AERELONTECH A FIELD GUIDE FOR BANKING & FINANCE LEADERS Delivery-led DX Your engine for revenue growth One revenue-generating digital product, delivered to real customers in under three months. 2027 EDITION
THE DIGITAL CLIFF The Digital Cliff in numbers ¥12 trillion yearly economic loss Japan faces if legacy systems are not modernised 400,000 senior engineers missing from the Japanese market by 2032 Lagging digital commitments published in Business Adaptation Plans, visible to investors and the regulator Source: METI DX Report, "the Digital Cliff" - https://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2025/0528_001.html
CONTENTS & FOUNDER'S LETTER Strategy is bought. Revenue is not. CONTENTS A letter from the founder 04 Why digital transformations (DX) stall? Dear reader, 06 Product squad: vertical ownership gets the job done Your organisation has done the hard thinking with or without 08 Sándor Nagy a global strategy firm, and you mapped the opportunity. The 10 Track record board has published its digital commitments, and investors 11 How your team is formed and the regulator are watching the dates. Now you only have 12 A fully digital cash loan in four months to deliver. 14 Shipping alongside a legacy core Yet, Japan will be short of 400,000 senior engineers by 16 Three ways to work with us 17 Tech North Stars 2032. Hiring alone will not close that gap in time as there is 18 Principal Architect on retainer no pool to hire from. And a large outsourcing contract rarely 19 Delivery-led DX in detail produces the product your customers actually want to pay 20 How an engagement unfolds for. 22 Modernise the core without leaving it behind I founded AerelonTech exactly for this moment. We take one 24 Who drives the coding agent revenue-generating vertical, form a combined team with your (genAI)? own talent, and put it in front of real customers in under three 26 Partner spotlight 27 The ecosystem we build around months. Our success is your release of a real product into 28 Questions we hear the market, so we act like it was our product too, we share 29 Digital maturity self-check your ownership and quality expectations. 30 Three ways to start I lead engagements personally. I have spent my career shipping banking products, including leading a 120-person daily banking tribe, and I still write code every day. Being close to how software is made is my super power at showing < 3 months you and your leaders what matters in a DX project. If anything resonates with your situation, I would like to hear from a signed Letter of Proposal from you. to a product in front of real customers. Sincerely, Sándor Nagy Founder & Principal Architect, AerelonTech Delivery-led DX 3
01 · THE DELIVERY GAP Why digital transformations (DX) stall? The strategy is approved and the commitments are public, work has commenced months, years ago. Yet customers still cannot see the difference in their experience, your talent's day to day didn't improve. STRATEGY THE DELIVERY GAP REVENUE Roadmap approved Years of waiting Customers using it Board commitments and a Maintenance eats half the budget; A product that books revenue Business Adaptation Plan. seniors firefight, day to day doesn't below budget and expectations. change. Most banks and fintechs we meet are not short of department now called DevOps, yet no ambition. They have engaged a global strategy deployment can go out automatically and 3 firm, published a Business Adaptation Plan and different approval forms required after a PR is agreed a digital roadmap at board level. The merged. Legal is only consulted when the thinking put into it is extraordinary and sharp. product is almost launched, not on the first day if the product even makes sense as it is. The ambition leads to a well staffed Transformation Office, interest from key This becomes the delivery gap: the difference organization leaders, increasingly bigger circle is between a credible strategy and new revenue involved, slide decks grow. See the right diagram you can book. Management consultants stay of a typical banking player's organizational above a certain depth, while outsourcing structure. The Transformation Office rearranges partners optimize for headcount, deliver hours it to neat tribes built from product squads and primarily, outcomes as a side product. And in- presents on a steerco. between, your talent left to own end-to-end delivery in a new world they are unprepared for What stalls is that the ideas and ambitions never and haven't experienced before. step out of the slides into the real world. IT “DX is a paradigm shift for the organization: from units and siloes to holistic product view.” 4 Delivery-led DX
