Joint Initiatives for Comprehensive Data Automation in Enterprises

What are the expansion plans of AWS in India?

Praveen: We have been investing in India since 2016 when we came out with our first region in the Bombay region. Since then, we have invested nearly USD 3.7 billion into the country. We will be investing USD 12.7 billion more into India by 2030.

And this is being seen across both our Mumbai region, wherein we are going to have nearly USD 8.3 billion of investment, and about USD 4.4 billion additional in our Hyderabad region. We also launched the second region in the country, which also signifies the amount of potential that India has as an economy and as a country where innovation is happening, and also for us as AWS to remain focused and continue to invest in India. Outside of it, skilling is a very important thing for us.

One is the infrastructure that we invest in the country, but also the skilling that we develop in the country. We have already trained 5.9 million folks in India in terms of cloud knowledge, and now we are also focused on training folks in India on GenAI knowledge. So India continues to be significant for our business.

Elaborate on Blazeclan’s journey so far and how the partnership with AWS has shaped the evolution.

Praveen: Blazeclan has been one of our longest partnerships, and we are looking forward to accelerating this collaboration now that Blazeclan is part of ITC Infotech.

It is a company that has effectively taken the Indian IT services story to a global scale. We are keen on expanding this partnership, especially around industry solutions. ITC Infotech has a strong partnership with SAP, AWS also has a strong partnership with SAP, and Blazeclan brings cloud expertise into this equation.

We are collaborating not only with Blazeclan and ITC Infotech across India but also in Southeast Asia. We aim to expand into larger markets as well. They are one of our earliest premier partners, migration competency partners, and MSP partners. 

Varoon: When we started our company back in 2011 as a startup, we were building an education marketplace called BriskGap. We were searching for solutions that would help us, first, be cost-efficient as a startup and second, scale when required. We stumbled upon AWS. Back in 2011, AWS was quite unknown in India, but we discovered it and began using it, which revealed its potential.

We started utilising AWS to build our cloud platform and SaaS platform. However, after a year or so, our SaaS product wasn’t growing as fast as we had hoped due to certain infrastructure challenges, primarily related to internet bandwidth. We were developing an online training marketplace, which required significant bandwidth—something India lacked at the time.

Although it didn’t work out as planned, the experience taught us invaluable lessons about AWS. As we worked to grow and sustain our business, we realised other startups in Pune were seeking help with AWS. This led us to pivot towards becoming a consulting partner of AWS.

In 2012, we became one of the first AWS partners—one of the early "born in the cloud" partners—and have experienced steady growth ever since.

In the early days, media companies drove our business; we helped many online newspapers and OTT platforms deploy on AWS in India.

As we’ve grown, we’ve consistently invested in our competencies and capabilities on AWS, ensuring our teams are trained and certified regularly. Since merging with ITC Infotech, we’ve sought to address a gap in domain expertise.

The ITC Infotech's strengths in manufacturing, retail, and hospitality inspire us to develop solutions in different segments. In hospitality, for example, we’re creating “hotel-in-a-box” solutions to streamline operations. AI integration enhances these offerings, delivering tangible business outcomes for customers.

How is the AWS–Blazeclan partnership addressing the challenge of adopting cloud-first approaches to complex enterprise environments?

Varoon: Modernisation programmes are essential in addressing the evolving needs of enterprises adopting cloud-first approaches. Initially, many enterprises treated the cloud as an extension of their data centres, migrating applications without a holistic strategy. Over time, they realised the importance of true modernisation, which involves building scalable, fault-tolerant, resilient, and self-healing infrastructure and applications.

We’ve worked extensively with financial services customers, including a major bank, to refresh and rebuild cloud-native applications, enhancing customer experiences for millions of users. Similarly, we’ve assisted an education loan provider in refactoring legacy applications, making them scalable through CI/CD, infrastructure as code, and other modern practices. Generative AI has significantly accelerated these processes, reducing modernisation timelines by 70–80% and delivering faster ROI for customers. AI-driven tools, like Amazon Q, enable efficient upgrades and testing, further enhancing affordability and outcomes.

Praveen: At AWS, we prioritise working backwards from customer needs. We empower partners like Blazeclan and ITC Infotech to act as force multipliers in delivering industry and technology solutions. Through the AWS Competency Program, partners gain recognised skill sets in areas like migration, modernisation, and small and medium business solutions.

Modernisation is crucial for realising the true cost benefits (TCO) of cloud migration. It involves adopting cloud-native technologies that enhance efficiency and reduce costs. Blazeclan has utilised AWS GenAI tools, such as Amazon Q Developer, to modernise its applications, demonstrating the effectiveness of these solutions. AWS actively supports partners with Q licences and training, enabling them to deliver faster and cost-effective modernisation outcomes for their customers.

Could you share how your joint initiatives are helping organisations automate core operations?

Praveen: Our joint initiatives with Blazeclan are driving significant automation and faster decision-making for organisations. Together, we’ve completed over 100 migrations and serve over a thousand customers, supported by Blazeclan’s team of 1,500+ AWS-certified professionals.

In India, we’ve closely collaborated on projects with companies like Bajaj Finserv, Aditya Birla, Avanse Financial Services, and Porter. For Porter, a digital-native startup, AWS, Blazeclan, and Snowflake worked together to implement a comprehensive data automation journey. Beyond migrations and modernisation, these collaborations focus on enhancing data automation processes.

