Real-world success with continuous modernization

In my last two blogs, I explored what modernization really means, what it takes, and why it matters for innovations like AI. Then, we walked through an effective modernization approach informed by the Forrester Application Modernization Checklist.

So, what does successful modernization look like in the real world? Let’s take a look at three companies who invested in continuous, holistic modernization with remarkable success. You’ll see how these organizations not only implemented guidance from the Forrester Application Modernization Checklist in the short term, but also how they plan to keep applying these principles for continuous modernization.

Sapiens reduces downtime while increasing agility

Sapiens, an insurtech company serving over 600 insurers across 30 countries, faced a familiar challenge. Their legacy apps had become a barrier to scale, since all their management groups, security, and monitoring were put into place before they moved to the cloud. To solve this, Sapiens knew they had to embark on a holistic modernization project that tied together strategy, processes, and technology to support their present needs and future ambitions.

Forrester Checklist #1: Strategy. Though their objective was straightforward, it wasn’t simple. “Our main goal at the outset was to be up to date with our technology stack,” said 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 goal, Sapiens set a plan to infuse AI into their workflows. Log Analytics in Azure Monitor enabled them to assess the availability of their services (for example, by measuring number of service calls). From there, Azure Monitor Application Insights helped them better understand how their apps were behaving and alert them to any anomalies, an approach that wouldn’t have been possible with their on-premises systems alone.

Forrester Checklist #2: Process. Sapiens established a Cloud Center of Excellence and a designated team to help their entire organization embrace modernization. The command center helped guide their modernization journey and infused a transformative mindset throughout their daily operations.

Forrester Checklist #3: Technology. Sapiens started out with traditional IaaS virtual machine consumption. Modernization moved them to being a heavy consumer of Azure Kubernetes Service with direct access to Microsoft’s product team. And adopting Azure Arc brought together their patching and monitoring dashboards and security management tools in a single pane of glass.

Because insurance is a tightly regulated sector, Sapiens also sought a strategic partner that put modern security at the forefront of their offerings. They decided Microsoft Security was the best fit to help ensure cloud security and compliance with global regulations. Microsoft product teams also offered targeted support to continuously improve Sapiens’ products right along alongside their own developers.

Continuous modernization. Sapiens achieved their initial goals—but they’re still not done. After migrating customers from data centers to the cloud, they then launched a long-term modernization project 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’ thoughtful modernization approach has helped them reduce downtime, increase agility, future-proof the organization, and provide better service to both their engineers and customers. “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,” reflects Mirel. “Thanks to Azure Private Link, we can connect cloud to cloud in a single click, which reduced deployment efforts by 50 percent.”

Coles gets AI-ready and improves the customer experience

Leading Australian retailer Coles grappled with meeting the changing demands of their customers. They noticed shoppers expected to seamlessly swap between channels (physical stores, their mobile app, and website), and Coles wanted to improve this physical-digital experience through modernization.

Forrester Checklist #1: Strategy. To create a seamless shopping experience, Coles needed to first create a seamless development experience. Their teams had to be able to make continuous, nimble app updates to keep pace with shifting customer preferences. To that end, Coles outlined a strategy that kept engineers informed on what they were setting to accomplish and why, so they could make decisions that were aligned to their common goal. After launching their journey, Coles regularly checked their progress with insights from customer data to ensure their work was effective.

Forrester Checklist #2: Process. Coles also took a hard look at their processes. Azure DevOps helped streamline workflows by enabling rapid change integration for new features in channel apps. Then, they began tracking (and continue to track) their progress by measuring build time and other KPIs. Anton Vishnyakov, Senior Engineer and Manager for Platform Engineering, has seen a difference. “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 identified Microsoft as a strategic innovation partner. They knew Microsoft’s highly collaborative engineering process was well-suited to continuous innovation, and Microsoft Azure could help update their stacks to limit technology sprawl. Azure enabled faster deployments while still delivering a more secure and safe web-based experience for customers.

