AHEAD, a notable company that builds and manages digital platforms, continues its impressive global growth with a strong presence in India. Known for its consultative approach, engineering excellence, and innovative solutions, AHEAD empowers some of the world’s most successful organizations by maximizing the impact of technology. Since launching operations in India in May of last year, AHEAD has rapidly expanded, recently opening a new office in Hyderabad and growing its workforce to 500 employees, with plans to add 250 more. In this conversation with Keith Odom, Senior Vice President – Managed Services, India Operations, and Hysam Galal, General Manager – Digital Solutions, AHEAD, we explore the company’s growth journey and future plans in India.
TAM: How has your journey been in the India market so far?
Keith Odom: It’s been an incredible journey. We’ve grown from zero to nearly 500 team members by the end of this year. As you mentioned, we recently opened our Hyderabad office, and we’re already exploring where to expand next—whether that’s in Bengaluru or another region.
The success here has been remarkable, thanks to the local talent and skill sets, which have exceeded our expectations. We’re further along than we anticipated in such a short time, and from a company perspective, things couldn’t be going better.
TAM: What is your view on the India market when compared to the US market?
Keith Odom: The main reason we’re here is the abundance of talent—it’s simply on another level compared to what we can find in the U.S. While cost differences are a factor, the real driver is access to exceptional talent. Security is one of our top priorities, led by Hisim for us globally. So far, we haven’t focused on managed security services in India, but we’re now gearing up to roll out security functions here. This marks the next step for us in the Indian market.
Hysam Galal: India offers a much lower cost rate than the U.S., but that’s not the only reason we’re here. There’s a mindset shift happening—our presence here is not just about cost; it’s about accessing exceptional talent. The people here are incredibly skilled and driven. When you come here, you can feel the energy, and it’s truly inspiring. We’re thrilled to be part of this vibrant environment.
TAM: AHEAD’s growth plans highlight a strategic focus on expanding managed services, digital solutions, and enterprise service management. Could you elaborate on the key demand drivers for these services?
Keith Odom: Our focus is on the US market because that’s where our clients are, particularly among the global 1,000. Currently, about half of our team here in India is dedicated to managed services. As clients explore new areas, like security, they face a significant challenge: finding and retaining local talent in the US, where demand is incredibly high. Many are turning to partners like us, saying, ‘We can’t find the talent, and when we do, we can’t keep them.’ They’re asking us to step in and manage their security operations centers (SOCs). In response, we’re building our SOC here in India, where we can access a broader skill set that’s hard to find locally. By looking globally, we’re able to meet this demand.
Hysam Galal: I manage the digital solutions team. During the COVID era, many clients were forced to accelerate their digital transformation, which significantly increased the demand for our services. This shift has put pressure on us to expand our services to support clients as they migrate to major cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, and Google. It’s definitely driven a lot of growth for our part of the business.
TAM: Can you shed light on the specific industries or verticals that are driving the strongest demand for these solutions?
Hysam Galal: We’ve seen significant digital transformation in industries like healthcare and financial services, particularly in areas focused on consumer support. Demand for digital solutions is high in sectors with strong consumer interactions. Consumers today are very demanding, and business units are pushing CIOs to be more agile and flexible. This pressure is a major driver of digital transformation.
TAM: What sets AHEAD’s offerings apart in this highly competitive market?
Keith Odom: Our strength lies in the end-to-end nature of what we do. On the front end, we offer strategy, assessment, design, and implementation services—similar to many of our competitors. However, we go beyond that with Foundry, our manufacturing and pre-rack integration solution, where we create custom builds and even brand-new devices for clients. We also provide Hatch, a product that offers clients full visibility into logistics, factory operations, shipping, and more.
Hysam’s team supports both front-end tasks and deployment, working closely with clients through integration and into day-to-day managed services, taking over once initial deployment is complete. We continue to manage these operations for our clients long-term.
We’re also expanding into first-call support for OEMs; currently, we offer this for Microsoft and VMware, and we have a long list of OEMs interested in partnering with us in the coming year. All these new functions will be fully supported here.
TAM: How is AHEAD adapting its offerings to align with the unique needs of businesses across verticals?
Hysam Galal: Take healthcare, for example. To truly stand out, it’s essential to either develop expertise or establish partnerships with specialists, like those with expertise in Epic. A few years ago, we began building partnerships with companies that could support us in this area. We’re well known for our strength in infrastructure. We can step in, digitize existing infrastructure, and make it work seamlessly within platforms like Epic for healthcare. To make this possible, we formed partnerships that allow us to create tailored solutions specific to the industry. In financial services, although there isn’t a single dominant application, we’ve brought in talent from global SIs who have deep industry experience. This way, we speak the language of each industry, enabling us to develop solutions that are finely tuned to their unique needs.
TAM: What role does AHEAD envision its India team playing in global operations, particularly as you expand your workforce across various departments?
Keith Odom: To give you an idea of India’s impact, the country is involved in every facet of AHEAD’s internal operations across all our practices. For instance, we now have team members here in legal, operations, finance—functions like accounts payable—and much more.
Our internal shared services team in India is actually the second largest group within AHEAD, after managed services. His team is currently third, but with their rapid growth, they’re on track to become the second largest soon. India’s role is significant, with our COO, CIO, and CTO regularly visiting, and they’ll be coming again in February.
This presence in India is a strategic initiative, driven by our commitment to effectively and efficiently solve problems for our clients. Skills and cost efficiencies are critical here, and India plays a huge role in enabling both. It also supports our ability to scale internally, especially in operational roles, and remains a top priority discussed at the board level. We couldn’t value it more highly.
TAM: Final Comments
Keith Odom and Hysam Galal: At Foundry, we handle a lot of warehousing globally, with most of our builds currently in the U.S. However, we’re aiming to expand our capabilities for global partners and clients. We’re exploring the possibility of building similar capabilities in the U.K. and potentially here in India. We are actually going on some real estate visits tomorrow to look at warehousing and manufacturing space. We’re evaluating if this is something we want to build here to better serve our clients.
Regarding the security aspect, yes, as we expand, we’re focusing on growing our Security Operations Center (SOC). Currently, our SOC is 100% based in the US, mainly because clients initially preferred it that way. However, as we get more global clients, they are now telling us, ‘We want you to do it the most efficient and effective way possible,’ which means we need to do a lot of this work here in India.
Between now and the end of the year, we plan to hire dozens of new heads to build out our SOC in India, either in this office or in Hyderabad, depending on where we find the talent. Additionally, AHEAD has a penetration testing (pen testing) team, and we’re planning to expand this team in India to strengthen our pen testing capabilities.
