Capital market firms face the challenge to evolve at pace with technology, so that they're able to innovate and adapt to the customer’s needs quickly.

Cloud is seen as a key enabler to their digital future, however cloud adoption isn’t just about IT infrastructure. How can executives develop a holistic approach towards cloud modernisation to ensure their investments pay off?

As ‘digital’ engulfs business strategies, large-scale financial services players need to develop smarter ways to adapt and accelerate technological change. They are also under constant pressure from fintechs operating on agile systems, rolling out products and services at speed. The pace of innovation at large firms often suffers due to the scale of operations, monolithic tech infrastructure, ‘people alignment’ and old ways of working. Challenges brought about by COVID require even greater levels of resilience and agility to navigate.

More firms than ever are using cloud-led modernisation as a catalyst for holistic enterprise transformation, and crucially, this should lead to adaptable business models that can sustain growth and weather future uncertainties in an ever-changing milieu. To maximise the value from investment, operating models need to align closely business and tech strategies.

A democratised approach needs to be implemented enterprisewide and with that, a portfolio management approach to balance the long-term evolution of the underlying platform whilst pursuing growth with new products and features. Technology modernisation is also an enabler for lean product management practices such as low-cost rapid experimentation for exploring and exploiting innovative opportunities.

Organisational, as well as technological change is needed to ensure teams can tap into the acceleration and agility that cloud-based architecture promises. Organisations need a mind shift- moving from a top-down decision culture to an empowered agile workforce that can continuously deliver on strategic business outcomes.

This research paper from Finextra, in association with Thoughtworks, is based on interviews with senior leaders on their plans and challenges around digital programmes and cloud modernisation.

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