01 · THE DELIVERY GAP Your organization went too wide, too soon Organizations mimic organisms rather than A real product concretizes scope, it forces machinery: a plan only as good as its decisions to be concrete, e.g. interest rate of a preparation, the talent executing will change it as loan for target segment of customers. Just to the days unfold. Instead of going wide and deep, decide the target segment already engages front remain shallow on the width of the problem office, risk, marketing, legal, etc. (vision, mission, objectives) yet dive deep on a A real product therefore cuts through every silo benchmark project. of the bank. The leaders who succeed prove one Such a benchmark can run at a fraction of a cost such slice works at the lowest possible cost, then and time to create buy-in throughout the double down. organization. A resounding success leaves no- one behind to argue against it, while a slideware invites endless hypothetical criticism. Front Office Middle Office Back Office ORGANISATIONAL UNIT ORGANISATIONAL UNIT ORGANISATIONAL UNIT Loan Operations / Clearing & Retail Banking Credit journey Risk Management Settlement Payout scoring verify, match, settle Commercial / Corporate Banking Finance & Product Compliance & Financial Crime Product eKYC Accounting AML, sanctions, screening P&L financial statements, regulators Investment Banking Division (IBD) Treasury & Capital Management Technology & Core Engineering liquidity, cash, risk, capital high-frequency trading, digital platforms, security Sales & Trading Human Resources & Legal Product Control Loan Asset / Wealth Management global recruitment, compensation, valuations, P&L validation terms contracts, litigation Information Technology (Operations, R&D) CAPABILITY Core Platform (FlexCube, Applications & Software Data Management (BI, Loan ledger Mobile app Funnel data etc.) Engineering AI/ML, data lake) Infrastructure Management (cloud, on-prem., BAU operations) Landing zone Enterprise Architecture & Governance DevOps & Site Reliability Engineering (CI/CD, IaC, Pipeline Cybersecurity & Information Security Threat model DRP, BCP) One vertical slice. A new digital loan is not an IT project. It needs a small part of almost every unit, marked in colour. Built and run by one team as one product, they prove the transformation works before the bank bets on the rest. Delivery-led DX 5
02 · DELIVERY-LED DX Product squad: vertical ownership gets the job done Unsecured Cash Loan Instead of a transformation that may pay PRODUCT UNIT back in five to ten years, one revenue- Retail Banking Loan journey generating product in production, with real customers, in under three months. Risk Management Credit scoring You already employ the experts a new product needs. Compliance & Financial Crime eKYC AML, sanctions, screening They are spread across front office, middle office, back office and IT, each serving the priorities of their own Operations / Clearing & Settlement verify, match, settle Payout business unit. Take them out of their silos and put them into one squad. Finance & Product Accounting financial statements, regulators Product P&L Give the squad a single backlog, a single goal and a date to ship. A business product owner, a risk specialist, a Human Resources & Legal global recruitment, compensation, Loan terms compliance officer, an operations lead and a handful of contracts, litigation product engineers is often enough to kickstart. Design, UX, other specialists depending on the scope should be Core Platform (FlexCube, etc.) Loan ledger pulled in as necessary. Applications & Software E.g. cover all areas of an unsecured cash loan, presented Mobile app Engineering on the left. Data Management (BI, AI/ML, data Funnel data The decisive step is the incentive. Every member must be lake) measured and rewarded on what the squad delivers, not Infrastructure Management (cloud, Landing on the targets of their home department. Otherwise on-prem., BAU operations) zone competing interests pull the team apart, and the product fails to launch on time. DevOps & Site Reliability Pipeline Engineering (CI/CD, IaC, DRP, BCP) A squad with one shared incentive decides fast, because the trade-offs are made inside the team. That is how one Cybersecurity & Information Threat Security model vertical slice reaches real customers within a quarter, and how a DX programme creates return on its investments. The slice as one product. The coloured parts of page 5, owned by one team with one backlog and one budget. “A multi-disciplinary team whose incentives aligned to business outcomes and given support to decide in each domain can deliver anything.” 6 Delivery-led DX
02 · DELIVERY-LED DX One successful squad starts a chain of dominoes Digital transformation is a journey, every one starts at the first step and leads to a unique destination. Un Pers Lo secu Cur o upse nalised an red ren PR Ca PR t ac ll Credit ca OD sh OD cou ADV rd UC T UN UC T U N IT nt ANC ED ANA PRODU CT UN Mortgage Lo IT YTIL IT an eKY Funn CS PR O D U C T U N IT jou C el da eKYC Cr e rne Mob ta dit y Cred eKYC sco ile a it sco Credit sc rin Lan pp ring oring eK g din Mobil Credit scoring YC g zo e app Mobile ap Pa Pip ne Prop p you elin ensit Loan journey Pr o t Thr e y mo Pipeline du eat Next del ct P mo best Loan ledger Lo &L Acc del offer Card issu an oun ing ter t led Property valuation Lo ms ger Rewards an Deb led it ca Collateral Mo ger rd bile Fu app nn el d Lan ata din gz Pip on elin e Th e rea tm od el New capability for this product Reused from the products before it Once the first squad has shipped, the Sequence the squads by business value, not by programme holds something more valuable than the organisation chart. The next vertical is the a plan: proof. The bank has seen a product one that reuses the most and earns the most, reach real customers, and it knows what that and the results of the last squad decide it. took. The programme office changes its role. Instead Replicate the model, not the people. Seed each of steering one large plan, it protects the squads' new squad with one or two members of the first, incentives, removes blockers between them and so the way of working travels with them, and funds the ones that deliver. draw the rest from the silos as before. Every new Grow the chain one squad at a time. Ten squads product starts from what the earlier ones built: launched at once repeat the mistake of the onboarding, scoring, data and the release transformation that was too wide, too soon. pipeline are already in place. That is why each domino falls faster than the one before. “But one team can't deliver everything. Their example spreads to the next initiatives.” Delivery-led DX 7
FOUNDER Sándor Nagy Founder & Principal Architect Principal Architect who still writes code every day. 8 Delivery-led DX
FOUNDER · PROFILE An architect who ships products Fifteen years of hands-on delivery, seven of them in management consulting, across more than 20 enterprise projects on four continents. From code to tribe. Sándor started as a How he works. He reads architecture straight software engineer and never stopped writing from the code: JavaScript first, .NET C# natively code. At IncepTech he led joint client and (8 years), and Java and Go across most of his consultancy teams through bank and telco fintech work. Client and consultancy engineers transformations in Poland, Romania, Croatia, work as one squad, and capability transfer is Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, and built the planned from day one, so your team keeps delivery foundations that led up to the company's growing after he steps back. strategic acquisition. Beyond consulting. He is CTO of Gridd/DeckAI, Principal Engineer at McKinsey & Company. building tools that make consultants' slide work On a greenfield bank in EMEA he rose to Tribe done ten times faster, and founded AerelonTech Tech Lead of a 120+ person banking tribe, taking Games. He also writes speculative fiction, its current account, transactions and credit card including the serialised novel Giant of the Stars. squads to MVP. In Cairo he built the unsecured- Combining disciplines this different keeps the loan product system of a new core banking engineering inventive. platform, engineered for double-entry bookkeeping. Further engagements took him to automotive in London and logistics in Warsaw. “I help you architect your organization in tandem to your tech landscape and get your talent to deliver outstanding quality 2x faster.” Banking Fintech 15+ 20+ 8+ E-commerce Logistics YEARS HANDS-ON PROJECTS COUNTRIES INDUSTRIES Delivery-led DX 9
OUR 28,900 KM JOURNEY, SO FAR Track record Delivered on four continents, and still running years later. Our work spans the UK, the US, EMEA and Asia, in banking, lending, e-commerce, logistics, telco and automotive. We merge people who build with the discipline of top-tier consulting. 2018–19 Zagreb, Croatia Digitised a commercial bank's credit card application, joining scattered data sources behind fast third-party interfaces. 2019 Bucharest, Romania Digital cash loan live in four months against a twelve-month estimate, borrower money on the account in ten minutes. 2021–22 EMEA Led a 120+ person greenfield banking tribe, taking current accounts, transactions and credit cards to MVP. 2023–24 Cairo, Egypt Built the unsecured-loan product system of a new core banking platform for double-entry bookkeeping. Budapest (HQ) · London · New York · Berlin · Warsaw · Zagreb · Bucharest · Baku · Almaty · Cairo · Tokyo 20+ 5+ 5+ 4 PROJECTS CLIENTS WHO TEAMS STILL CONTINENTS WORLDWIDE EXTENDED RUNNING 10 Delivery-led DX
THE TEAM How your team is formed A small, senior squad sized to one vertical, built around your own people. Our Principal Architect leads every We always look for E-shaped people: several engagement personally, accountable for the deep disciplines in one head, so decisions are architecture, the scope and the delivery. made within a single person instead of between people. Small teams of such operators Hand-picked senior specialists come from our outperform large teams, because handoffs and vetted Central European network that has meetings give way to action. delivered together on demanding global projects: enterprise and integration architects, platform The team is adjustable both in size and in and DevOps leads, full-stack and payments expertise as the scope requires for best engineers, COBOL developers when the core outcome. Team can grow for a heavy integration modernization needs them. Every one of them phase and shrink as your people take over. has performed on an international stage. Full profiles and CVs come with the Letter of Your in-house talent works in the same squad Proposal, matched to your engagement. from day one, in the same stand-ups and the same codebase. They own the product when we step back as they co-owned during its build. “A team leverages its members, experienced individuals make better teams.” GROWS GROWS FORMS I - S HAP E D T-SHAPED E-SHAPED TEAM Specialist Full-stack Multi-disciplined E-shaped team specialist engineer Deep in one discipline, One depth, plus the full- Several deep disciplines Moves faster, with a narrow outside it. stack basics around it. in one head. smaller footprint. Delivery-led DX 11
CASE STUDY · ORGANIZATION A fully digital cash loan in four months A major EMEA bank wanted an unsecured cash loan product that customers could take out end to end, without ever meeting a representative. CHALLENGE DELIVERY OUTCOME 12+ months estimated One combined squad Live in 4 months A previous attempt was cancelled 15 in the squad, 8 more experts on Money spendable in 10-20 minutes over budget call for >90% borrowers The challenge: released to the whole country Scope cut to what matters. The most valuable and generating revenue in under four months, vertical slice was scoped, designed and locked with money disbursed in under ten minutes from before sprint zero. Whatever already existed was application start, across more than seventeen reused: the bank's digital signature alone saved internal and external services, including digital three months and cut 20-30 user stories out. signature, KYC checks and the banking group's Key expertise in the same room. Product, risk engine. engineering, risk, compliance and operations The bank's own estimate was more than twelve worked as one squad, with one backlog and the months, and a previous attempt had been same daily stand-up, so decisions were made cancelled after eight, over budget. A 150 Jira inside the team, not between departments. The user story list awaited us on arrival. The bank's engineers owned each integration as it approach needed recalibration immediately. shipped, so there was no handover at the end. “Without Sandor and his team scoping down to what matters, we wouldn't have finished in a year. (Product Line Sponsor)” 12 Delivery-led DX
CASE STUDY · ORGANIZATION One squad, no handover Fifteen people in one squad, eight experts on call, and a scope cut to what matters. PRODUCT OWNER TECH LEAD Legal Risk Threat Product model P&L Compliance Loan journey Security Pipeline Loan terms Digital Landing signature Credit zone scoring −3 months Accounting Funnel data eKYC Mobile app Operations Loan Payout ledger Marketing Core banking Build · high effort Digital signature · reused 3 integration engineers Integrate · moderate effort whole, it saved three months of 5 subject-matter experts work on its own Reuse · least effort 8 more experts supporting from Product owner and tech lead their own units 5 engineers 4 10 17+ 0 MONTHS TO MINUTES TO INTEGRATIONS MANUAL PROD. LAUNCH MONEY LIVE FIXES Delivery-led DX 13
CASE STUDY · ARCHITECTURE Shipping alongside a legacy core A personalised upsell went live beside a decades-old, stable Oracle FlexCube core, without putting the system the whole bank runs on at risk. STABLE CORE ADAPTERS NEW FRONTEND Stays untouched Absorb the difference Ships at speed FlexCube keeps the record of truth One per external system, the core Not critical, so lighter guardrails included Replacing a core banking system takes years, We matched the guardrails to that risk. and every change to it is a risk to the entire bank. Redundancy stayed high, with several The revenue of a new digital channel cannot wait Kubernetes pods per service and three staged that long. environments. But the upsell needed no failover of its own, and data loss was guarded against at So we left the core where it was. The new infrastructure level rather than in every service. frontend and its services run beside FlexCube, Automated tests checked every release, so the not inside it. Each external system, the core squad deployed often, while the core kept all its included, sits behind its own adapter service, so controls. nothing new reaches into the core directly or loads it beyond its design. Not every function needs the core's guardrails. The ledger and payments must never fail. An upsell offer that is missing for a while costs one sale, not the bank's stability. “Stability where the bank needs it, speed where it can afford it.” 14 Delivery-led DX
CASE STUDY · ARCHITECTURE Decoupled by design Adapter services keep this system's One state manager merges the changes and architecture decisions on one side and do writes them to the loan database, append-only. whatever the external integration needs on the Every record is also its own change history, other. They absorb changes in the external ready for regulatory reporting. systems and let us test end to end automatically, The result: new features ship at the speed of the even without third-party support on the core. new stack, while the record of truth stays in Choreography instead of orchestration. A FlexCube, the system the regulator already change to a loan application publishes an event, trusts. More than five years later the squad and independent worker services react only to formed during the delivery still runs on its own, the properties they care about. Every worker is adding revenue-generating features with no maintained and released on its own. dependency on an outside provider. Backend FlexCube Frontend [Container: Java [Software System] [Container: ReactJS, SpringBoot] Read-only JS/TS] Loan applications Core bank and branch customer BFF translating [Container: Postgres] management Loan application between async-sync journey static site sides, flow manager, Loan record append-only store Upsell message state selector Merge and append Publish only Interact App State Entity change broadcast Subscribe Manager Feedback only [Container: RabbitMQ] [Container: Java Sub. State changes of loan applications SpringBoot] Customer Pub. only, in two streams: events, and Reconciles the final Branch employee commands to store [Person] state of the loan [Person] Any bank customer record Customer contact, acting as sales channel Sub. Pub. Adapter [Container: Java Workers Read / SpringBoot] [Container: Java write External systems Services that SpringBoot] [Software System] E.g. risk, credit scoring, salary decouple integration Specific Service databases complexity and choreographed [Container: Postgres] data, etc. heterogeneous workers, knockout Micro-stores that decouple each approaches criteria, pub/sub service from the others Req. Inferred Analytics Model Fine tuning [Software System] service [Container: Python] Customer classifier, upsell Admins message, reasoning and Periodic micro-tuning [Person] weights on the new data Administrators, employees, Personalized Upsell stream regulators, etc. [Software System] Delivery-led DX 15
03 · OUR OFFERINGS Three ways to work with us From self-service to full-on delivery with you and for you, we cover your digital projects from inception to revenue making machine. TNS Tech North Stars Off-the-shelf architecture packages, white-labelled typical project archetypes. Drop it into your existing projects, base off a new one with proven architecture ready-to-go or just use it as training material. • Take a Sales Funnel (full-stack), Logistics Admin (modular monolith) or Banking service (micro- service) Tech North Star. • Download, stay up-to-date with patches, customize to your vision, all on your own pace. • Wishlist upcoming packages, contribute feedback, shape direction together. FPA Fractional Principal Architect A strategic decision maker for a set bandwidth each week, at a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire. • Run tech due diligence based on our public Digital Maturity assessment framework and verify team and organizational progress by impact, not by a checklist of documents and empty ceremonies. • Set up your team for success on the long term with our seasoned expert leadership, the tech partner your incentives aligned with and trust for decisions, not to sell specific software licences. DDX Delivery-led DX A Principal Architect and selected senior experts lead your in-house talent to deliver one vertical to real customers within a quarter. • ONE Team principle, your talent co-owns the solution, no lock-in. • Capability building is first class in the offer, not a bolt-on after-thought. • Launched product into market, for real customers, guaranteed. The offers expand in scope and includes preceding ones. You can ramp up gradually, matching what your project needs at any given phase. 16 Delivery-led DX
03 · FOR PRO-ACTIVE VISIONARIES (TNS) Tech North Stars A Tech North Star is more than a collection of markdown files and diagrams. It is a velocity multiplier for your team, your organization. Picture a fully loaded supertanker with its engines at full power, changing course every few hours. However strong the engines are, every correction costs speed, time and fuel. A tight turn even threatens to overturn the ship. A container ship would spread their cargo over kilometers of sea, just like your team drops scope and crosses deadlines. Teams without a shared architectural direction live like this. Every new senior hire brings new opinions, every quarter brings a new priority, and every undocumented decision becomes an argument again. A Tech North Star records the direction and why it was chosen, so it changes when the facts change, not when someone new enters the room. For a global logistics group that was preparing a fourth rewrite of its trading platform, a Tech North Star showed that the existing architecture could carry the next decade once one missing pillar was built. Velocity on new cross-domain features rose by 50 per cent. Our off-the-shelf packages give you a proven one to start from, check out the samples on our site! “The Tech North Star was the best document that we got from any consulting ever - Senior Solution Architect” Packages, samples and the waitlist technorthstars.hu Delivery-led DX 17
03 · YOUR ORGANIZATION SET UP FOR SUCCESS (FPA) Principal Architect on retainer The decisions that shape your next decade, made with someone who has made them before. Our Principal Architect works with your organisation for a set bandwidth each week. He makes the high-impact technology decisions with you and represents them on every floor of the organisation, from the boardroom to the engine room. PHOTO You get a strategic decision maker, not an operator lost in Sándor in conversation with a client, who has the weeds, with the experience of a seasoned architect at a their back to the camera fraction of the cost of a full-time hire. Decisions get made fpa-conversation.jpg earlier, velocity and time to market improve, and so does the bottom line. Our architect hits the ground running using our published maturity model to quickly access the most impactful areas to address. While that critical vendor decision is made for next quarter, we implement permanent improvements into your organizations decision model. This is enabled by our tech due diligence playbook. We assess your organization's maturity, consequently your capability to innovate through our model, derived from 15 years of digital projects and remarkable returning patterns over multiple industries. With regular check-ins, you get to steer to the most important areas, while our Principal Architect keeps you in the loop, in business language, what happens in the tech organization. “He listens to what the business is trying to achieve and turns it into practical technical choices - CTO” Take full self-assessment 18 Delivery-led DX aerelontech.hu/maturity-assessment
03 · THE ELITE TEAM DEPLOYED FOR YOU (DDX) Delivery-led DX in detail A dedicated Principal Architect with an adjustable team, for one quarter delivery. We run a combined team with your people for In the last month your leads take over the day-to- one quarter, in six two-week sprints with a day while ours shadow them. Your product working digital product, demoed for you, owner owns feature priority from day one. sponsors and stakeholders. You get real revenue and a project-hardened By the end of the third month the selected team to keep building on it. vertical is in production with real customers, usually first as a friends-and-family launch, from which scaling up is routine. < 1 month 1–3 months 3 months 1–2 months 1–2 years+ Revenue Discovery Scoping Delivery Hyper-care generating Light discovery run to During scoping, we Delivery engagement We stay in orbit for Your organization identify your top align on a ONE team strict cadence with hyper-care after runs and expands on needs, risks, gaps approach with the steering opportunities engagement finish so the output we built and define mitigation client and prepare all preset, final staffing our teams can together. strategies warranting prerequisites on signed Statement ensure seamless a 10x revenue target necessary to set up of Work and kick-off take-over and over cost base. the engagement for invites sent. upward trends for success. revenue. 1 6 100% 0 QUARTER TWO-WEEK IP OWNED BY YOU LICENCES OR SPRINTS LOCK-IN Learn more from our founder aerelontech.hu/engagement Delivery-led DX 19
04 · THE ENGAGEMENT How an engagement unfolds From slideware in your strategy deck to real revenue in four phases. 01 Discover A few calls over a few days. We review your tech landscape, talent pool and strategy initiatives and send you the gaps, the risks and how to mitigate them. The report is free, and you keep it whether or not you decide to go further with us. DAYS 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 Setup call Collect docs (RFP, tech, scope) Docs handed over Initial assessment Ask clarifications Analyse gaps, mitigations Send report Digest report, ask questions Go/no-go AerelonTech Client 02 Scope The phase that decides whether the rest works. In workshops and talent interviews under NDA we cut the scope to its core assumptions and pick the vertical that can reach production within a quarter. You receive a Letter of Proposal with the team, the delivery strategy and the commercial offer. WEEKS 2 4 6 8 Scoping workshop I Talent interviews Scoping workshop II Scoping and delivery strategy Offer Digest, questions and answers Decision & sign AerelonTech Client Discovery and scoping usually take a few weeks together, longer when the scope needs more calibration. Underinvesting in scoping leaves even the best teams exposed, and set up for failure to deliver. 20 Delivery-led DX
04 · THE ENGAGEMENT 03 Deliver One team for one quarter: six two-week sprints, working demos for your stakeholders, and steering together on frequent check-ins. Everything is deployed behind feature flags, so the launch becomes a business decision, not a technical one. SPRINT DAYS 4 6 8 10 12 14 Building & testing Refinement Design Review or demo Retro & planning Office day AerelonTech Together 04 Hypercare Our team rotates off gradually while your leads take the driving seat. A retainer keeps bandwidth available, with a one-hour check-in every two weeks, until your team runs on its own. WEEKS 2 4 6 8 10 12 Engagement Hypercare Bi-weekly check-in Bi-weekly check-in II Bi-weekly check-in III Bi-weekly check-in IV Long-tail AerelonTech Together You can engage with us at any phase (except hyper-care), e.g. right into delivery. However the scope must be well-defined and possibly a shorter learning phase is needed before we commit to the delivery together. Delivery-led DX 21
05 · APPROACH · CORE MODERNISATION Modernise the core without leaving it behind By 2025, six in ten core business systems in Japan were expected to be over twenty years old. Most still work, and most will stay. LIFT AND SHIFT KEEP EVOLVE Same code, new The COBOL core stays Small services beside it platform Decades of proven business rules Off the mainframe, onto the cloud New verticals at modern speed COBOL cores are not going away. They hold Either way, the question is no longer the core, decades of business rules that work, and but how new capabilities reach your customers rewriting them puts the whole bank at risk for while it keeps running. years without adding a yen of new revenue. Our answer combines two things you have Some banks go further and keep COBOL on already seen: the product unit that owns one purpose. They lift and shift their solutions off the vertical end to end (page 6), and a decoupled mainframe onto cloud and modern platforms, architecture with an adapter in front of every and their teams carry on developing in COBOL, system, the core included (page 14). now with modern tooling and pipelines. “The core is no longer the question. How fast you build beside it is.” Source: METI, DX Report: Overcoming the "2025 Digital Cliff" (September 2018). Core systems in use for 21 years or more: about 20% in 2015, projected about 60% by 2025. 22 Delivery-led DX
05 · APPROACH · CORE MODERNISATION An architecture built to evolve Put the two together and you get an evolutionary architecture: one that is never finished, and does not need to be. It is the architecture our Tech North Stars are built around. Heterogeneous by design. COBOL on the mainframe or in the cloud, Java and Python beside it, a managed service wherever one fits. Each part runs on what suits its job, and adapters keep the parts from knowing too much about each other. Adapt as you go. No five-year target picture to defend. Each vertical takes what it needs when it needs it, and functions move off the core only when it is safe and worth it. Micro-efficiency over macro-efficiency. A shared service looks efficient on a slide. In practice it grows into a slow, fragile block that every team waits for. We would rather duplicate a small, simple service than reuse it until nobody dares to change it. Rare skills on call. Our network includes a COBOL developer who has built more than twenty verticals beside COBOL cores, alongside batch, JCL and cloud seniors. “Two small services beat one that nobody dares to change.” Delivery-led DX 23
06 · DELIVERY IN THE AGE OF GENERATED CODE Who drives the coding agent (genAI)? Coding agents now do most of the groundwork. Senior judgement about what that work should be is the scarce part. JUDGEMENT DIRECTION GENERATION Senior experts Strategy and initiatives Coding agents Which assumption to test first What is worth building at all Throughput, at volume Typing the code was never the bottleneck of a Used well, genAI shortens the path from idea to successful product. The hard part is deciding prototype dramatically. A prototype is not a which assumption to test first and which one product, though. Taking one to production with would break the business case. real customers still needs the same judgement as before. Masters of a craft reach a goal with the least energy. Generative AI today is brute force: a It must not impact the digital product lifecycle necessary tool that needs careful aim, limited outside coding: genAI does not carry judgement, scope and serious oversight. nor logic. Most of your team uses genAI in some way or Testing and integration consists of code, yet the form, even if you don't know about it then just as most prone to misjudgement and pattern part of the shadow IT. Now the focus should be matching isn't helpful here. Planning and design on who is accountable for what it produced: the of a product is all about the judgement, the architecture it fits into, the data it consumes, volume of user stories and documentation does touches, and the defects it ships. In a bank, that not have a bearing on success. The thousands has to be a person with experience to say no. of micro-decisions your talent owns have. “GenAI revolutionized prototyping in software as 3D printing did for manufacturing. Still far from replacing experienced judgement.” 24 Delivery-led DX
06 · DELIVERY IN THE AGE OF GENERATED CODE GenAI with a senior at the wheel Generated code feels cheap momentarily, A parallel example of our approach: for a global success seems immediate. The costs arrive Japanese marketing group we built a human-in- later: the-loop workflow of ten analytical agents that cut weeks of strategy work to about four hours. Subsidised prices. Today's prices undercut the The client's experts stayed in control of quality, real cost, and nobody knows where they will and the architecture lets them change the model settle. with a configuration setting. Loss of ownership. A team that never did the Our stance is simple: AI with a senior at the reasoning cannot own the output, or fix it when it wheel, never replace juniors and entry levels, fails. augment cautiously, avoid when IP (intellectual Unclear rights. Who owns generated code, and property) matters. what it was learned from, is still being settled. Code was always cheap. The question isn't "can A larger attack surface. Every tool built without we build it?" Rather, "should we?" engineering discipline is new ground to secure, and defects rise with volume. Coding is about 17% of a digital product's lifetime cost +20% 100% +30% +10% +13% 40% +20% +7% Coding Testing and Planning and Build Coding Testing and Planning and Lifetime cost integration design integration design Run and evolve after launch 60% Sources: R. L. Glass, Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering (2002), fact 41: maintenance takes 40–80% of software cost, 60% on average. F. P. Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month (1975): coding is one sixth of the work, testing a half, planning a third; the same split is applied to maintenance. IDC (2025): developers spend 16% of their time on application development. Why generated code raises the later bill: E. Anderson, G. Parker and B. Tan, MIT Sloan Management Review (2025). Delivery-led DX 25
PARTNER SPOTLIGHT Partner spotlight: [Partner name] [One line on what the partner does, and where.] [Intro, ~40 words: what the partner does and for What they add to a delivery: [two or three whom.] concrete capsules, ~40 words.] [Why it matters on a one-quarter delivery, ~40 words.] 26 Delivery-led DX
ECOSYSTEM The ecosystem we build around We build with the platforms your organisation already trusts, or will. While we don't sell licences, we can help introduce new tools and stacks. Our rule: the platform serves the product, never the other way round. We design every vertical to run on what fits your bank today and to move when the facts change, so the architecture decisions stay yours. Mambu Thought Machine CLOUD CORE BANKING CLOUD-NATIVE CORE BANKING SaaS core for lending and deposits. New products are Vault Core defines products as code, so a new core composed from configuration, not custom code. can run beside the legacy one before it takes over. Oracle FLEXCUBE Claude · Anthropic UNIVERSAL CORE BANKING AI MODELS The established core at many incumbents. New Frontier models for agents and analysis, kept behind a verticals plug into it; no replacement needed. provider-agnostic layer. Retool Appsmith LOW-CODE INTERNAL TOOLS LOW-CODE INTERNAL TOOLS Back-office and operations screens on top of existing Open-source, self-hostable internal tools for teams APIs and databases, in days rather than months. whose data must stay inside the bank's own perimeter. AWS Microsoft Azure PUBLIC CLOUD PUBLIC CLOUD Tokyo and Osaka regions, with the security controls Japan East and West regions; the natural fit where Japanese banking supervisors expect. Microsoft 365 and Entra ID are already in place. None of the companies listed is a partner of AerelonTech, and none has endorsed this booklet. Product names and trademarks belong to their owners and appear only to describe the platforms we build with. Delivery-led DX 27
FAQ Questions we hear The questions leadership teams ask us most often. "Why should we trust a small company such as yours?" The company is young, but the people aren't juniors. Every senior in our network has delivered on a global stage, and our track record spans more than twenty projects on four continents. "You do not speak Japanese." We partner with your bilingual colleagues and when needed, Japanese partners and strategy firms. Additionally, we work in person when it matters, and a handful of people can cover every aspect today. "We only need to fill headcount." Then a recruiter or a large outsourcer is the better choice. Hire us for the strategic initiative that cannot, and must not fail. "Will speed compromise quality?" Your customers come first, and service quality is not negotiable. We trade scope for speed, never reliability, safety or security. "Can AI not just write our code we need?" It can write a lot of it. Someone senior still has to decide what is worth building, own the result, and answer for its cost, IP and patent rights and risks associated with each line. "Are you not competing with our vendors and partners?" No. We grow the business that runs on their products and services, which means more work for them, not less. That is why they want us as a partner. "We can buy the software we need for less." You can, and often you should. But a purchase on its own does not reach your bottom line. Software earns money only once it is in front of customers who use it, or in the hands of your talent utilizing it. 28 Delivery-led DX
SELF-CHECK · 2 MINUTES Digital maturity self-check Five statements, one for each dimension of our maturity model. Tick the level your organisation works at today, not the one in the strategy. 1 2 3 4 5 Firefighting Contained Predictable Compounding Advantage DE L I V E RY & F L O W A change we agree on today reaches a customer predictably, without heroics. ARCHI T E CT URE & T E CHNI CAL HE AL T H We can change one part of the system without holding our breath. DAT A & DE CI S I O NS A decision we make this quarter rests on figures we all agree are right. WAY S O F WO RKI NG If two named people were away for a month, the work would carry on. L E A D E R S H I P & I N V E S T ME N T Technology spend is argued in business terms, not defended as a cost line. 1 Firefighting 2 Contained 3 Predictable 4 Compounding 5 Advantage Reactive. No bandwidth Known fixes, but Business as usual, with Every action improves Recognised as an edge left to improve. problems recur. buffer. things for good. over peers. A tick in 1 or 2 marks where one delivery-led quarter pays back first. Level 3 is already a strong organisation. The full assessment covers 29 capabilities and compares you with leaders and laggards. Free; nothing is sent until you choose. aerelontech.hu/maturity-assessment Delivery-led DX 29
START HERE Three ways to start From an anticipated need, through a current challenge, to crystallised requirements, you can engage with us at any point in your project lifecycle. 01 Let's connect Get introduced before you need us, and we will be ready when your project materialises. Write to sandor@aerelontech.hu. 02 Book a discovery call Need a senior architect now? Book the next free slot. You leave with your top risks and gaps on one page, whether or not we go further. 03 Send your RFQ or RFP Put us straight into your procurement process. We start from your existing requirements and reply with a Letter of Proposal. Not ready to talk yet? Take the self-check on the previous page, or start with an off-the-shelf Tech North Star. 30 Delivery-led DX
ABOUT About AerelonTech AerelonTech is a boutique consultancy for delivery-led digital transformation, headquartered in Hungary and focused on banking and finance in Japan and globally. We bring senior Central European engineering talent into one team with yours, to put revenue-generating digital products in front of real customers. Delivery-led DX, 2027 Edition. Written and designed by AerelonTech. Set in Arial. Printed in Japan. The maturity model on page 29 is published under CC BY 4.0. © 2027 AerelonTech Kft. All rights reserved.
AERELONTECH Start with one quarter. One vertical. One combined team with your own people. Real customers in under three months, and the revenue engine you own. TALK TO THE FOUNDER Sándor Nagy Founder & Principal Architect sandor@aerelontech.hu aerelontech.hu linkedin.com/in/sandor-nagy-alex