner that goes beyond the normal vendor-customer relationship to add real value,” says Laszlo.

Attitudes towards changing an existing software solution are shifting, as Pascal Roth, EPAM’s Director of Business Development, explains “Companies want to differentiate; core systems are not particularly good at interacting with new ecosystems; and software engineering has matured, meaning you can deliver value at a much faster pace. As a technology-agnostic partner with expert engineering, design and consulting skills, these three elements play to EPAM’s strengths.”

The passion with which EPAM tackles the challenges it faces is clear, and its relationship with EF is made even more unique by the fact that their work together coincided with a global pandemic. EPAM’s Remote by Design™ approach has enabled the project to quickly adapt to remote working models and continue seamlessly, strengthening its position as a networked, distributed organization that doesn’t stop for a customer in need. 

“We’re deeply proud of our work with EF,” says Laszlo. “As markets try to figure out the new normal, we didn’t let the current environment stop us from effectively helping our client grow. EF trusted us to be there for them during this unprecedented time, which is really rewarding and key to establishing a successful partnership.”

The original article can be found here.