Wavestone US’ Winning Approach To Cloud Solutions

This article was first published in the July 2019 edition of CIOReview in conjunction with WGroup’s listing on the publication’s 10 Most Promising Cloud Consulting/Services Companies 2019. As of January 28, 2020, WGroup is known as Wavestone US, the North American arm of Paris-based global management and IT consulting firm Wavestone.

Today is the age of cloud technology. With enterprises continuously moving toward an “asset light” drive to minimize cost, deliver service level assurance, and improve security and regulatory compliance, there is much need for relevant expertise. Cloud continues to support businesses’ digital transformation by serving as the network that connects their disruptive capabilities. Today, companies across the world are investing considerably in the cloud to transform their IT operations to speed up innovation and boost solution delivery times. In addition to unlimited storage, scalability, cheap upfront costs and easy deployment makes it very appealing to deploy cloud. According to Forrester, the increasing demand to embrace the cloud’s responsiveness, agility, and security is expected to grow the global market by $241 billion before 2020.

“Every business has a desire to improve its interaction with customers and its value proposition with digital technologies” states Jeffrey Vail, the CEO of WGroup. He adds, “Cloud by itself isn’t an answer, it’s a tool for the journey of digital transformation. How to apply that tool while in many cases is relatively easy to do, utilizing cloud correctly, requires a methodical approach. Many businesses are paralyzed by the degree of transformation required today, be it rationalizing technology, eliminating technical debt, modernizing business-aligned organization approach, ups-skilling and so on to develop a clear path. For us, the application of cloud falls within our purpose, to help businesses cross the digital transformation chasm.”

Radnor, Pennsylvania based WGroup is a strategic advisory firm with experience in rigorous financial modeling (including TCO estimation) of cloud models, strategic assessment and infrastructure strategy (including cloud IaaS
and PaaS technologies), and selection of SaaS products. Its extended expertise in multi-supplier governance, IT organization and business redesign, help users take full advantage of the characteristics of cloud either as users or as
providers.

WGroup helps companies with IT strategy, cost optimization and operational improvements with an express focus on economic analysis. They deliver factual information with which companies can make data-driven decisions to drive business results more effectively. The company is then able to engage with its client to build a reliable fact-set which provides valuable information for future roadmap decisions. “We have the ability to focus on the required business outcomes, analyze the data and draw a crystal-clear roadmap with economic implications. We can then formulate the best strategy and roadmap that suits the organization for its most effective IT transformation,” asserts Vail. WGroup also assists clients in performing M&A integrations and with cloud-specific infrastructure and application strategies.

In one such instance, Vail highlights a case where a six-billion-dollar energy company had taken it upon themselves to reduce their infrastructure footprint and increase the agility of its IT operations. WGroup executed an assessment wherein they diagnosed the environment with a considerable amount of constraints that needed to be taken into account. The company changed its technology blueprint, business processes and IT organizational design model to implement cloud in an effective way. The strategy allowed the enterprise to execute its objectives successfully netting an annual cost savings of about 45 million dollars, while improving services and not adding risk.

Additionally, WGroup is recognized as an Inc. 5000 company in 2018 for their significant growth rate and are emerging as a go-to in the IT executive advisory space. The company focuses on acquiring new talent and consultants, along with valuable expertise, which can further enhance offerings. WGroup’s keys to success include principal collaboration, automation tools, IT process expertise, learnings from clients and the marketplace; altogether helping clients successfully achieve their goals.