Full managed-services consolidation for a multi-country retail bank — seven separate suppliers across infrastructure, applications, service desk, security, and FinOps collapsed into one Virtual Era RunOps contract. 34% reduction in year-one run-rate, 99.95% availability across 24 months, zero IT-related regulatory findings.
The bank had grown through acquisition across four countries. Each acquired entity brought its own supplier relationships. By the time the board commissioned this engagement, the bank had seven separate IT suppliers handling pieces of the estate — with overlapping responsibilities, inconsistent SLAs, finger-pointing during incidents, and a consolidated annual IT spend that the CFO could not easily explain to the board.
Consolidation carries execution risk: transition from seven suppliers to one, across four countries, cannot disrupt banking operations or compromise regulatory posture. Any supplier change in banking is scrutinised by the regulator; seven in parallel is a material programme.
The engagement was designed in three phases: due diligence of the incumbent estate (month 1), transition-in of the simpler workstreams (month 2–3), transition-in of the critical workstreams including core-banking AMS (month 4). Each transition had documented acceptance criteria, regulator notification where required, and rollback options.
"What we bought wasn't just cost reduction. It was one point of accountability. When something goes wrong at 3 AM, there is one number to call, and that number belongs to people who can see the whole estate."
— Chief Information Officer, bank · [VERIFY]Month 1: due diligence. Month 2: transition of service desk, infrastructure operations, and two smaller application workstreams. Month 3: security operations takeover. Month 4: core banking AMS and final cutover. Month 5 onwards: steady-state operations with quarterly reviews.
Year-one run-rate dropped 34% against the previous seven-supplier cost base. Contractual 99.95% availability was achieved across 24 months of operation. Zero IT-related findings in regulator inspections during the window. Ticket resolution time dropped 42% — a function of single-team visibility across the estate rather than cross-supplier handoffs.
ServiceNow ITSM, Microsoft Sentinel SIEM, Microsoft Defender, Azure Monitor, Virtual Era 24/7 NOC, Virtual Era multilingual service desk (EN / AL / MK / SR).
90 minutes, no slides. A senior partner, your relevant executive, and a whiteboard. We frame the opportunity, the risk envelope, and the engagement shape — then agree whether there's a fit before any proposal is drafted.