Check out three corporations who invested in steady, holistic modernization with outstanding success.
In my final two blogs, I explored what modernization actually means, what it takes, and why it issues for improvements like AI. Then, we walked via an efficient modernization strategy knowledgeable by the Forrester Utility Modernization Guidelines.
So, what does profitable modernization appear like in the true world? Let’s check out three corporations who invested in steady, holistic modernization with outstanding success. You’ll see how these organizations not solely carried out steerage from the Forrester Utility Modernization Guidelines within the brief time period, but additionally how they plan to maintain making use of these ideas for steady modernization.
Sapiens reduces downtime whereas rising agility
Sapiens, an insurtech firm serving over 600 insurers throughout 30 nations, confronted a well-known problem. Their legacy apps had change into a barrier to scale, since all their administration teams, safety, and monitoring have been put into place earlier than they moved to the cloud. To resolve this, Sapiens knew they needed to embark on a holistic modernization challenge that tied collectively technique, processes, and expertise to help their current wants and future ambitions.
Forrester Guidelines #1: Technique. Although their goal was simple, it wasn’t easy. “Our most important purpose on the outset was to be updated with our expertise stack,” stated Michael Mirel, Head of Cloud and DevOps Heart of Excellence. “At first, it was IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). We rapidly realized that microservices are the place we must be when it comes to merchandise.”
After defining their purpose, Sapiens set a plan to infuse AI into their workflows. Log Analytics in Azure Monitor enabled them to evaluate the provision of their providers (for instance, by measuring variety of service calls). From there, Azure Monitor Utility Insights helped them higher perceive how their apps have been behaving and alert them to any anomalies, an strategy that wouldn’t have been doable with their on-premises techniques alone.
Forrester Guidelines #2: Course of. Sapiens established a Cloud Heart of Excellence and a delegated workforce to assist their whole group embrace modernization. The command heart helped information their modernization journey and infused a transformative mindset all through their every day operations.
Forrester Guidelines #3: Know-how. Sapiens began out with conventional IaaS digital machine consumption. Modernization moved them to being a heavy client of Azure Kubernetes Service with direct entry to Microsoft’s product workforce. And adopting Azure Arc introduced collectively their patching and monitoring dashboards and safety administration instruments in a single pane of glass.
As a result of insurance coverage is a tightly regulated sector, Sapiens additionally sought a strategic associate that put fashionable safety on the forefront of their choices. They determined Microsoft Safety was the perfect match to assist guarantee cloud safety and compliance with world rules. Microsoft product groups additionally supplied focused help to constantly enhance Sapiens’ merchandise proper alongside alongside their very own builders.
Steady modernization. Sapiens achieved their preliminary objectives—however they’re nonetheless not executed. After migrating clients from information facilities to the cloud, they then launched a long-term modernization challenge guided by their Cloud Heart of Excellence. Mirel explains why. “We wish to break down the partitions and supply extra self-service to our customers and higher service to our clients because of this,” he says. “If I’m an end-user, developer, tester, or product supervisor, I ought to be capable to spin up one other check atmosphere and launch through the evening as a substitute of being depending on DevOps or IT and having to attend a number of days.”
Altogether, Sapiens’ considerate modernization strategy has helped them cut back downtime, improve agility, future-proof the group, and supply higher service to each their engineers and clients. “We’re coping with the largest insurance coverage corporations on the earth which might be taking our software program as a service, however we additionally have to interoperate with the present ecosystems of those corporations,” displays Mirel. “Due to Azure Personal Hyperlink, we are able to join cloud to cloud in a single click on, which lowered deployment efforts by 50 %.”
Coles will get AI-ready and improves the client expertise
Main Australian retailer Coles grappled with assembly the altering calls for of their clients. They observed buyers anticipated to seamlessly swap between channels (bodily shops, their cell app, and web site), and Coles wished to enhance this physical-digital expertise via modernization.
Forrester Guidelines #1: Technique. To create a seamless purchasing expertise, Coles wanted to first create a seamless growth expertise. Their groups had to have the ability to make steady, nimble app updates to maintain tempo with shifting buyer preferences. To that finish, Coles outlined a technique that saved engineers knowledgeable on what they have been setting to perform and why, so they may make choices that have been aligned to their frequent purpose. After launching their journey, Coles usually checked their progress with insights from buyer information to make sure their work was efficient.
Forrester Guidelines #2: Course of. Coles additionally took a tough take a look at their processes. Azure DevOps helped streamline workflows by enabling fast change integration for brand new options in channel apps. Then, they started monitoring (and proceed to trace) their progress by measuring construct time and different KPIs. Anton Vishnyakov, Senior Engineer and Supervisor for Platform Engineering, has seen a distinction. “As an alternative of doing six-week releases, we now do weekly releases. And the construct occasions now take roughly 10 to fifteen minutes, in comparison with what was a few hours.”
Forrester Guidelines #3: Know-how. To modernize their tech, Coles first recognized Microsoft as a strategic innovation associate. They knew Microsoft’s extremely collaborative engineering course of was well-suited to steady innovation, and Microsoft Azure might assist replace their stacks to restrict expertise sprawl. Azure enabled sooner deployments whereas nonetheless delivering a safer and protected web-based expertise for purchasers.
