From legacy complexity to Google-powered innovation

Editor’s note: Today’s post is by Syed Mohammad Mujeeb, CIO and Arsalan Mazhar, Head of Infrastructure, for JS Bank a prominent and rapidly growing midsize commercial bank in Pakistan with a strong national presence of over 293 branches. JS Bank, always at the forefront of technology, deployed a Google stack to modernize operations while maintaining security & compliance.

Snapshot:

JS Bank’s IT department, strained across 293 branches, was hindered by endpoint instability, a complex security stack, and a lack of device standardization. This reactive environment limited their capacity for innovation.

Through a strategic migration to a unified Google ecosystem—including ChromeOS, Google Workspace, and Google Cloud—the bank transformed its operations. The deployment of 1,500 Chromebooks resulted in a more reliable, secure, and manageable IT infrastructure. This shift cut device management time by 40% and halved daily support tickets, empowering the IT team to pivot from routine maintenance to strategic initiatives like digitization and AI integration.

• Reduced IT Burden: reduced device management time by 40%
• Daily support tickets were halved, freeing up IT time for strategic, value-added projects
• Nearly 90% endpoint standardization, creating a manageable and efficient IT architecture
• A simplified, powerful security posture with the built-in protection of ChromeOS and Google Workspace

At JS Bank, we pride ourselves as technology pioneers, always bringing new technology into banking. Our slogan, “Barhna Hai Aagey,” means we are always moving onward and upward. But a few years ago, our internal IT infrastructure was holding us back. We researched and evaluated different solutions, but found the combination of ChromeOS and Google Workspace, a perfect fit in today’s technology landscape which is surrounded by cyber threats. When we shifted to a unified Google stack, we paved the way for our future driven by AI, innovation, and operational excellence.

Before our transformation, our legacy solution was functional, but it was a constant struggle. Our IT team was spread thin across our 293 branches, dealing with a cumbersome setup that required numerous security tools, including antivirus, anti-malware, all layered on top of each other. Endpoints crashed frequently, and with a mixture of older devices and some devices running Ubuntu, we lacked the standardization needed for true efficiency and security. It was a reactive environment, and our team was spending too much time on basic fixes rather than driving innovation.

We decided to make a strategic change to align with our bank’s core mission of digitization, and that meant finding a partner with an end-to-end solution. We chose Google because we saw the value in their integrated ecosystem and anticipated the future convergence of public and private clouds. We deployed 1,500 Chromeboxes across branches and fully transitioned to Google Workspace.

Today, we have achieved nearly 90% standardization across our endpoints with Chromebooks and Chromeboxes, all deeply integrated with Google Workspace. This shift has led to significant improvements in security, IT management, and employee productivity. The built-in security features of the Google ecosystem provide peace of mind, especially during periods of heightened cybersecurity threats, as we feel that Google will inherently protect us from cyberattacks. This has simplified security protocols in branches, eliminating the need for multiple antivirus and anti-malware tools, giving our security team incredible peace of mind. Moreover, the lightweight nature of the Google solutions ensures applications are available from anywhere, anytime, and deployments in branches are simplified.

To strengthen security across all corporate devices, we made Chrome our required browser. This provides foundational protections like Safe Browsing to block malicious sites, browser reporting, and password reuse alerts. For 1,500 users, we adopted Chrome Enterprise Premium. This provides features like Zero-Trust enterprise security, centralized management, data loss prevention (DLP) to protect against accidental data loss, secure access to applications with context-aware access restrictions, and scans high-risk files.

With Google, our IT architecture is now manageable. The team’s focus has fundamentally shifted from putting out fires to supporting our customers and building value. We’ve seen a change in our own employees, too; the teams who once managed our legacy systems are now eager to work within the Google ecosystem. From an IT perspective, the results are remarkable: the team required to manage the ChromeOS environment has shrunk to 40%. Daily support tickets have been halved, freeing IT staff from hardware troubleshooting to focus on more strategic application support, enhancing their job satisfaction and career development. Our IT staff now enjoy less taxing weekends due to reduced work hours and a lighter operational burden.

Our "One Platform" vision comes to life

We are simplifying our IT architecture using Google's ecosystem to achieve our "One Platform" vision. As a Google shop, we've deployed Chromebooks enterprise-wide and unified user access with a "One Window" application and single sign-on. Our "One Data" platform uses an Elastic Search data lake on Google Cloud, now being connected to Google's LLMs. This integrated platform provides our complete AI toolkit—from Gemini and NotebookLM to upcoming Document and Vision AI. By exploring Vertex AI, we are on track to become the region's most technologically advanced bank by 2026.

Our journey involved significant internal change, but by trusting the process and our partners, we have built a foundation that is not only simpler and more secure but is also ready for the next wave of innovation. We are truly living our mission of moving onward and upward.