ECMS implements cloud and application migration for leading international insurer

The client

Our client is a leading global insurer with a diverse portfolio of commercial and specialty lines. Operating across various markets worldwide, including Lloyd’s, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, UK and Continental Europe, it helps its clients manage and reduce their risks internationally and locally.

Diagnosis

With its software depreciating and significant capital investment required for future upgrades, the client was facing a number of complex – and potentially costly – technological challenges. These included:

Limited scalability to support its growing data and application needs.

High maintenance costs and resource-intensive operations.

A lack of flexibility when deploying and managing both commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and bespoke applications.

Looking to avoid substantial capital expenditure, the client approached ECMS in March 2024 for support in upgrading its technological capability.

Architect

The ECMS team held in-depth discussions with the client to understand the nature of their tech challenges and how best to improve their IT capability. The insurer opted for a virtual data centre and we embarked on a significant technology modernisation programme. This is a multi-year phased migration of the client’s entire IT estate to Microsoft Azure, which is still in progress. This highly complex, technical project involves:

Deploying a dedicated project team, consisting of:

- One scrum master

- Two technical architects

- Seven technical consultants

Instigating a managed statement of work (SoW) – All team members have been operating under a managed SoW, ensuring clear accountability, defined deliverables and alignment with project milestones.

Implementing an effective migration strategy:

- Assessing and categorising applications for migration suitability.

- Application dependency mapping and grouping.

- Utilising Azure services to replicate and enhance functionalities of COTS applications.

Delivery

Our inhouse delivery lead helped to ensure consistency in reporting on the team’s progress and any challenges they encountered. Although still live, the transformation has already helped to achieve several significant milestones:

Enhanced agility – Rapid provisioning of resources and services, reducing time-to-market for new initiatives.

Cost efficiency – A reduction in operational expenditures through optimised resource utilisation and the removal of legacy infrastructure.

Scalability – The client is now able to seamlessly scale its services in response to business demands.

Improved performance – Enhanced application performance and reliability have led to better user experiences.

Oversee

“Migrating applications to the cloud has resulted in so much more than immediate cost savings, increased flexibility and scalability, enhanced security and improved performance for the client. Through enhanced technological capability, solving the challenges of today has equipped them to face the challenges of tomorrow with certainty, resilience and confidence.” Kevin Hall, Delivery Director, ECMS

Through a tailored and scalable pay-as-you-go solution encompassing technical architecture, cloud engineering, migration and scrum master services, we’ve delivered a modernised IT infrastructure to enhance the client’s operations.

By positioning the client to leverage its cloud capabilities, this migration is allowing the organisation to foster a culture of innovation and increase its resilience in a competitive market, thereby helping to equip it for the challenges of tomorrow.