Etops - Innovative SaaS-based Solutions for Wealth Management
Overview
THE CHALLENGE
Etops intends to capitalize on emerging opportunities, diversify its offerings and solidify its presence as a leading industry player.
THE SOLUTION
Ollion partnered with Etops AG to deliver a three-phase cloud transformation journey on Google Cloud Platform.
THE OUTCOME
By leveraging cutting-edge cloud technologies, Etops has paved the way for increased efficiency, scalability and resilience in its operations. This strategic enhancement enables the company to implement advanced automation solutions, streamlining processes and reducing the need for manual interventions.
About the Business
Founded in 2010, Etops AG, a leading Swiss WealthTech company, provides innovative SaaS-based solutions and consulting services for the asset and wealth management industry.
Through platforms like etopsOS, Etops delivers end-to-end services, including data aggregation, portfolio management, CRM, analytics and reporting. Serving over 100 financial institutions, Etops focuses on improving operational efficiency, transparency and customer engagement through cutting-edge digital solutions.
ETOPS VISION
Etops is strengthening its position in the European WealthTech Market by developing a comprehensive ecosystem of products and services that enable seamless operations and enhance efficiency in wealth and asset management. This strategy offers a substantial competitive edge for our clients. Through our partnership with GCP, Etops will harness advanced managed services to develop and scale our products and services for both current and future clients in various regions. This collaboration allows Etops to rapidly innovate, delivering new features and services for our clients that are highly secure and compliant with diverse regulatory requirements.
Co-Pilot: Empowering Clients with AI
We aim to deliver an exceptional experience for both our clients and team by offering a developer-friendly infrastructure and intelligent tools that provide access to knowledge, deeper insights and improved decision-making. While some of our products already utilize AI modeling engines, the introduction of a feature like Co-Pilot, powered by generative AI, marks a significant step in keeping our clients at the cutting edge of WealthTech advancements. This journey began over a year ago and has seen many challenges, as we adhere to strict rules and regulations throughout the process.
Meeting Client Needs
We maintain regular communication with our clients and the industry, leveraging our extensive experience in wealth and asset management, as most of our team hails from this sector. By staying abreast of new developments, regulatory changes and trends, we continuously identify evolving client needs and pinpoint their challenges. We then devise the most effective solutions to address these issues, helping our clients navigate their ever-changing requirements.
The Result
Increased operational efficiency
Increased client acquisition in new regions
Reduced infrastructure complexities by improving tooling efficiency
“Leveraging Google Cloud's advanced capabilities, Etops has accelerated its vision of building a unified platform and becoming a market leader in wealth and asset management. This transformation is driven by automation, streamlined operations, process standardization, and empowering product teams with cutting-edge tools and frameworks.”
Divay Bansal, Chief Architect | Chief Security Officer, ETOPS AG
The Business Opportunity
As Etops continued to scale and enhance its platforms, its leadership recognized that their existing infrastructure—spread across on-premises and Azure environments—could no longer support their long-term ambitions to grow their business to provide even greater capabilities to their clients. Ultimately, they seek to increase the number of clients they serve, and the markets they operate in. They needed a modern, scalable and secure cloud platform to unify their systems, optimize costs and accelerate innovation.
However, a prior cloud migration assessment conducted by another vendor left Etops unconvinced, as it felt too generic and lacked actionable outcomes.
The Technology Challenge
Drawing on years of technological advancements, their existing legacy architecture was inadequate for meeting their defined business objectives. To address this, Etops needed to develop a unified cloud-enabled technology platform. This platform would offer a scalable infrastructure, enhancing interactions and creating network effects that expedite customer acquisition and market penetration, ultimately supporting significant company growth.
Etops AG faced several challenges with its existing legacy architecture:
Fragmented Systems
Core workloads (etopsOS, Data Services, and Axeed) were split across Azure, on-premises and other platforms, leading to inefficiencies.
Scalability Constraints
Existing infrastructure could not support future business growth and modernization ambitions.
Lack of a Clear Migration Roadmap
The initial assessment failed to provide tailored guidance for Etops' unique requirements.
Need for Confidence in Cloud Adoption
Etops sought to ensure their teams understood the value and feasibility of cloud adoption before committing to a full migration.
Etops required a trusted partner to:
- Build a solid cloud foundation.
- Design a target state architecture aligned to their business goals.
- Execute a seamless migration to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) while fostering collaboration and enabling internal teams.
The Ollion solution
Ollion partnered with Etops AG to deliver a three-phase cloud transformation journey on Google Cloud Platform. By combining deep technical expertise and a collaborative approach, Ollion enabled Etops to achieve its cloud goals efficiently and confidently.
Phase 1: Building the Cloud Foundations
Key Activities:
- Designed and implemented a Google Cloud Landing Zone to enable compliant, secure and scalable infrastructure.
- Conducted Proof-of-Concepts (POCs) to demonstrate the feasibility of migrating key workloads and utilizing GCP services.
- Delivered workshops to build Etops’ understanding of GCP capabilities and benefits.
Outcome:
- Etops gained confidence in GCP as the right platform for their transformation.
- Enabled future phases by setting strong cloud foundations.
Phase 2: Target State Architecture and Migration Design
With the landing zone in place, Ollion collaborated with Etops to design a comprehensive Target State Architecture and develop a detailed Migration Plan for their core workloads:
- EtopsOS: CRM, WebApp and Portfolio Management System (PMS).
- Data Services: Supporting data aggregation, analytics and reporting.
- Axeed: Advanced analytics platform supporting QlikSense and data science workloads.
Key Activities:
- Conducted technical discovery workshops to understand existing workloads, business requirements and integration points.
- Designed a high-level Target State Architecture leveraging GCP services, including Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), CloudSQL, and Apigee.
- Created a 3-Year Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) forecast to demonstrate long-term savings and scalability benefits.
- Developed a phased Migration Plan with detailed risk mitigation strategies, cutover plans and stakeholder timelines.
Outcome:
- Etops received a tailored, actionable migration plan, ensuring alignment with their business priorities.
- Identified modernization opportunities for future cloud-native solutions.
Phase 3: Migration Execution and Staff Enablement
Ollion worked hand-in-hand with Etops to execute the migration of workloads to GCP in an iterative and collaborative manner, ensuring minimal disruption and maximum enablement for Etops’ teams.
Key Activities:
- Joint Execution: Ollion and Etops teams collaborated closely to migrate critical workloads, including etopsOS, Data Services and Axeed, to GCP.
- Iterative Approach: The migrations were carried out in stages, with regular checkpoints to validate progress, address challenges and optimize processes.
- Enablement and Knowledge Transfer: Throughout the process, Ollion ensured Etops’ engineers were actively involved, building confidence and skills to operate and manage the new cloud environment independently.
- Automation Focus: CI/CD pipelines were implemented using GitLab and ArgoCD to streamline infrastructure provisioning and deployment.
- Comprehensive Documentation: Provided detailed low-level designs, cutover plans and handover documentation to support long-term operations.
The business benefits
Ollion’s phased approach and collaborative delivery model empowered Etops AG to achieve significant outcomes:
Unified Infrastructure
Consolidated all workloads onto Google Cloud, improving operational efficiency and scalability.
Optimized Performance and Cost
GCP’s robust services enabled faster performance, reduced downtime and optimized infrastructure costs.
Internal Team Enablement
Through collaboration and staff augmentation, Etops’ teams gained confidence and skills to manage their cloud environment.
Future-Ready Architecture
Designed a scalable, secure and modernized cloud architecture to support Etops’ growth ambitions.
Partner Funding
Successfully leveraged Google’s funding programs to reduce migration costs.
The one big thing
Etops is now positioned to continue its modernization journey by:
- Expanding cloud-native capabilities, such as leveraging GKE Autopilot and advanced analytics tools.
- Exploring automation opportunities for further cost and operational efficiencies.
- Confidently migrating additional workloads to Google Cloud.
Ollion remains a trusted partner, ready to support Etops’ future initiatives and innovations on Google Cloud Platform.
"Ollion was instrumental in guiding us through a complex cloud transformation journey. Their tailored approach, technical expertise, and collaborative delivery ensured we migrated successfully to Google Cloud while enabling our teams for the future. We now have a scalable, secure platform to support our growth ambitions."
PIUS STUCKI, CEO, ETOPS AG
Why Ollion
- Tailored Approach: Ollion’s solutions were customized to meet Etops’ specific needs, ensuring practical outcomes.
- Expertise and Collaboration: A hands-on approach with embedded engineers fostered trust, transparency and skill transfer.
- Proven Track Record: Successful delivery across all phases demonstrated Ollion’s expertise in cloud transformation.
- Value-Driven Delivery: Leveraged Google’s partner funding to maximize value while minimizing costs.
