The document discusses the emerging SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics, and Cloud) technology stack and its potential benefits for businesses. It explains that individually, each technology (social, mobile, analytics, cloud) provides value but combining them into an integrated stack creates even greater opportunities. There are two main approaches to implementing SMAC - a step-by-step approach for smaller companies and an individual/modular approach for larger firms. A successful SMAC implementation requires understanding a company's specific ecosystem and customizing the strategy accordingly.

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Jaya Ghosh
[Company address]
Jaya Ghosh
[Company address]
SMAC – An Emerging Accelerator
for Businesses
IT industry has synergized – Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud technologies – to create a
very powerful hyper-intelligent software platform that addresses issues of competitive
business environment. SMAC stack, apart from representing technologies that are built on
business models, re-structures the technological strength to optimize the operation and
attain superior growth.
Rajeev Misra
WHITEPAPER

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CONTENTS:
 Introduction...................................................................................................... 2
 Evolution Of SMAC – ‘Right Insight, Right Time, Right Place’ ............................ 3
 How to Move Forward With SMAC................................................................... 3
 Approaches to Implementing SMAC ………..……………………………………………………. 4
 Step-by-Step Implementation Approach ............................................................................ 4
 Individual Implementation Approach …………………….…………………………………………………..…. 5
 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 7
INTRODUCTION
Due to the advent of different social media platforms
and mobile technologies, enterprises and customers
around the world are cohesively connected like
never before. The intensive usage of social platforms
and mobile devices has blurred the boundaries
between personal, social and business transactions.
IT companies have turned this adversity into an
opportunity by utilizing the enormous data available
across various channels. By converting this massive
data into structured and meaningful form, various
kind of analysis could be driven.
With the help of various analysis tools, organizations
can perform real-time interpretations about
consumers, competitors, and business trends that
are critical to businesses. The synergy created by
combined functioning of Social, Mobile, and
Analytics technologies has helped organizations draw
valuable insights about their businesses. Cloud
technologies extend the service to a new level of
maturity, by designing SAAS (Software as a Service)
based products that could be accessed from anywhere.
Individually each technology can add immense value to
a business, but the real benefit could be leveraged by
treating social, mobility, analytics, and cloud as a single
stack. In short, this technology platform (SMAC), will
have a multiplying effect on businesses, which in turn
will augment the productivity all across the
organization. While the convergence of SMAC
technologies is creating enormous opportunities for
businesses, a prudent implementation of the SMAC
stack is essential to realize its true value.

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However, implementation of SMAC stack is very
challenging. This calls for devising a right SMAC stack
and implementation approach, which indeed is the
key to organizational success. To remain
competitive, it is important to understand that every
organization is different from the other and so is
their ecosystem. SMAC creates an ecosystem that
helps businesses to improve their operations while
fulfilling their customer requirements with minimal
cost and maximum reach. Thus, a tailor-made
approach is required for choosing SMAC-enabling
technologies, which in turn should be supported by
a robust strategy, appropriate risk mitigation
measures, and a granular implementation approach.
EVOLUTION OF SMAC – ‘RIGHT INSIGHT, RIGHT TIME, RIGHT PLACE’
 The convergence of these technologies signifies
that traditional way of doing business should be
discarded. It means that we don’t have to keep
resources and information on the same location
anymore nor do we need to spend heavily on
communication and collaboration tools.
 Immense growth has been observed in Social,
Mobile, Analytics and Cloud technologies, in the
last couple of years. Earlier these technologies
grew and functioned independently. But as the
industry is expanding its horizons holistically,
leading business players have realized the need
to integrate emerging technologies in to a stack,
in order to gain business advantage.
 In the initial evolutionary stage, SMAC was
customized for SaaS-based dynamic business
model as per the SMAC stack. It reshaped the
organizational structure by re-aligning processes
that brought a real opportunity for innovative
solutions. By leveraging on shared IT
infrastructure, businesses became more agile,
scalable, and seamlessly connected. Eventually,
it ensured higher growth margins, formulation of
invincible strategies and customer delight.
HOW TO MOVE FORWARD WITH SMAC
Embracing new technologies, to achieve business
objectives, requires a methodological approach.
While some organizations have realized profound
and positive business outcomes, many others have
failed to harness the real value of their SMAC
investments. It is however important to understand
that the value of SMAC investment is influenced by
several external and internal factors such as business
model, Operating model, type of business
service/product, customer Demographics,
Organizational size, applications, processes,
integrations, organizational culture etc. A profound
understanding of the existing eco-system and
business needs of an organization determines the
right SMAC implementation approach. To ensure
successful implementation of SMAC, a survey on the
following key areas, should be conducted:
“The combined potential of SMAC technologies is estimated to be between $70
Billion to $200 billion over the next three years.” - NASSCOM

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Figure 1: Feasibility Study for SMAC
This survey provides data related to various internal
and external factors. After a meticulous analysis and
brainstorming sessions, an analysis report is
prepared to transform IT system that is truly aligned
with the organizational focal point. This analysis can
help organizations to determine which SMAC stack
Implementation approach will fetch optimum ROI.
The two main implementation approaches of SMAC
include the (1) Step-by-Step implementation
approach and the (2) Individual implementation
approach. After confirmatory recommendation we
can surely go-ahead and implement the desired
SMAC stack.
APPROACHES TO IMPLEMENTING SMAC
 Step-by-Step Implementation Approach
This approach is recommended for small
organizations where products and services are
homogeneous. This approach takes along all SMAC
elements in one go. It is relatively easy for a small
organization to quickly change and adopt innovative
solutions for the workplace. Their customers and
vendors are not much diversified so
implementation, adoption and enhancements can
be completed in a linear manner. This approach
involves different steps including assessment,
mapping, orchestrate, development and
maintenance & support (see Figure 2).

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Figure 2: Step-by-Step Implementation Approach for SMAC
 Individual Implementation Approach
In case of large organizations, it is very difficult to
restructure the business model that is spread
across the globe. Such organizations have
heterogeneous culture spread across its different
business divisions and locations. Each of these
business division require a customized strategy
with considerable financial implication, which
makes it difficult to implement SMAC in one go. An
organization that has an objective to improve its
ROI within a short period of time will have to target
and implement those SMAC technologies from the
stack that are of greater importance.
in such cases, organizations should adopt an
individual implementation approach as per their
business priority. In some cases, when
organizations want to ensure better ROI, they
should go for a pilot project. By conducting the
pilot project, they can ensure the success of
individual elements of the SMAC stack for a
department. This can then be extended across the
organization in the next stage. The SMAC stack
roadmap is created individually as per the eco-
system of an organization.
“By 2018, more than 60% of enterprises will have at least half of their
infrastructure on cloud-based platforms.” - Source: Digital Business, Rethinking
fundamentals.

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Following are the steps of the ‘Individual Implementation Approach’:
Figure 3: Individual Implementation Approach

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CONCLUSION
SMAC technologies are redefining enterprise IT in this new era. It helps deplete geographical & cultural barriers,
minimize risk, and optimize operational costs of an organization. It also helps develop an agile and scalable
business model, to improve connectivity amongst different stakeholders (employees, customers, and vendors)
through predictive insights.
SMAC stack has immense potential. It is expected that by 2020, it would encompass 80% of total enterprise IT
investment, worldwide.
Figure 4: Survey of Top IT initiatives
An effective SMAC implementation approach offers the following benefits to organizations:
 Sustained key business differentiation
 Preserved critical processes from legacy applications and reduce application portfolio bloat that leads to
simplification and standardization
 Enhanced application performance, automated business processes, resource optimization and reduced
operating cost

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 Improved time-to-market, as well as, effort to produce new products and services
 Quick adoption of regulatory/compliance changes because of re-architecting of applications
 Integrated enterprise application that improves agility of the system
 Reduced complexity and embraces strategic directives through an architecture that supports cloud,
mobile or virtualized environments
 Opportunity to exit from non-strategic and unsupported technologies
 Allowed to partake thoughtful strategic initiatives, with a modernized portfolio
It is evident that SMAC stack aligns the business for greater interoperability and
seamless interaction between the applications improving business performance to
newer heights.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Rajeev Misra has 13+ years of experience in the IT Services industry and is heading the Pre-Sales
team at R Systems. Rajeev holds a Master’s in Business Administration from Apeejay Institute of
Technology, Greater Noida, India and a B.Sc. (Mathematics and Computer Applications) from
Rohilkhand University, Bareilly, India.
ABOUT R SYSTEMS
R Systems is a leading OPD and IT Services company, which caters to Fortune 1000, Government, and Mid-sized organizations, worldwide.
The company is hailed as an industry leader with some of the world’s highest quality standards, including SEI CMMI Level 5, PCMM Level
5, ISO 9001:2008, and ISO 27001:2013 certifications. With a rich legacy spread over two decades, we generate value that helps
organizations transcend to higher levels of efficiency and growth. Quite like the Oyster delivering the Pearl.
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