Looking ahead, we’re excited about leveraging ITC Infotech's expertise in retail and consumer packaged goods to scale these initiatives further.

Varoon: In Southeast Asia, we’ve partnered with customers like Ergo Insurance, Singtel, and Astro in Malaysia and insured tech platforms such as Boltech—a billion-dollar unicorn. For Boltech, AWS-powered automation solutions streamline claims processing, improving efficiency and decision-making.

Generative AI plays a pivotal role in these projects, accelerating modernisation timelines and enabling faster ROI. As organisations increasingly adopt cloud and AI-driven solutions, we anticipate a multi-decade journey of growth and opportunities in public cloud computing and enterprise modernisation.

How has the integration of Blazeclan in ITC Infotech impacted your cloud services delivery model, and what role does AWS play in this?

Varoon: Joining ITC Infotech has significantly enhanced our delivery capabilities by combining deep technical expertise in AWS with ITC Infotech's domain knowledge. This merger enables us to create solutions focused on delivering business outcomes rather than solely addressing technology challenges.

Our expansion focuses on two key areas: 

1. Domain-focused solutions: Leveraging ITC Infotech's expertise in areas such as SAP, PLM, planning, and supply chain products to overcome previous limitations and address broader customer needs. 

2. Technical partnerships: Building stronger collaborations, especially within domains like Industry 4.0 and manufacturing, where solutions like digital twins and real-time assembly line visualisation can optimise efficiency and drive predictive maintenance. 

With ITC Infotech's capabilities, we are now able to engage with not only CIOs and CTOs but also line-of-business leaders, addressing their challenges directly. This marks a significant shift in how we approach conversations, integrating business and technical outcomes.

Additionally, ITC Infotech's partnership with SAP strengthens our ability to solve technical challenges on AWS, such as transforming OT data into actionable insights in real time and leveraging AI for quality control and predictive maintenance.

Together, these initiatives expand our horizons in India, Southeast Asia, and APAC, creating impactful solutions and transforming customer operations efficiently.

How is Blazeclan leveraging AWS services such as Amazon Q to develop use-case-driven solutions for customers?

Varoon: We emphasise testing and refining solutions internally before introducing them to customers. For example, with its homegrown cloud security posture management SaaS platform, Cloudlytics, Blazeclan used Amazon Q Developer to upgrade backend technologies. This process was initially estimated to take six months but was completed within six weeks, showcasing the efficiency of generative AI.

Blazeclan applies these learnings to client projects, leveraging Amazon Q Developer to enhance application development and modernisation while passing productivity savings back to customers. This approach lowers the total cost of ownership (TCO) and fosters long-term trust.

Blazeclan is also utilising generative AI for building industry-specific solutions, such as “hotel in a box” and Industry 4.0 offerings. These solutions aim to deliver faster and cost-effective business outcomes, though some remain in progress.

Praveen: AWS views generative AI adoption as a three-layer process:

1. Core Infrastructure: Innovations like Inferentia and Tranium chipsets ensure scalable computing and storage for generative AI applications.

2. Models: Large language models such as Anthropic and Cohere are orchestrated with AWS Bedrock for efficient integration.

3. Industry Solutions: Expertise from Blazeclan and ITC Infotech ensures domain-specific solutions deliver impactful outcomes.

This collaboration between AWS, Blazeclan, and ITC Infotech enables organisations to achieve AI transformation projects efficiently, at scale, and within shorter timelines.

How do AWS and Blazeclan address the cyber threats rising with the evolving technologies?

Varoon: Security is critical for all businesses, especially as technological advancements increase the risk of fraud, scams, and AI-driven attacks. To address this, Blazeclan ensures security is integrated at every step of the cloud application lifecycle, starting with DevSecOps pipelines and secure landing zones. Continuous monitoring and regular patch updates further bolster protection.

Blazeclan leverages its homegrown platform, Cloudlytics, to provide real-time security monitoring for customers. This tool alerts customers to critical changes, such as unauthorized port openings or misconfigured firewalls, ensuring proactive issue resolution. Additionally, Blazeclan partners with leading security providers like Wazuh and Palo Alto to deliver end-to-end security solutions.

Staying vigilant is key, and Blazeclan actively updates security measures to counter evolving threats and maintain a secure operational environment.

Praveen: At AWS, security is considered the fundamental pillar of the well-architected framework and is integrated into everything—from data centres and hardware to AI and software development. AWS emphasises two aspects: "security of the cloud", managed by AWS, and "security in the cloud", managed by customers and partners.

AWS has introduced four new specialisations: digital sovereignty, Security Lake Service Ready, security incident response and delivery, and AI security. These specialisations provide partners with training and resources to address complex security challenges, making them better equipped to develop secure applications and environments for customers.

This collaborative approach between AWS and Blazeclan empowers enterprises to safeguard their infrastructure while navigating an evolving threat landscape.

Read More:

We Emphasise on Interdependence of AI and Cloud technologies

Servers and Data Storage both are the Pillars

Focus on Hybrid Cloud Integration and AI powered IT Automation

SAP India Highlights AI Adoption in Enterprises at SAP NOW AI Tour