Extra particularly, options together with Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Kubernetes Service helped Coles get buyer insights throughout channels to additional refine their operations. After they have been prepared to show these insights into significant product updates, they may then use Azure App Service to check them earlier than launch. All of the whereas, Azure API Administration ran within the background to assist Coles preserve safety on the forefront of each stage of the method.
Steady modernization: Since embarking on their journey, Coles has solely deepened their relationship with Microsoft. Microsoft groups and choices are serving to them constantly refine their operations, resulting in higher Azure providers ROI and a seamless, well-orchestrated buyer expertise throughout channels.
Due to their considerate modernization strategy, Coles is now AI-ready, they usually’re already utilizing analytics and AI to foretell stock distribution, optimize employee scheduling, and extra. Coles’ engineers are additionally in a position to rapidly combine new product updates to deal with points and add new options, a profit that’s not misplaced on Patrik Mihailescu, Senior Engineering Supervisor, Internet. “We’re going to be transferring to every day deployments within the subsequent six to 9 months and undoubtedly with the Azure tooling, that’s going to be tremendous key in enabling us to go even faster.” They will additionally safely create these adjustments by testing them independently with Azure App Service earlier than they’re deployed, serving to keep safety and compliance.
Credit score Europe Financial institution NV improves safety and streamlines the event course of
Credit score Europe Financial institution NV confronted a broader modernization problem, their quickly growing older on-premises infrastructure. Although the financial institution serves almost a million clients globally, their IT groups typically discovered themselves ready on {hardware} deliveries and consistently managing on-premises complexity. It was time for a brand new strategy.
Forrester Guidelines #1: Technique. Recognizing the necessity for holistic modernization, Credit score Europe Financial institution NV outlined a plan to completely reshape their infrastructure, beginning with changing their on-premises techniques with the cloud. The cloud would streamline duties for his or her IT workforce and allow scalability, since groups would not want to attend on {hardware} or spend time configuring advanced, dated techniques. Then, they turned to their workforce. Modernizing offered a significant studying curve for the financial institution’s IT groups, so that they developed a plan to upskill workers on cloud ideas.
Forrester Guidelines #2: Course of. Credit score Europe Financial institution NV additionally wanted to revamp their processes and measure success. They paid shut consideration to their buyer onboarding time all through their modernization, and ultimately discovered that they’d lowered it from three days to 9 minutes. “We now supply a contemporary, participating digital banking platform,” says Ulaş Ergin, IT, Digital Banking, and Software program Structure Division Supervisor. “Every little thing has been revamped for smoothness and pace, making the entire banking expertise extra fulfilling.”
Forrester Guidelines #3: Know-how. When launching their tech transformation, Credit score Europe Financial institution NV wove in safety from the beginning by selecting the Microsoft Azure cloud. As a frontrunner in safety and compliance with built-in instruments for monetary providers, Azure might assist them handle their delicate information in accordance with industry-specific rules. They then tackled their aged infrastructure with Azure Kubernetes Service, a managed container orchestration platform. AKS helped simplify their operations and pace up growth, leading to smoother useful resource administration and a extra environment friendly atmosphere arrange course of.
Steady modernization. Credit score Europe Financial institution NV continues to find new alternatives within the cloud. They’re utilizing Azure Cognitive Providers to enhance the safe dealing with of buyer ID images and are constantly releasing new options and merchandise. Subsequent, they’re turning their consideration to GitHub Copilot to remodel their in-house banking system.
Now, Credit score Europe Financial institution NV’s safety is stronger than ever, since migrating to the cloud enabled them to undertake digital, mobile-based mushy tokens and biometric authentication. They’ve additionally improved their buyer expertise and even launched new providers like real-time foreign currency trading, which might have been inconceivable on their outdated system. “Buyer suggestions has been overwhelmingly optimistic,” displays Berkay Çavuşoğlu, Program Supervisor. “Our company clients famous that the system’s efficiency is quicker.”
The financial institution has additionally accelerated their growth cycle by easing the system arrange course of and administration with Azure. Azure handles many on-premises duties behind the scenes, akin to upgrades and safety patches, so builders can give attention to extra strategic duties. “We not have to handle the underlying infrastructure, which drastically lowered the operational pressure,” displays Teoman Sevinç, DevOps Specialist. “Prior to now, if we wished to make updates to the environment, it could disrupt our non-production setup. However with Azure, managing and establishing environments is streamlined, which positively impacts our growth life cycle.”
Are you prepared to begin your modernization journey?
With that, we’ve wrapped our weblog sequence on utility modernization—however similar to modernization isn’t executed, there’s all the time extra to study. For those who missed them, revisit my earlier blogs within the sequence on the fundamentals of modernization and the small print of an efficient modernization strategy.
Don’t neglect to additionally learn the foundational texts that guided our work: the Forrester Consulting Utility Modernization Guidelines that Microsoft commissioned, and the Forrester Consulting examine Unlock Aggressive Benefit with Utility Modernization. You can too take a look at the next sources:
