Lausanne-based insurance group Vaudoise, one of the top ten private insurers in Switzerland, has entered a new phase of its Azure cloud transformation. By adopting Microsoft’s Shared Management operating model, the company is redefining how it operates, scales and governs its cloud environment, strengthening agility while maintaining enterprise-grade security, compliance, and control.
From Cloud Adoption to Cloud Maturity
Vaudoise began its Azure journey in 2017 with the deployment of its first enterprise landing zone and progressively strengthened its cloud governance through a clearly defined cloud risk appetite. In 2022, Microsoft Azure was designated as the company’s preferred cloud platform, accelerating adoption across application and infrastructure teams.
As cloud usage expanded, Vaudoise reached a new stage in its cloud evolution: one where scale, speed, and consistency required a rethink of the underlying operating model. A fully centralized approach no longer matched the organization’s growing needs, while decentralized execution still had to align with strict regulatory and security requirements. The Shared Management model provided the foundation for this next step.
Evolving the Operating Model: Shared Responsibility at Scale
With Shared Management, Vaudoise introduced a clear separation of responsibilities. A central Platform Team retains ownership of the Azure foundation, including architecture standards, security, compliance, and governance. At the same time, application teams take full responsibility for their Azure subscriptions and operational lifecycle within defined guardrails. This model enables Vaudoise to scale cloud usage sustainably, combining central consistency with decentralized execution.
“Shared Management allows us to maintain strong governance while intelligently distributing operational responsibility. It strikes the right balance between control, agility, and autonomy,” said Patrick Lilli, Head of Infrastructure & Operations at Vaudoise.
A Modern, ALZ‑Aligned Azure Foundation
To support this shift, Vaudoise modernized its Azure platform with a new generation of application landing zones, now mandatory for all workloads. These environments integrate secure networking, role‑based access controls, governance policies, diagnostics, and full alignment with Microsoft’s Azure landing zone best practices.
The architecture redesign introduces subscriptions as standardized scale units, improves workload segmentation, and automates governance using Azure Policy. The result is a resilient, scalable, and future‑ready Azure foundation, designed to support long‑term cloud growth and continuous platform evolution.
“Vaudoise is a strong example of how organizations in regulated industries are moving from cloud adoption to true cloud maturity,” said Christian Thier, Financial Services Industries Lead at Microsoft Switzerland. “By evolving its operating model with Azure Shared Management, Vaudoise is building a scalable, secure, and future‑ready cloud platform, which enables continuous innovation while meeting the highest standards for governance, resilience, and compliance.”
Enabling Teams with Shared Services and Copilot
As part of its platform modernization, Vaudoise consolidated a coherent set of shared services, including container platforms, perimeter security, observability, and FinOps tooling. This standardization reduces complexity, increases operational transparency, and enables teams to build on a consistent cloud foundation rather than managing fragmented solutions.
Microsoft 365 Copilot helps teams in developing and maintaining operational documentation, while GitHub Copilot accelerates infrastructure‑as‑code, automation, and development workflows, helping teams apply platform standards efficiently and at scale.
Measurable Progress in Cloud Operations
Since adopting Microsoft’s Shared Management operating model, Vaudoise has achieved clear operational benefits:
Greater autonomy and accountability for application teams
Faster deployment cycles and improved time‑to‑market
Transparent, measurable governance
Consistent security and compliance at scale
By evolving its cloud platform and operating model with Microsoft Azure, Vaudoise has built a secure foundation, empowering teams to innovate faster while operating within a trusted, enterprise‑grade cloud framework.