A cloud strategy that actually gets executed — grounded in your business context, not a generic framework.

The Challenge

Most organisations approaching cloud adoption have the same problem: they have a vendor recommendation, a pilot project, and no coherent strategy tying the two together.

Cloud is not an infrastructure decision. It is a business operating model decision. Without a clear strategy — covering governance, cost, security, operating model, and the human side of change — Azure deployments accumulate as a patchwork of workloads with no architectural coherence. Cloud spend grows. Control does not.

Regulated organisations face this acutely. When a financial services firm or a central bank migrates to Azure, the question is never just “does it work?” It is “can we demonstrate control, auditability, and compliance at every layer?”

What This Engagement Covers

Cloud Strategy Consulting (Azure) is a structured engagement to design your organisation’s cloud strategy, architecture, and operating model — and to give you the governance framework to operate confidently in Azure from day one.

What You Get

  • Azure landing zone design — A well-structured, security-hardened foundation aligned to Microsoft’s Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF), customised to your compliance and operating model requirements
  • Cloud operating model — How your teams organise, own, and operate cloud resources: roles, responsibilities, RACI, and the handoff between platform engineering and application teams
  • Governance framework — Azure Policy, Management Groups, subscription design, naming conventions, tagging strategy, and guardrails that enforce compliance without blocking delivery
  • Cloud cost optimisation and FinOps — Cost visibility architecture, reserved capacity recommendations, tagging-driven chargeback models, and right-sizing analysis
  • Security and identity architecture — Entra ID (Azure AD) design, Conditional Access, privileged identity, network segmentation, and alignment to your security baseline
  • Azure ecosystem integration — Coherent strategy across Azure, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and Power Platform where relevant — not just infrastructure cloud, but the full Microsoft platform
  • Roadmap and migration sequencing — A prioritised migration roadmap that sequences workloads by business value, technical risk, and dependency order

Engagement Format

Cloud strategy engagements are typically delivered in two phases:

  1. Discovery and assessment (2-3 weeks) — Current state review, cloud readiness assessment, stakeholder workshops, and constraints mapping
  2. Strategy and architecture (3-5 weeks) — Landing zone design, operating model definition, governance framework, and roadmap

Engagements can continue into implementation advisory — architectural oversight during the execution of the strategy.

Who This Is For

  • CTOs and cloud programme leads at mid-market and enterprise organisations preparing for significant Azure adoption or rationalising an existing cloud estate
  • Financial services and regulated organisations that need a cloud strategy designed with compliance, auditability, and control as first-class requirements — not retrofitted afterthoughts
  • Organisations that have started cloud adoption without a strategy — workloads are in Azure but costs are unpredictable, governance is inconsistent, and the estate is harder to manage than expected
  • Architecture and platform teams building an internal cloud platform who need an experienced external view on landing zone design and operating model

The Regulated Industry Angle

Cloud strategy in a regulated environment is a different discipline. Working with financial institutions and central banks means designing for audit trails, regulatory reporting, data residency, change governance, and approval chains — not just performance and availability. That experience shapes how governance frameworks, security baselines, and operating models are designed in every engagement.

💡 Tip

“A cloud strategy that cannot be operated by your team is not a strategy — it is a document. The goal is a design your people can own, your auditors can inspect, and your engineers can build on.”

Start With a Conversation

Cloud strategy is highly context-dependent. Schedule a free 60-minute discovery call to discuss your current state, your constraints, and what a well-designed Azure strategy would look like for your organisation.