Cloud transformation in financial services - we know how

The strategic orientation of cloud services in your own company is an important part of your digitalisation, IT and sourcing strategy. But what direction, areas of application and economic and technological goals and benefits of cloud services should you pursue in your company?

Our approach to cloud transformation begins with the development of a clear vision and level of ambition that is closely linked to your corporate and IT strategy. We support you in creating a compelling value case that demonstrates the potential benefits such as increased efficiency, transparent costs and greater agility. Using targeted formats, we work with you to identify the right use cases for cloud utilisation and derive the right strategy together with you.

A structured and comprehensive approach in the preparation phase is essential. We work with you to develop a detailed roadmap that outlines your company's transformation to the cloud step by step. With a Cloud Centre of Excellence (CCoE), we enable you to centrally coordinate, monitor and further develop your cloud initiatives. We also support you in defining a robust cloud partner strategy and selection process to ensure the best possible collaboration and support for your goals. We also focus on a customised cloud operating model so that cloud technologies can be seamlessly integrated into your existing IT and business structure to ensure optimal performance.

Mature and complex IT architectures are typically the reality of large financial service providers. The challenge is usually to make the applications "cloud ready" and thus transform them into the cloud. We support you in implementing cloud architectures and migrating your existing solutions and applications to the cloud. Starting with the landing zones through to a customised cloud architecture that supports your specific business requirements and also takes hybrid scenarios into account. Multi-cloud architectures are also becoming increasingly important for optimised flexibility and risk diversification.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is associated with huge expectations and potential. The key challenge for the financial services industry is to create the conditions that will enable it to utilise this potential in the coming years. The path to becoming an AI-supported company is a transformation - and must be treated as such. Questions arising from the EU AI Act and the increasing need for traceability of AI decisions, for example, must be analysed and answered at a strategic level. Data and AI should therefore be at the top of your company's agenda. In our experience, you should start on the path to transformation in good time and realise ideas across the entire company - we will support you in this.

The workplace of the future is digital. We are at your side to shape your future working environment - in particular with a focus on the technologies and the digital workplace of the employees in your company and your business partners. We work with you to design the functionalities (e.g. video telephony, file storage with shared document processing, workflows) and derive an implementation plan together with you. As a transformation partner for the new digital workplace, we support you from an organisational and technical perspective throughout your project.

The change in software development and provision is in full swing and is accompanied by far-reaching cultural changes and technological transformations: Development and operations teams are moving closer together. Automation is taking on a central role in build and deployment processes and compliance guidelines are now being implemented as code.

We support you in three relevant areas in particular: Collaboration model, process and technology and shape your strategic direction.

We advise you on your collaboration model, taking regulatory requirements into account, optimise your software development process and deliver automations that support you in implementing the regulatory controls. Together, we build platform teams and support you in familiarising new product teams with new services. This enables us to implement basic technical services (source code management, code scanners, artefact repositories and others) and the associated CI/CD pipelines to efficiently scale your DevOps approach and increase the performance of your IT.

To ensure smooth operation in the cloud, internal processes must be automated and orchestrated. This allows us to optimise the efficiency of your cloud management and work with you to increase the automation rate in the management of your cloud environments. We also design a targeted control concept for your cloud providers to ensure consistent performance and promote a strategic partnership in the long term.

In a highly complex environment with one or more cloud instances, cost overview and control are often difficult. We support you in gaining an overview of consumption instances and identifying optimisation potential. Together, we can utilise your budget with the best possible added value. We not only look at your existing applications or supplementary cost management software solutions, but also establish a cost-conscious approach and autonomous budget allocations in your operating teams in terms of holistic cost management (Cloud FinOps).

Cloud services used in the company can quickly develop a momentum of their own and lead to shadow IT, which is associated with significant risks. Company or group-wide cloud governance ensures sustainable control that regulates clear framework conditions, specifications, responsibilities and processes for cloud services. We help you to set up and successfully establish a structural and procedural organisation. A typical instrument is the establishment of a Cloud Centre of Excellence (CCoE) as a central competence function for the establishment of targeted governance.

The financial services industry is subject to legal and regulatory requirements - cloud solutions in particular are subject to extensive requirements at national and European level:

• In terms of regulation (including MaRisk/MaGO/KAMaRisk, BAIT/VAIT/KAIT/ZAIT, EBA/EIOPA/ESMA Guidelines on Outsourcing and, most recently, DORA),
• In the area of IT security (including BSI C5, CSA CCM)
• In data protection with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

We help you to create transparency about the relevant requirements, derive suitable specifications for cloud use for your company, for example risk-oriented technical and organisational measures, and then implement these technically. Established risk and compliance management - both organisational and technical - helps you to constantly adhere to the requirements during regular operations, monitor them and make adjustments if necessary. With our expertise, you will be successfully prepared for an upcoming audit.

We understand that a successful cloud transformation also requires a comprehensive culture of change within the organisation and that employees need to be brought on board for a cloud journey. We support you here, for example, with a transformation office that can take on the task of change management and communication in your company. We also promote new skills and competencies in your organisation with targeted training and enablement concepts to ensure that the Competencies required for successful cloud use are developed.

In a market that is increasingly driven by customer needs and regulatory requirements, sustainable IT practices are becoming a strategic necessity for financial service providers. A variety of dimensions need to be taken into account. We support you in harmonising ecological sustainability and economic goals and in using climate-neutral IT operations as an opportunity for growth. We work with you to design the resulting IT strategy and define specific recommendations for action. With our approach, we survey your inventory, optimise your application landscape and infrastructure and create comprehensive reports on the sustainability of services.

Nowadays, modern software development not only requires technical expertise, domain-specific knowledge is also becoming increasingly important. With us, you get both from a single source. Our software development teams are technology-agnostic and cover the entire software life cycle. In the hypercare phase, we design, develop and maintain complex legacy systems or customised solutions using the latest technologies. We work closely with you to design the perfect solution for you - regardless of whether you use traditional or agile working methods.

With our global delivery network, we ensure scalable support, regardless of your chosen technology or cloud provider. We follow the principle of "compliance and security by design" to develop high-quality, secure and scalable software for you that takes regulatory and security requirements into account.