Interview: Creative ITC, Cloud Excellence Awards finalist

"We help our customers achieve the full power of their IT investments and achieve business objectives sooner."

One of the biggest technological developments in the last two years has been the dramatic acceleration of cloud computing initiatives. The pandemic has conclusively shown that cloud computing does, in fact, provide greater speed, agility and resilience under even the most challenging conditions.

Computing's Cloud Excellence Awards recognise the very best of the UK's cloud industry, from the most innovative and compelling products and vendors, through to the top use cases from end-user firms.

This year's winners will be announced at a live awards ceremony on Thursday 22 September at One Whitehall Place, London.

One of those finalists is Creative ITC, which has reached the shortlist for three categories: Best Cloud Project; Most Innovative Cloud Product or Service; and Best Cloud Support Provider.

We talked to Keith Ali, Group MD at Creative ITC, about what makes his company stand out from the crowd.

Keith sets the Group's strategic direction, enabling the clients to digitally transform for continued growth and profitability. Previously head of technical strategy at Cisco, Keith also spent eight years overseas running IT departments throughout APAC and the US. A chartered engineer and passionate technologist, Keith is driven by how IT can be applied to positively affect the Group's entire economic future.

Computing: Please provide some background on your company for our readers.

Keith Ali: Creative ITC is firmly established as a multi award-winning IT infrastructure and cloud enablement company. We design and deliver exceptional solutions across five continents, helping our customers achieve the full power of their IT investments and achieve business objectives sooner.

We're a true cloud provider, and proud that our managed services and cloud solutions are all developed in the UK and tailored specifically to meet the needs of clients in the AEC industry and other sectors. Our as-a-Service offerings complement our proven high-spec VDIPOD platform and can be utilised as customisable solutions in their own right. As businesses increasingly transition to Everything-as-a-Service, Creative is strongly placed to deliver this vision for our clients.

We are proud to be our clients' trusted advisor - whether that's developing financially-sound cloud roadmaps, simplifying adoption and minimising disruption, or improving performance of apps, data and virtual desktops. They choose us because we work tirelessly to fully understand their infrastructure requirements, from current state to desired architecture. Success is built on delivering outstanding customer experience. And we never forget that.

What makes you different from other technology companies?

KA: It's become a bit of a cliché for IT providers to say 'we take a customer-first approach'. What makes Creative stand out from the crowd is how truly embedded that ethos is in our culture. From day one, we set out to create a team that will do whatever it takes to help our clients' IT projects succeed. Built on our technical expertise, our speed and agility have helped many a business to overcome huge technical, operational and time-frame challenges. We don't just talk the talk - we walk the walk, time and time again.

Never has this dedication been more evident than when a client recently experienced a major critical incident requiring urgent attention out of hours. Within one hour, we had five volunteers responding to the emergency, giving up their weekend to work through the night - both remotely and on-site for the customer - to help them resolve the issue. Unhampered by red tape and unnecessary bureaucracy, our 24/7 hands-on support continued until everything was resolved, and we've worked alongside them to ensure a smooth road to recovery. Put simply, we all felt it was the right thing to do.

Our success is firmly rooted in building exceptionally strong customer relationships, and we've built the right team to do that, one that really cares about helping our company and our clients flourish. So, unlike other players, when we say we'll treat your IT and business needs like our own, we really mean it.

What one company achievement in the last 12 months are you most proud of?

KA: It would be very easy for me to talk about Creative's continued commercial success and growth in very turbulent market conditions. We're proud to be a home-grown UK IT business punching well above our weight on a global stage.

However, the achievement that really stands out for me over the past year as a shining example does so not because of the financials involved. Yes, our contract win with SNC-Lavalin early this year was our company's largest deal to date - but more importantly for me, it's also clear evidence that our business strategy is paying off.

We've carved out a niche for the business in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector, developing a portfolio of solutions tailored specifically to help companies in the industry meet a unique set of technology challenges. I'm immensely proud that our efforts to further our growth ambitions are taking Creative from strength to strength. Our specialisation and unparalleled AEC expertise is what enabled us to take on the big boys and emerge victorious in this competitive deal. SNC-Lavalin saw the value of partnering with Creative. David really proved his worth against multiple industry Goliaths.

What are you working on this year?

KA: We've always been dedicated to helping our clients transition seamlessly from yesterday's A to tomorrow's B. As the marketplace and technology continue to evolve at pace, we're building out our range of solutions to help clients future-proof their IT and unlock greater competitive advantage from digital transformation.

Exclusively designed to help clients overcome challenges faced with modernising IT systems, we've developed a Modern Application Platform (MAP), designed to de-risk legacy system updates while stretching budgets through container orchestration and performance improvements. MAP provides customers with a single-stop solution for updating older software to the very latest languages and frameworks, while carefully arranging and simplifying often scary and costly cloud transitions.

There's also mounting pressure across the board to make IT simpler to manage and less costly to own and operate. As more companies turn to flexible 'aaS' models to boost business agility and efficiency, we understand that XaaS solutions need to not only align with future needs but also dovetail seamlessly with existing IT investments. Hot on the heels of infrastructure virtualisation, application virtualisation is now snowballing. Yet compute and storage - and therefore virtualisation - are coming ever closer to the edge. This increases the need for greater workload mobility, automated operations, and improved performance and availability of resources.

These are some of the main drivers behind our focus on developing more tailored, scalable solutions for customer, building on our successful history of delivering exceptional managed services.

Why are events like the Cloud Excellence Awards important to the IT industry?

KA: The most successful digital transformation projects are the result of true collaboration between all parts of the technology ecosystem - end users, providers and vendors. The Cloud Excellence Awards not only showcase the cream of the crop across the UK cloud sector, but also provide a rare opportunity to bring the leading players from every aspect of the cloud industry together.

Showcasing our innovative cloud solutions and services, we're delighted to be shortlisted for three awards this year, and this is testament to the amazing efforts of the entire Creative team. But I'm particularly proud to be joint finalists with our client Royal BAM Group, demonstrating the strength of our relationship and the outstanding business outcomes achieved through our delivery of the ground-breaking Digital Construction Workspace powered by our VDIPOD.

The Cloud Excellence Awards will take place on 22nd September in London. Click here to view the shortlist and here to book your table.