Migrating a bank’s applications to the cloud

Banks around the world are in a race to migrate their applications to the cloud as a way to gain access to cutting edge technology capabilities, improve time-to-market of new offerings and reduce IT costs. Traditionally held back by outdated legacy systems, the Cloud has become a fundamental catalyst to help traditional financial institutions reshape their operating model, their products and the customer experience. Banks that don’t approach their cloud migration holistically and don’t employ full capabilities the cloud has to offer, may find it hard to extract the full value from their transformation.

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The Challenge

BCG Platinion had worked with the bank on a business-led agile transformation and a DevOps program to improve new product development productivity and to reduce the time it took to launch these new products in the market. However, the bank realized that its on-premises infrastructure was still holding it back, and that the existing cloud program was not moving fast enough to solve these problems. It had to adopt cloud at scale and embrace the inevitable evolution towards operating entirely on a cloud-based IT architecture. The bank came back to BCG Platinion to define its cloud objectives and principles, build an overarching business case for cloud and draft a 5-year roadmap for cloud migration. A team of BCG and BCG Platinion expert was assembled to drive this project.

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The Approach

The first step in BCG Platinion’s approach was an analysis of the bank’s current technology landscape, and how it would be impacted by different migration scenarios, which allowed the client to estimate the value at stake and troubleshoot technical challenges. The subsequent development of a comprehensive cloud strategy led the client to adopt a multi-cloud architecture with different deployment models for applications in cybersecurity, customer experience, operations, sales and finance. Complementing the strategy was the creation of an operating model outlining cloud-native processes, a new Cloud Center of Excellence, a talent plan to bridge capability gaps and governance to ensure adoption of cloud. In addition, it also helped the client to manage regulatory demands for enhanced transparency contingency planning for critical business processes.

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Impact

1. Early delivery of business value through improved time-to-market for cloud-based applications
2. Increased productivity for engineers working on cloud-based applications
3. Significant reduction in addressable IT costs
4. Positive NPV for the overall business case for a multi-cloud IT architecture

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Looking Into the Future

Whilst many banks are exploring specific cloud solutions, our client is embracing a total cloud-based transformation in order to expedite its pivot into a truly digital organization. At the same time, it has shored up its security and compliance, and delivered improved efficiency and cost savings, allowing it to remain competitive in a rapidly evolving business environment.

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