Altisource Embraces IT Transformation to Improve Customer Experience and Drive New Revenue

Altisource, a global financial and business services company and a leading provider of mortgage, financial and technology services for the real estate industry, has a good problem — its business is expanding rapidly, necessitating a strategy to scale its IT operations to improve efficiency and drive new revenue. Named one of Fortune’s 100 fastest growing companies two years in a row, Altisource was ready for a change and CTO Girish Juneja knew just what was needed to position the business for continued growth — cloud technology. I recently sat down with Juneja to discuss Altisource’s IT strategy and why he chose to move the company to a cloud solution.

What prompted the re-examination of your IT strategy?

Juneja: Altisource’s delivery model was changing and our IT organization had to shift to meet the needs of the business and support our rapid growth. Additionally, we realized that transforming our IT operations would actually enable us to offer new services and gain new revenue for the business. Understanding this, we set out to do three things in IT: stop doing things we didn’t do well or didn’t need to do ourselves; identify outside resources with best-in-class capabilities to handle those areas (security, compliance, etc.); and become a more agile organization that could support an evolving business and market.

This involved a company-wide cloud migration strategy. Can you describe the process you’re taking?

Juneja: Cloud computing answered the three IT imperatives — particularly the ability to improve services to our clients and become a more agile organization. We serve very cautious customers, so we do not make these decisions lightly. It’s a process that won’t happen overnight, but it’s a move we’re committed to completing. We are starting with some applications that have fewer customer compliance requirements then expanding to others. We are taking the ‘crawl before you walk’ and ‘walk before you run’ approach. We plan to deploy another two or three major applications this year, and as we begin to ‘walk faster’ we’ll gauge whether or not there is enough data to validate a full migration.

What were the must-haves you were looking for in a cloud solution?

Juneja: We needed a cloud provider that has a highly-secure cloud solution with firm service level agreements and has a history of delivering this type of solution to financial institutions. We were also looking for efficiency in getting this environment set up, and we required 24/7 monitoring. Other important must-haves were elasticity in computing storage within the private cloud, and a roadmap that would allow us to combine private and public cloud elements together. We were looking for a provider that showed credibility in providing highly secure scalable environments in multiple locations. Ultimately, we did a survey of several cloud providers and talked to them to understand their roadmap, focus and customer profile.

What’s your advice to companies looking to do a similar cloud migration?

Juneja: There is a lot of planning required. Even if you may use a cloud service provider’s environment, you have to understand how your applications will map to it. Meticulous planning is a must. You also must have a reasonable expectation of the unexpected. Give yourself time — at least three to six months. Good engagement between your team and your provider’s team is key. There must be commitment from both sides to deliver.

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