When capital technology platform GSCF was looking to migrate its outsourced and on-premises system to AWS, it called on experts from Zühlke for help. The consultants worked quickly, to enable GSCF’s clients to use its unified cloud platform in just three months.
GSCF is a global provider of working capital solutions. In 2024, it launched the industry’s first working capital as a service (WCaaS) solution – enabling companies to optimise liquidity management by applying a technology-enabled operating model seamlessly integrated with their funding partners.
The offering connected capital ecosystem of suppliers, buyers, and financial partners. However, the shift to this new system required a level of speed and connectivity that its outsourced and on-premises environment. At that point, the company decided it was time to migrate to a fully functional AWS cloud, to support its supply chain financing system.
Doing so would be easier said than done, though. Speed and quality were the top priorities, but there was another challenge to tackle. While GSCF required the data to be processed in Switzerland, the AWS region for Switzerland had only just come online, and some of the services required for the cloud migration simply weren’t available there yet. All these factors led to the project being dubbed ‘Mission Impossible’ by GSCF’s chief operating officer and CTO, Steve Crusenberry.
It was clear GSCF would need a transformation partner, and soon the firm identified Zühlke as the best fit. According to a release on the consultancy’s website, GSCF approached Zühlke following the advisory’s acquisition of a Swiss-based finance company known for its exceptional system of managing supply chain finance programs via its own data centre. At this stage, GSCF was looking to migrate its outsourced and on-premises system and the acquired company’s software stack to AWS, so GSCF’s clients could use this unified platform to conduct business.
Crusenberry explained, “We chose to partner with Zühlke for two main reasons. First, the team quickly understood what we needed and laid out the scope of the required work in a comprehensive way. Second, there was an immediate availability of resources that could jump right in.”
For Zühlke, the task was clear. The consultancy had to quickly ascertain whether the three-month cloud migration was even possible. So, the team set out on a four-week discovery process to find answers to this critical question. After two weeks, they realised it could be done and, in the interest of not wasting time, created a plan for the project. Following sign-off from GSCF, the consultants quickly ramped up a team across Zühlke’s Swiss, German, UK, Serbian, and Portuguese locations and began delivering the cloud solution.
Zühlke noted, “Thanks to our partnership with AWS and access to internal AWS resources, we were able to start building the cloud-native platform in Germany, where the required AWS services were available. In parallel, we collaborated with AWS in readiness for the introduction of these services in the new Swiss region.”
Thanks to this positioning, the firm was able to support GSCF on multiple fronts. As well as the initial analysis of project requirements and definition of the scope of work, the experts supported with the ‘containerisation’ of apps running on-premises with Docker and transfer to the private images’ registry. The team also provided landing zone design, AWS multi-region setup and key infrastructure configuration, along with the integration of third-party services into the system.
Among other services rendered along the way, Zühlke then finally prepared for the handover to the GSCF team with workshops, pair programming, and training to facilitate continuous value creation and ensure successful post-implementation operations. This was necessary, as the solution incorporated a range of tools to handle different tasks. At its core, it used database services, container orchestration tools, file transfer solutions, virtual servers, load balancers, domain naming services, monitoring tools, and various security and data protection tools – which the GSCF team needed to be prepared for.
Despite the tough conditions, Zühlke’s team also found time to develop appropriate safety measures and encryption for all data that was in use or had to be transferred, guaranteeing full compliance with the relevant financial regulations. And following this, the project was completed on time. It will now support a monthly operational cost savings of £250,000 – while more importantly, the new cloud infrastructure offers greater flexibility and helps minimise technical issues, data quality problems, and manual overheads.
Looking back at the successful project, Crusenberry concluded, “It’s very rare to find a third-party company where the collaboration is as good as it is with Zühlke. It’s phenomenal. Zühlke is a premium service provider and for us, the best-in-class processes, calibre of expertise, and superior outcomes more than justify the investment. We absolutely would not have completed the project without them… Zühlke adds a tremendous amount of value beyond just the people involved. This leads to an outcome that’s significantly greater than that of any other full-team supplier we work with – not only in terms of the collaborative process but also the end result, which I believe exceeds expectations.”