Take a have a look at three firms who invested in steady, holistic modernization with exceptional 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 by means of an efficient modernization method knowledgeable by the Forrester Application Modernization Checklist.
So, what does profitable modernization appear like in the actual world? Let’s check out three firms who invested in steady, holistic modernization with exceptional success. You’ll see how these organizations not solely carried out steerage from the Forrester Application Modernization Checklist within the brief time period, but additionally how they plan to maintain making use of these rules for steady modernization.
Sapiens reduces downtime whereas growing agility
Sapiens, an insurtech firm serving over 600 insurers throughout 30 nations, confronted a well-recognized 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 clear up this, Sapiens knew they needed to embark on a holistic modernization challenge that tied collectively technique, processes, and expertise to assist their current wants and future ambitions.
Forrester Checklist #1: Strategy. Though their goal was easy, it wasn’t easy. “Our main goal at the outset was to be up to date with our technology stack,” mentioned Michael Mirel, Head of Cloud and DevOps Center of Excellence. “In the beginning, it was IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). We quickly realized that microservices are where we need to be in terms of products.”
After defining their objective, Sapiens set a plan to infuse AI into their workflows. Log Analytics in Azure Monitor enabled them to evaluate the supply of their providers (for instance, by measuring variety of service calls). From there, Azure Monitor Application Insights helped them higher perceive how their apps have been behaving and alert them to any anomalies, an method that wouldn’t have been attainable with their on-premises techniques alone.
Forrester Checklist #2: Process. Sapiens established a Cloud Center of Excellence and a delegated workforce to assist their whole group embrace modernization. The command middle helped information their modernization journey and infused a transformative mindset all through their each day operations.
Forrester Checklist #3: Technology. Sapiens began out with conventional IaaS digital machine consumption. Modernization moved them to being a heavy shopper 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.
Because insurance coverage is a tightly regulated sector, Sapiens additionally sought a strategic accomplice that put fashionable safety on the forefront of their choices. They determined Microsoft Security was the most effective match to assist guarantee cloud safety and compliance with world laws. Microsoft product groups additionally supplied focused assist to repeatedly enhance Sapiens’ merchandise proper alongside alongside their very own builders.
Continuous modernization. Sapiens achieved their preliminary targets—however they’re nonetheless not carried out. After migrating prospects from information facilities to the cloud, they then launched a long-term modernization challenge guided by their Cloud Center of Excellence. Mirel explains why. “We want to break down the walls and provide more self-service to our users and better service to our customers as a result,” he says. “If I’m an end-user, developer, tester, or product manager, I should be able to spin up another test environment and release during the night instead of being dependent on DevOps or IT and having to wait several days.”
Altogether, Sapiens’ considerate modernization method has helped them cut back downtime, improve agility, future-proof the group, and supply higher service to each their engineers and prospects. “We’re dealing with the biggest insurance companies in the world that are taking our software as a service, but we also need to interoperate with the existing ecosystems of these companies,” displays Mirel. “Thanks to Azure Private Link, we can connect cloud to cloud in a single click, which reduced deployment efforts by 50 percent.”
Coles will get AI-ready and improves the shopper expertise
Leading Australian retailer Coles grappled with assembly the altering calls for of their prospects. They seen consumers anticipated to seamlessly swap between channels (bodily shops, their cell app, and web site), and Coles needed to enhance this physical-digital expertise by means of modernization.
Forrester Checklist #1: Strategy. To create a seamless procuring expertise, Coles wanted to first create a seamless improvement 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 method that saved engineers knowledgeable on what they have been setting to perform and why, so they may make selections that have been aligned to their frequent objective. After launching their journey, Coles usually checked their progress with insights from buyer information to make sure their work was efficient.
Forrester Checklist #2: Process. Coles additionally took a tough have 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 Manager for Platform Engineering, has seen a distinction. “Instead of doing six-week releases, we now do weekly releases. And the build times now take roughly 10 to 15 minutes, compared to what used to be a couple of hours.”
