Sanjeev Singh, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of CMS IT Services, recently spoke with Tech Achieve Media, sharing insights from his extensive career spanning over three decades. With a wealth of experience in leading global and domestic organizations across IT, ITES, Telecom, and Industrial sectors, Sanjeev Singh has consistently demonstrated his ability to transform large businesses into engines of profitable growth. His leadership roles, including his recent tenure as a member of the CII Karnataka Council and Chairman of the CII Karnataka CEO Forum, further highlight his expertise and strategic vision in driving innovation and success.
TAM: With over three decades of experience in leading diverse sectors, how have you leveraged your expertise to provide strategic direction to CMS IT Services, and what are your key priorities for driving innovation and growth within the company?
Sanjeev Singh: It’s been about 20 months since I joined CMS IT Services, and there are a few core principles we follow. First and foremost, it’s crucial for us to stay very close to the customer, understand their concerns, and be passionate about solving their problems.
At CMS IT Services, we believe every employee falls into one of two categories: you’re either adding value directly to the customer, or you’re supporting someone who is. There’s no room for a third category. This customer-first approach is vital to everything we do.
Innovation also plays a key role. It’s not about presenting our capabilities and asking, “What can we do for you?” Instead, we focus on identifying the customer’s problem and finding ways to solve it using our offerings and capabilities. Starting with the problem leads to better solutions.
Building a best-in-class team is equally important, not just at the leadership level but throughout the organization. We achieve this by promoting talent internally and selectively hiring from outside. No strategy can succeed without strong execution and agility, so these elements are always front and center.
Of course, culture and values are foundational. Any organization that wants long-term success must have a strong value system. When building a team, it’s essential to ensure alignment in terms of values and culture.
Therefore, if we focus on these key areas—staying close to the customer, fostering innovation, building a strong team, and maintaining a solid cultural foundation—everything else will fall into place.
TAM: Cloud technology is a cornerstone of modern IT infrastructure. How does CMS IT Services integrate cloud solutions to facilitate digital transformation for your clients, and what unique challenges and opportunities do you see in the cloud services landscape?
Sanjeev Singh: Cloud is already incredibly important—I can’t even say it’s becoming more important, because much of the migration has already taken place. Cloud has two key aspects: first, migrating from your data center to the cloud, and second, maximizing the return on that investment once you’ve made the move. Both are equally important.
In terms of migration, most large organizations, including many of our customers, have already moved 40-50% of their workloads to the cloud. Over the next few years, this figure may rise to 60-70%, but it’s unlikely that everything will migrate to the cloud. Some workloads will continue to run on data centers for regulatory or other reasons.
The real challenge now is how to maximize the return on that investment. This is where the true value lies, and why partnering with the right service provider is crucial. It’s about more than just migration; it’s about application modernization, analytics, orchestrated disaster recovery on the cloud, FinOps (optimizing cloud usage), cloud security, and compliance.
Organizations need to develop these capabilities, and partnering with the right IT service provider helps ensure they can fully leverage their cloud investment. Those that do it well are reaping immense benefits, while others are still figuring it out. If you can successfully execute a comprehensive cloud strategy, the rewards go beyond cost savings.
The benefits include faster time to market, which is a huge advantage. It allows businesses to drive innovation more quickly, improve operational efficiency, and scale more easily. The impact on business is significant, and in many cases, it’s hard to even assign a dollar value to these outcomes.
At our company, we focus on both aspects: the initial migration, which is the simpler part, and then the more complex elements like modernization, analytics, and ongoing cloud optimization. These are the areas where companies can create substantial impact and unlock the full potential of their cloud strategy.
TAM: Could you elaborate on how the integration of technologies like AI/ML, bots, and automated run-book solutions contribute to cost efficiency, and what unique value does this bring to clients?
Sanjeev Singh: I believe that any technology, whether it’s cloud, AI, or machine learning (ML), should not be viewed solely from a cost-saving or operational efficiency perspective. The real value lies in the impact these technologies can have on a company’s top line and customer satisfaction, which can create tremendous value. Of course, cost is important, and operational efficiency must be there.
The good thing about AI and ML is that, while these concepts have been around for decades, it’s only now, with the evolution of technology, that they are truly starting to deliver real results. AI, for example, has been a concept for over 50 years, but today we are witnessing its ability to tackle real-world use cases.
There are two key aspects: the quantitative, which focuses on efficiency, and the qualitative, which I believe offers the real return on investment. Technologies like AI, ML, automated bots, and runbook solutions provide more than just cost savings—they offer qualitative improvements that can be quantified. When deployed correctly, they help businesses transition from being reactive to proactive, predictive, and even preventive. Being reactive is never the best approach, whether in business or life, and AI allows companies to move beyond that.
In practical terms, these technologies help minimize errors, increase speed, scale operations faster, drive innovation, and improve time to market. Every technology has to pay for itself, but when implemented well, the qualitative benefits can be quantified into tangible monetary value. AI and ML can reduce labor, and therefore reduce costs. While there is an upfront cost to technology, as it becomes more cost-effective over time, its viability will only improve.
The real advantage is that you can achieve these qualitative benefits while still optimizing costs and improving operations. And since AI and ML are still in their infancy, their potential will grow substantially in the coming years. As compute power and storage costs continue to decrease, these technologies will mature, and their ability to improve the quality of processes and outcomes will expand significantly.
AI and ML have the potential to be as transformative as the mobile phone or the internet—perhaps even bigger. While we’ll have to wait and see how things evolve, it’s clear that the impact of AI and ML on businesses and economies will be immense.
TAM: Can you share specific examples of how your digital solutions have provided a competitive edge for your clients?
Sanjeev Singh: All of my previous responses have been somewhat theoretical, discussing concepts in a broader sense. Instead of continuing with abstract ideas, let me share a couple of examples where we’ve deployed emerging technologies for our customers and the impact it had on their businesses.
Let’s start with a retail client. I won’t mention the name, but when we engaged with them, we found significant inefficiencies in managing their IT infrastructure. Their IT tickets were handled manually, leading to delayed responses and resolutions. This directly impacted their retail stores, especially during peak hours, as unresolved issues would negatively affect sales due to non-functional systems.
We implemented an AI-driven ticketing solution integrated with automated bots and runbook solutions. This system prioritized tickets based on urgency and potential impact. Low-level, repetitive tasks, such as password resets or software updates, were handled by bots, leaving human intervention only for complex issues.
The outcome? Faster resolution times, known as MTTR (Mean Time to Resolve), improved user experience, reduced costs, and increased sales, since functional systems led to more efficient store operations. It’s a simple solution, but the impact on the business was immense. As a result, the client was eager to give us more work and engage with us on additional projects.
Another example involves a manufacturing client. They were facing frequent equipment breakdowns, causing costly production delays and missed customer commitments. We implemented an AI and ML-based predictive maintenance algorithm that monitored real-time machine data. Over time, the AI learned to predict when a machine or component was likely to fail.
This allowed for targeted preventive maintenance, reducing downtime, saving costs, and improving production efficiency. The customer could then meet their production deadlines consistently, which, in turn, increased customer satisfaction.
If it’s okay, I’ll share one more example—again from the retail sector. This client was struggling with processing and fulfilling large orders, particularly in their large-format stores. They faced challenges across supply chain management, from order processing to fulfillment, leading to delays. We implemented an RPA (Robotic Process Automation) solution to automate the end-to-end supply chain, including order management, inventory tracking, and vendor coordination.
The result? Orders were processed faster, leading to quicker fulfillment, better inventory management, and ultimately, higher sales. The store no longer faced stock shortages, as the entire supply chain was optimized through automation.
These are just a few examples, and I could go on for hours about the various solutions we’ve implemented for our clients. The key takeaway here is that digital solutions aren’t just about reducing costs. While cost reduction is important, these technologies also drive significant improvements in sales, customer satisfaction, and overall business predictability.
TAM: Looking ahead, what are your strategic goals for CMS IT Services in the next five years, and how do you envision the role of advanced technologies in shaping the future of managed services and system integration in the IT industry?
Sanjeev Singh: I believe that outcomes are not always in our control. What we can control are the efforts and actions we take. So, let me break my response into two parts.
First, let’s talk about the efforts and actions we plan to take over the next three to five years. We need to keep adding capabilities and offerings that address real problems our customers are facing. Many of these solutions will increasingly rely on emerging technologies like AI, ML, Generative AI, and similar innovations. We will continue to invest in these areas. Another key focus is investment in talent.
As I mentioned earlier, this is a knowledge-based industry. Our company is built entirely on its people. Anyone can buy a laptop, but it’s the talent that makes the difference. So, we must keep investing in building our teams, expertise, capabilities, and knowledge. While we aim to develop talent internally, it’s essential to hire externally, especially in areas where we lack sufficient expertise. Talent development will remain a top priority for us.
The third focus is strengthening the quality of our client engagements. It’s not enough to deliver good work; staying close to the customer is key. By doing so, we not only improve the quality of services but also gain a deeper understanding of their pain points, allowing us to refine and tailor solutions that address their specific needs. As we continue to grow, we believe a significant portion of our additional revenue will come from our existing customers.
It’s more cost-effective and profitable to generate additional deals from existing customers compared to acquiring new ones, which often involves longer sales cycles. Therefore, our efforts will focus on adding capabilities, building talent, and enhancing the quality of client engagement.
Now, what do we want to be known for in the next three to five years? We want our clients to see us as their most reliable technology partner. Within the IT services space, especially in India, we are leaders in managed services and infrastructure. We plan to maintain that leadership, but with solutions that are increasingly technology-driven. The role of people in delivering services will decrease as technology takes on a bigger role.
Our offerings and use cases will increasingly incorporate emerging technologies like AI, ML, cloud, edge computing, and cybersecurity. In simple terms, our goal is to be the “partner of choice: for our clients and the “employer of choice” for our employees. And in the process, we aim to generate solid financial returns for our shareholders as well.
That’s how I envision the coming years for our company.
