NAB Achieves Digital Transformation with the Help of AWS Customer Enablement

When it began its digital journey, NAB had too few employees trained in cloud skills to efficiently execute the transformation. In initial phases, the company turned to AMS, which helped the bank bridge its skills gap by quickly setting up a secure environment that allowed application migration to happen without delay. “AWS Managed Services helped us create an AWS Landing Zone environment where we could migrate applications at scale,” says Day. “We didn't have to spend months, possibly years, creating that. We could begin migration straightaway.” The AWS Landing Zone is an operating model that helps with cost optimization and infrastructure management. AMS automated operational activities such as change requests, monitoring, patch management, security, backup services, and infrastructure support.

Next, AWS Professional Services stepped in to complement AMS and help perform the actual migration. AWS Professional Services helped NAB migrate 30 applications in 50 days within the AWS Landing Zone environment, and then AMS managed the services after migration. “Our initial migration could not have succeeded without AWS Managed Services and AWS Professional Services working in tandem to make it happen,” says Day.

The NAB team turns to AWS Support when they have technical issues on migration projects that fall outside the scope of AMS. “We view our technical account managers as trusted advisors and rely on them to inform us about best practices,” says Day. “The engineers with AWS Support are of exceptionally high caliber, the very best in the industry. We turn to AWS Support not only to solve problems but also to ask advice. We know they’ll advise us not on the most expedient way for them to solve our problem but on the right way to solve it for the long term.”

While AMS, AWS Professional Services, and AWS Support helped NAB navigate the first stages of its migration, AWS Training and Certification has helped with preparing the bank for its long-term cloud journey. AWS Training and Certification is playing a role in helping the bank build cloud fluency across the organization and develop the skill sets that employees need to be innovative and agile in a cloud environment.

In April 2018, NAB launched the NAB Cloud Guild as an internal training mechanism. In two years, more than 4,200 bank staff have been trained on cloud services, and over 550 of those employees now have validated their technical skills and expertise with AWS Certification, an industry-recognized credential. “Combining AWS Managed Services and AWS Professional Services allowed us to move fast, and the NAB Cloud Guild enables us to uplift skills and help shift the mindset within our bank. All this together created a complete strategy for us,” says Day. AWS also helped teach NAB staff to be in-house trainers, so the bank can execute training at scale and continuously build organizational knowledge.

Taking advantage of AWS Customer Enablement services has smoothed the path for NAB’s digital transformation, improving internal operations and customer service. “By using these services and relying on AWS experts, we're learning from the vast experience that they’ve gained in the industry. Not only are we moving fast, but we're also moving safely,” says Day.

NAB customers have seen dramatic service improvements as a result of its digital transformation. The bank has migrated over 400 services to the cloud and achieved 100 percent availability for the cloud services supporting these applications. “Our cloud service availability is at 100 percent, which delivers better outcomes for our customers, who get access to an always-on banking service, as opposed to a mostly-on banking service,” says Day. Security is also a high priority for customers, and AMS provides 100 percent patching and backup compliance for the services it manages. Day says, “Higher levels of security and governance in the cloud give our customers a high level of trust that we can maintain their data and their financial products in a much more secure way.

“The entire complement of teams that provide AWS Customer Enablement services constantly work with us to achieve the best outcomes from our cloud journey,” says Day. “They and our internal teams work as one to create a better experience for NAB customers.”