VFS Global, visa outsourcing specialist for governments, has won the Best in Future of Digital Infrastructure Award at the first ever IDC Future Enterprise Awards for India.
VFS Global was named among 32 award-winning companies that contested against more than 1,000 entries send in by nearly 700 end-user organisations across the Asia/Pacific region. The recognition holds special significance since the award-winning initiative was conceptualised and rolled out amid the pandemic. According to IDC, the benchmarks of the awards were chosen based on their successful implementation of digital initiatives addressing new customer requirements, development of new capabilities, deployment of new critical infrastructure, and pursuit of new industry ecosystems. International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets.
Given VFS Global’s critical mandate of adherence to data protection norms worldwide, the company has been largely restricted to keeping its business workloads on private cloud or traditional datacenter architecture. The award-winning initiative provides a secured gateway scaling these limitations. It’s an elaborate plan to harness the benefits of next generation Cloud Computing environments, while ensuring strong adherence to Personally Identifiable Information (PII) data processing norms like the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Personal Data Protection Bill – India, and geopolitical changes like Brexit. It also aims to inject VFS Global’s Defense in Depth architecture and its proven Data Protection Policy into next generation Cloud environments like AWS and Azure.
Zubin Karkaria, CEO, VFS Global, said, “It is an honour to receive this very prestigious award recognizing our overarching digital transformation vision and its implementation. We are working on a futuristic initiative to leverage the next generation Cloud Computing environment, while still running our current global operations with stringent adherence to the high standards expected of VFS Global by our esteemed client governments”
While it may seem commonplace to move workloads to the cloud for most industries, certain industries like banks and VFS Global, have numerous challenges in adopting the cloud for its global operations. The agility, flexibility, cost savings, the Pay-As-You-Go model, while undoubtedly beneficial, does take away some of the stringent control and predictability provided by traditional environments.
“Almost each of our client governments have their own unique laws and regulations, as well as contractual mandates regarding handling of PII data. Complexity gets multiplied due to regulations of country of operations. Cloud adoption in this niche sector is a rare feat. Merging the complex and multi-layered protection systems and ensuring a stable environment despite the flexibility, was a challenge that this award-winning initiative has successfully met,” said Dhiren Savla, Chief Information Officer, VFS Global.