Forrester Checklist #3: Technology. To modernize their tech, Coles first recognized Microsoft as a strategic innovation accomplice. 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.
More particularly, options together with Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Kubernetes Service helped Coles get buyer insights throughout channels to additional refine their operations. When 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 the whereas, Azure API Management ran within the background to assist Coles hold safety on the forefront of each stage of the method.
Continuous modernization: Since embarking on their journey, Coles has solely deepened their relationship with Microsoft. Microsoft groups and choices are serving to them repeatedly refine their operations, resulting in larger Azure providers ROI and a seamless, well-orchestrated buyer expertise throughout channels.
Thanks to their considerate modernization method, Coles is now AI-ready, and so they’re already utilizing analytics and AI to foretell stock distribution, optimize employee scheduling, and extra. Coles’ engineers are additionally in a position to shortly combine new product updates to deal with points and add new options, a profit that’s not misplaced on Patrik Mihailescu, Senior Engineering Manager, Web. “We’re going to be moving to daily deployments in the next six to nine months and definitely with the Azure tooling, that’s going to be super key in enabling us to go even quicker.” They may also safely create these modifications by testing them independently with Azure App Service earlier than they’re deployed, serving to keep safety and compliance.
Credit Europe Bank NV improves safety and streamlines the event course of
Credit Europe Bank NV confronted a broader modernization problem, their quickly growing old on-premises infrastructure. Though the financial institution serves practically a million prospects globally, their IT groups typically discovered themselves ready on {hardware} deliveries and continuously managing on-premises complexity. It was time for a brand new method.
Forrester Checklist #1: Strategy. Recognizing the necessity for holistic modernization, Credit Europe Bank 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 now not want to attend on {hardware} or spend time configuring complicated, dated techniques. Then, they turned to their workforce. Modernizing offered a serious studying curve for the financial institution’s IT groups, in order that they developed a plan to upskill workers on cloud ideas.
Forrester Checklist #2: Process. Credit Europe Bank 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 offer a modern, engaging digital banking platform,” says Ulaş Ergin, IT, Digital Banking, and Software Architecture Department Manager. “Everything has been revamped for smoothness and speed, making the whole banking experience more enjoyable.”
Forrester Checklist #3: Technology. When launching their tech transformation, Credit Europe Bank 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 laws. They then tackled their aged infrastructure with Azure Kubernetes Service, a managed container orchestration platform. AKS helped simplify their operations and pace up improvement, leading to smoother useful resource administration and a extra environment friendly surroundings arrange course of.
Continuous modernization. Credit Europe Bank NV continues to find new alternatives within the cloud. They’re utilizing Azure Cognitive Services to enhance the safe dealing with of buyer ID photographs and are repeatedly releasing new options and merchandise. Next, they’re turning their consideration to GitHub Copilot to remodel their in-house banking system.
Now, Credit Europe Bank 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 unimaginable on their outdated system. “Customer feedback has been overwhelmingly positive,” displays Berkay Çavuşoğlu, Program Manager. “Our corporate customers noted that the system’s performance is faster.”
The financial institution has additionally accelerated their improvement cycle by easing the system arrange course of and administration with Azure. Azure handles many on-premises duties behind the scenes, comparable to upgrades and safety patches, so builders can concentrate on extra strategic duties. “We no longer need to manage the underlying infrastructure, which greatly reduced the operational strain,” displays Teoman Sevinç, DevOps Specialist. “In the past, if we wanted to make updates to our environment, it would disrupt our non-production setup. But with Azure, managing and setting up environments is streamlined, which positively impacts our development 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 carried out, there’s all the time extra to study. If you missed them, revisit my earlier blogs within the sequence on the fundamentals of modernization and the main points of an efficient modernization method.
Don’t neglect to additionally learn the foundational texts that guided our work: the Forrester Consulting Application Modernization Checklist that Microsoft commissioned, and the Forrester Consulting examine Unlock Competitive Advantage with Application Modernization. You may also take a look at the next assets: