Having earned global recognition, a US-based leader in pathology and laboratory medicine wanted to expand internationally, but with its current IT state, this was sure to backfire.
Since operations were siloed and scattered across systems that did not talk to each other, teams operated at sub-optimal efficiency due to effort duplication, delays and blind spots. These systems, built on legacy technologies such as COBOL, Oracle EBS, PowerBuilder and Informix DB, led to technical debt that made it difficult to scale globally. A waterfall development model slowed product launches and feature rollouts, while limited automation and manual processes further delayed go-live timelines. Expanding globally would also require robust security and compliance mechanisms, which would be additional challenges given the client’s current IT estate.
This operational fabric not only increased day-to-day expenses but also limited the client’s capacity to deliver reliable, secure and innovative pathology services at scale, compliant with local regulations and healthcare requirements.
The client needed to overhaul its IT and operations to support global aspirations.
Change Catalyst: Persistent’s Five-Pillar Approach to Cloud-Native Operations
Recognizing the need for a front-to-back operational change, the client decided to transition to fully cloud-native operations, retire IT outdated systems and enhance customer experience. It commissioned Persistent to drive this transformation.
As its Managed Services partner, Persistent recognized the need to streamline the client’s engineering practices to align with cloud-native product development. Our team introduced AI-first engineering and intelligent automation with our in-house, AI-driven software accelerator, SASVATM, that rapidly engineers secure, resilient and compliant code, governed by guardrails that ensure compliance with global regulatory standards. This significantly reduced cycle times and simplified product launches.
To drive collaboration and efficiency of geographically dispersed teams, Persistent leveraged iAURA—its AI-based data management solution that consolidates federated data across systems, improving operational speed, data consistency and process efficiency.
With its cloud operations platform (PiOps), Persistent defined an optimal cloud operating model that reduces the client’s total cost of ownership, enhances elasticity and enables scalable, high-performance.
To support the client’s global operations, Persistent adopted the five-pillar approach to successful cloud operations:
- Full-Stack Observability: For faster issue resolution and improved system reliability, Persistent enabled proactive monitoring and event correlation with SolarWinds.
- Automated Service Management: To boost operational efficiency and reduce manual work, Persistent centralized service management, workflow automation and asset tracking with ServiceNow.
- Cloud Management: Using CoreStack as an accelerator, Persistent automated cloud governance, cost optimization (FinOps) and security management (SecOps), along with patching (Shavlik, Red Hat Satellite), backup and restore (Commvault) and workflows (ServiceNow Orchestrator, Camunda). This reduced manual effort and reinforced compliance.
- Data-driven Operations: With real-time, role-based dashboards, we improved visibility into the cloud environment and supported data-driven operational decisions.
- Security & Compliance: By integrating Tenable, Sophos and WIZ, Persistent managed vulnerabilities, endpoint protection and cloud security posture, creating a secure and compliant cloud ecosystem for the client.
Shift from Business-as-Usual to Innovation
A seamless move to the cloud, embedded AI, analytics and automation cultivated an environment of innovation, agility and swift responsiveness. As the transformation unfolded, the client experienced:
- Fully cloud-native operations within two years, sunsetting legacy technologies and the longstanding Oracle ERP system
- 3X improvement in customer experience effectiveness over seven years
- Freed-up bandwidth for strategic, higher-value tasks, with 30% of IT support activities automated
A robust security and compliance posture, combined with the trust of global customers and partners, reinforces the client’s reputation as a forward-thinking leader.
This transformation sets a new benchmark for operational excellence in pathology and laboratory medicine, supercharging the client’s expansion plans.
