Since the 1990s, MONY Group (formerly Moneysupermarket Group) has been a household name in the UK, helping families save an estimated £2.8bn on bills. The group has grown significantly through acquisitions, bringing powerhouse brands like MoneySuperMarket, MoneySavingExpert, Quidco, and Decision Tech under one roof.
While this growth expanded their market reach, it created a complex web of "engineering sprawl." Jonty Bale, Head of Technology at MONY Group, managed a diverse estate that included legacy systems alongside modern stacks. "We’ve acquired about four different platforms over the past 15 years, with 100s of systems" Jonty explains.
This led to a landscape where latent knowledge was the only way to get things done. Engineers had to know who to ask to find out how a service worked or even that it existed. To modernise this estate and prepare for an AI-driven future, MONY Group needed a platform that could standardise their tooling across AWS and Google Cloud without requiring an internal build.
By choosing Cortex, MONY Group has overhauled its engineering culture in several ways. These changes have helped the organisation move at a faster pace while maintaining the highest standards of security and governance.
Accelerated output. Teams are moving at a faster pace now that information barriers have been removed.
Sprawl reduction. The group consolidated seven source control platforms into one.
Repository consolidation. The team reduced approximately 3,250 repositories to 650 active services.
Self-serve culture. Engineers don't have to rely on latent information.
The challenge: Untangling engineering sprawl and hidden knowledge
Managing a large, complex tech estate is like renovating a historic building while people are still living in it. You keep finding wires that don't seem to lead anywhere. For Jonty, the biggest hurdle was information discovery.
"It’s really hard in any organisation to understand what you’ve got," Jonty says. "It relies on huge amounts of latent knowledge from engineers or engineering leaders to make effective decisions."
This visibility gap caused tangible business costs and meant teams could waste cycles resolving the same problem multiple times. The extent of what Jonty calls ‘zombie infrastructure’ was enormous. Jonty also found that the organisation was managing thousands of different code repositories, some of which were effectively abandoned. This sprawl made it difficult for leadership to accurately direct investments or maintain systems efficiently.
The solution: A single system of record for the AI era
MONY Group used Cortex to create a system of record for their entire engineering estate. This enabled them to map services, resources, and ownership across their hybrid cloud environment (AWS for applications and Google Cloud for data).
Critically, Cortex helped close the loop between security operations and engineering teams. By driving initiatives through Cortex, abstract goals like, responding to open-source software vulnerabilities, became concrete actions for service owners.
"It has allowed us to close the loop between what we're doing, what security operations teams are doing, and what the engineering teams are doing themselves."
Jonty Bale — Head of Technology, MONY Group
The results: Increasing productivity and democratising knowledge
By taking the friction out of finding information, MONY Group now moves faster with more informed decision making.
More empowered engineers. New hires can now explore the estate without relying on tenured staff. This self-serve model reduced onboarding friction significantly.
Stronger team collaboration. The unified data planes closed the gap between security and engineering. Every team now works from the same live data to maintain standards.
Focused technical investment. Leadership now focuses resources on the 650 active services that drive value.
Confidence in scaling for AI. The new governance layer ensures the organisation can adopt AI without repeating past sprawl.
"It's democratising engineering knowledge. Having the ability to go, 'What is this thing? Who is it? Who can I go and talk to about it?' is the most useful thing for us."
Jonty Bale — Head of Technology, MONY Group
Clearing legacy systems enabled the team to start driving innovation. A unified data plane now bridges the gap between security and engineering, ensuring that every investment decision rests on live data.
As we've seen at some of the most AI-forward organisations, this stability is the prerequisite for AI excellence. Cortex has enabled MONY Group to unlock its culture of governance and readiness. Jonty says that this new visibility supports the organisation’s readiness to manage the upcoming surge of AI-generated software.
"Generative AI is making the raw materials of software engineering cheaper. It's not going to put software engineers out of a job. It just means there's going to be a whole lot more software. That’s going to be a real challenge, and Cortex helps us manage that sprawl."
Jonty Bale — Head of Technology, MONY Group.
Ready to tame engineering sprawl and prepare for the AI era? Book a demo to see how Cortex helps teams like MONY Group standardise their estate and drive productivity.
