New day, new cloud…new future!
A wealth management firm was ready to rebuild its cloud platform and operating model. Could a thorough modernization allow it to innovate at scale?
THE SITUATION
In the late 19th century, an early investor in Thomas Edison’s new electric light company decided his Manhattan mansion should be the first in the city to be lit by electricity (…so it was). The innovations behind that have faded, but their lesson hasn’t: New technologies start as complicated, special wonders, then become, eventually, part of everyday life.
So it goes with cloud technology today: it’s evolved to be a utility like electricity—its usefulness is proven, and it’s used to power even newer technologies like Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) that both customers and tech professionals expect. This all puts pressure on organizations to create architectures and adopt (or upgrade to) the latest cloud technology—and fast!
But not too fast, because these same organizations are often challenged when it comes to a well-defined cloud adoption, strategy, architecture, or operating model—which creates heightened security risks, slower adoption, increased IT complexity, and ballooning IT costs.
Sound familiar? It did to the leaders at one wealth management firm whose IT and engineering professionals had to create a new contemporary cloud platform to keep pace with the technology transformation needs of the firm.
The system’s complexity made it difficult to manage tech debt and to track and manage applications and processes consistently. It wasn’t easy to work with. If a developer or product owner wanted to build a new application, they faced cumbersome, manual processes and approvals involving emails, meetings, multiple ticketing systems, and weeks or months of time. IT costs were increasing, and allocation was not transparent and fair.
Taken together, these challenges were keeping the firm from innovating and scaling its cloud footprint—and by extension, limiting velocity of transformation and business impact.
After several conversations, the approach to improving the cloud platform came down to rethinking the basics and deploying a state-of-the-art platform leveraging lessons learned from peers and the organization’s own experiences.
The firm would need to rethink both its cloud approach and how its people put it to work. To do so, they called Deloitte—specifically, its professionals specializing in combining engineering talent with business insight.
COULD A MODERN CLOUD ARCHITECTURE CAPTURE NEEDED AGILITY AND INNOVATION?
THE SOLVE
Efforts to deliver on the firm’s cloud program outcomes—like cost optimization, security by design, and an upskilled workforce—were sorted into three workstreams: enablement, engineering, and adoption.
Professionals working on the enablement front focused on transforming the firm’s IT infrastructure and removing roadblocks to innovation. Could they improve the speed and efficiency with which cloud developers at the firm delivered their work? Could they address the firm’s challenges with adoption and scalability?
The Deloitte team’s approach: divide and conquer. Since cloud platforms—even optimized, scalable platforms like the one being built here—very much need governance policies to give their best value, one team focused on creating a governing body for cloud initiatives: a cloud business office (CBO). A CBO is responsible for making sure a company’s use of cloud services (as they map to business objectives) is efficient, cost-effective, and secure. Done right, a CBO can transform how the Cloud is managed within the organization—from an IT concern to something more like a business in itself.
At the same time, another part of the Deloitte Engineering team was heads down, designing and deploying the leading-edge, self-service platform, industry-leading software development processes that aligned with the client’s cloud strategy. To do this, the team took a codify everything approach—translating all aspects of the development process into code—automating, standardizing, and documenting processes to ensure consistency, repeatability, and efficiency. Meticulously, they codified infrastructure. They codified security policies. They codified access controls. And when they were through, internal developer teams were presented a well-architected, scalable, and secure environment that’s surprisingly user-friendly. Together, these transformations would help internal developers focus on innovation and business value—and not the busy work of keeping the wheels turning.
The team working on adoption, meanwhile, was concentrating on two things: migrating developer teams to the new platform and making sure it would be put to good use.
THINGS HAPPEN FAST(ER) IF YOU CAN RUN YOUR CLOUD LIKE A BUSINESS.
THE IMPACT
The first phase of the project was finished in 2024, with a new cloud platform, and early adopter app developer teams at the firm enjoying newfound speed and clarity from standardized intake processes, streamlined onboarding, and measurable success metrics. Adoption of this new platform has been robust, with legacy environment migration underway, bringing with it enhanced business agility and innovation, improved security and compliance, and reduced costs.
Thanks to the enablement team, the new cloud business office—with its equally new developer intake processes—has reduced the average time intake and onboarding time by 90%(!), thus freeing up application teams to focus on market delivery and innovation. Meanwhile, revamped financial operations management processes—along with a vastly simplified operating model—have helped the firm avoid a significant amount to date by improving utilization of cloud resources.
The engineering team delivered a modern, scalable cloud platform with end-to-end automation, and both security and compliance features built in, all of which allows business application teams, once onboarded, to deploy services in less than a day. Zooming out: time for the entire process—from start to finish—has been reduced from months to minutes.
NOW PEOPLE CAN FOCUS ON GROWING THE BUSINESS, NOT BUSY WORK.
