Tessell Enables a Global Insurance Leader's Biggest Digital Transformation in Company History
A leading global insurance broker partnered with Tessell to migrate 33 on-premises data centers to Azure delivering significant cost savings, faster provisioning, and enterprise-grade operational efficiency at scale.
About the Company
The organization is a leading global professional services firm with 60,000 employees operating in over 120 countries. As the world's second-largest insurance broker, the organization provides integrated Risk Capital and Human Capital solutions that help enterprises make better decisions about risk management and people strategies. With $15.7 billion in annual revenue, the organization serves clients across every major industry through insurance brokerage, risk analytics, benefits consulting, retirement planning, and talent advisory services delivering the clarity and confidence businesses need to protect and grow in today's complex risk landscape.
If we were to build what Tessell delivers, it would have taken 6 engineers 9 months time, to only get 50% of the benefit.
The Challenge
The organization's large-scale migration project - migrating 33 on-premises data centers to the cloud, primarily Microsoft Azure - represented the largest digital transformation in the organization's 100+ year history.
The organization faced significant challenges:
Complex Oracle estate: Managing thousands of Oracle databases across 30 data centers required extensive manual effort and expertise
Lengthy provisioning cycles: Database provisioning took 15 days from request to delivery, creating bottlenecks for application teams
Manual, script-heavy operations: Day-2 database operations were heavily scripted and required constant manual intervention
Aggressive timeline: The organization had just two years to migrate 11 data centers running Oracle workloads to Azure
Automation gap: Existing tools and processes weren't designed for cloud-native automation and self-service delivery
"We needed a partner who could help us modernize our database infrastructure at scale while maintaining business continuity. Traditional approaches simply wouldn't work for the pace and complexity of this transformation." said the North America CIO & Head of Infrastructure.
The Solution
The organization needed a database-as-a-service platform that could handle the scale and complexity of their transformation — delivering self-service database capabilities across multiple clouds while maintaining enterprise control. Tessell provided:
Fully automated database delivery across AWS and Azure, driving 85% automation in day-to-day operations
Zero application changes required for migration and modernization, eliminating refactoring work
Self-service provisioning that empowered development teams while maintaining governance
Multi-cloud flexibility supporting the organization's hybrid cloud strategy
Enterprise-grade automation for backups, patching, cloning, and disaster recovery
Tessell became integral to the organization's $1.5 billion modernization program.
The Results
The organization's partnership with Tessell delivered measurable business impact across cost, speed, and operational efficiency:
Speed & Efficiency
87% reduction in provisioning time - from 2 weeks to 30 minutes
4+ months ahead of the original two-year migration schedule
RPO 0 and RTO of 30 seconds for critical database workloads
85% automation achieved in day-to-day database operations
Cost Optimization
20% lower operational costs overall
33% reduction in support costs
40% lower infrastructure costs
Business Value
No application refactoring required, eliminating months of development work
Accelerated time-to-market for new applications and services
Key enabler for the organization's $1.5 billion modernization program
Looking Forward
With Tessell as a strategic partner, the organization continues to accelerate its cloud modernization journey. The organization has established a foundation for ongoing innovation, enabling faster deployment of new services while maintaining the security, compliance, and reliability required in the global financial services industry.