More specifically, solutions including Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Kubernetes Service helped Coles get customer insights across channels to further refine their operations. When they were ready to turn these insights into meaningful product updates, they could then use Azure App Service to test them before launch. All the while, Azure API Management ran in the background to help Coles keep security at the forefront of every stage of the process.

Continuous modernization: Since embarking on their journey, Coles has only deepened their relationship with Microsoft. Microsoft teams and offerings are helping them continuously refine their operations, leading to greater Azure services ROI and a seamless, well-orchestrated customer experience across channels.

Thanks to their thoughtful modernization approach, Coles is now AI-ready, and they’re already using analytics and AI to predict inventory distribution, optimize worker scheduling, and more. Coles’ engineers are also able to quickly integrate new product updates to address issues and add new features, a benefit that’s not lost 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 can also safely create these changes by testing them independently with Azure App Service before they’re deployed, helping maintain security and compliance.

Credit Europe Bank NV improves security and streamlines the development process

Credit Europe Bank NV faced a broader modernization challenge, their rapidly aging on-premises infrastructure. Though the bank serves nearly one million customers globally, their IT teams often found themselves waiting on hardware deliveries and constantly managing on-premises complexity. It was time for a new approach.

Forrester Checklist #1: Strategy. Recognizing the need for holistic modernization, Credit Europe Bank NV outlined a plan to totally reshape their infrastructure, starting with replacing their on-premises systems with the cloud. The cloud would streamline tasks for their IT team and enable scalability, since teams would no longer need to wait on hardware or spend time configuring complex, dated systems. Then, they turned to their workforce. Modernizing presented a major learning curve for the bank’s IT teams, so they developed a plan to upskill employees on cloud concepts.

Forrester Checklist #2: Process. Credit Europe Bank NV also needed to revamp their processes and measure success. They paid close attention to their customer onboarding time throughout their modernization, and eventually found that they’d reduced it from three days to nine 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 security from the start by choosing the Microsoft Azure cloud. As a leader in security and compliance with built-in tools for financial services, Azure could help them manage their sensitive data in accordance with industry-specific regulations. They then tackled their aged infrastructure with Azure Kubernetes Service, a managed container orchestration platform. AKS helped simplify their operations and speed up development, resulting in smoother resource management and a more efficient environment set up process.

Continuous modernization. Credit Europe Bank NV continues to discover new opportunities in the cloud. They’re using Azure Cognitive Services to improve the secure handling of customer ID photos and are continuously releasing new features and products. Next, they’re turning their attention to GitHub Copilot to transform their in-house banking system.

Now, Credit Europe Bank NV’s security is stronger than ever, since migrating to the cloud enabled them to adopt digital, mobile-based soft tokens and biometric authentication. They’ve also improved their customer experience and even introduced new services like real-time forex trading, which would have been impossible on their old system. “Customer feedback has been overwhelmingly positive,” reflects Berkay Çavuşoğlu, Program Manager. “Our corporate customers noted that the system’s performance is faster.”

The bank has also accelerated their development cycle by easing the system set up process and management with Azure. Azure handles many on-premises tasks behind the scenes, such as upgrades and security patches, so developers can focus on more strategic tasks. “We no longer need to manage the underlying infrastructure, which greatly reduced the operational strain,” reflects 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 ready to start your modernization journey?

With that, we’ve wrapped our blog series on application modernization—but just like modernization is never done, there’s always more to learn. If you missed them, revisit my earlier blogs in the series on the basics of modernization and the details of an effective modernization approach.

Don’t forget to also read the foundational texts that guided our work: the Forrester Consulting Application Modernization Checklist that Microsoft commissioned, and the Forrester Consulting study Unlock Competitive Advantage with Application Modernization. You can also check out the following resources:

• Learn about the Benefits of Cloud Migration and Modernization from IDC.
• Consult the Microsoft Application and Data Modernization: Azure page.
• Visit the Microsoft Azure Innovate site.

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