Case Studies

“Working with Capacitas, we have accelerated our cloud transformation to improve the value we deliver to our clients.”

James Griffith, VP Engineering at Archer

Archer® is a leading provider of governance, risk and compliance (GRC) solutions that enable enterprises to connect and orchestrate their risk programs in a systematic way. The strength of Archer lies not only in its platform, but in managing relationships in data, as no two companies are the same. Archer solutions take into account these differences in thinking, structure and operation.

Archer was founded in 2001, an industry pioneer when the GRC function was starting to grow. While cloud was in its infancy, there was reluctance by the industry to place large volumes of sensitive data in datacentres that were not in their direct control. As a result, the Archer platform and its capabilities were built within the constraints of an on-premise mindset.

At that time, this aligned with Archer’s client base which includes enterprises in highly regulated industries such as financial services, chemical, oil, and transport – industries that impose steep fines and even criminal charges on companies as a result of non-compliance.

A move to implementing SaaS

Skip forward a few years and comfort and trust levels around cloud hosting increased significantly, enough for organisations to begin hosting more valuable data – financial, HR, risk management – with cloud providers.

Archer clients expressed interest in cloud and the company was able to meet that demand based on how the software was architected. Archer was able to offer the same functionality to clients in the cloud as they would with on-premise implementations.

The company selected AWS as its cloud provider and went with a classic ‘lift-and-shift’ approach. The Archer engineering team took the functionality deployed on-premise and moved the Archer platform, along with its networking and infrastructure architecture around it, to the cloud.

James Griffith, Vice President of Engineering at Archer, is responsible for the technical delivery of the organisation’s product, including architecture, development, quality assurance and the SaaS operations team.

“This was the correct first step for us, but when you lift and shift, you’re bringing the datacentre decision making with you,” said Griffith. “You keep things working in the same way but you miss out on a lot of the power of the cloud while still paying a lot of money for it.”

A focus on growth

Archer began thinking about how to improve the functionality of the Archer platform, modernise the software, better meet client needs, and enable more cost efficiency by redirecting savings in a more productive way.

One solution was to assess cloud costs. Archer was introduced to Capacitas. Capacitas has more than two decades of experience working with organisations across industries helping them get the most out of their cloud investment. Their approach is based on long-term cost efficiency, transforming their clients into organisations where cost consciousness is an embedded behaviour.

“When we met Manzoor Mohammed and the team at Capacitas, we could tell from the beginning that things were going to be different,” explained Griffith.

Creating a framework for success

According to Dr Manzoor Mohammed, Chief Innovation Officer and Co-founder of Capacitas, when it comes to Saas businesses cloud optimisation becomes about more than just cost savings.

“For SaaS organisations, and for Archer specifically, cloud optimisation is not just about saving money, it’s about growth and how those savings can help fuel that growth. Whether that is releasing investment to hire more staff, create new products, enhance existing ones, or improve performance.”

Capacitas created a structured cost optimisation programme for Archer to enhance its business growth. The programme included short-term gains – identifying ways to reduce Archer’s AWS costs – as well as longer-term activities.

This was the starting point for a successful relationship between the two companies, with the ultimate goal of improving the value that Archer delivers to its clients by enhancing its SaaS services. 

A move to modernise

Whereas other consultants might have advised to re-code and re-platform everything, Capacitas’ experience and approach meant Archer was able to identify the areas where this was not necessary, making Archer’s modernisation plan more efficient and effective.

Along with the modernisation of subsystems, Archer was also able to accelerate plans to add capabilities and functionality of the platform requested by clients.

This was another area where Capacitas was different – not only making recommendations and creating a plan to follow, but they worked closely with the Archer team to help them plot the best path forward to achieve their objectives.

The nature of Archer’s business means that a significant amount of operational data needs to be monitored and analysed. Capacitas also helped the Archer team define the most useful and informative aspects to track, through improved monitoring and observability across the platform and cloud usage.

Realising the benefits

“Our collaboration with Capacitas has been a success because we were able to align on plans for modernisation. We were able to identify immediate opportunities to redirect wasteful spend into productive spend,” said Griffith.

Working with Capacitas helped to strengthen Archer’s understanding of the relationship between usage and cost. Capacitas built a model of platform use, depending on the functions used and the cost of that usage. This enables Archer to fully understand how their clients are using the platform, whether they are getting the most value from it, or areas that are being used inefficiently where training could be beneficial.

Archer has also been able to better plan and more accurately predict cost based on the company’s growth, which enabled optimised cloud estate and spend. Archer can now categorise upcoming projects based on cost from the first day of usage. With this improved view of long-term costs, Archer is in a better position when it comes to negotiating contracts or enterprise discounts with cloud providers.

“Part of the value of our engagement with Capacitas has been the discipline and rigor of the plan,” said Griffith. “The planning element has been absolutely critical to what we’ve done and highly valuable compared with other optimisation companies we’ve spoken with.”

Into the future

As the model for optimisation evolves in line with the business, Archer is in the perfect position to understand their compute needs and adjust accordingly.

“Having a thoughtful, structured approach to cloud optimisation delivers so many more benefits than just saving money. Archer serves as one example of how you can invest in improving your product, improving capabilities, and even improving the customer experience – all through harnessing the benefits of cloud optimisation,” said Mohammed. 

Unlock the full potential of your SaaS business with cloud cost optimisation. Partner with Capacitas and drive growth, enhance performance, and modernise your offerings. Discover how strategic cloud management can transform cost savings into investment opportunities to fuel your business's next stage of innovation.