Amazon Web Services Inc. said today that the South African retail giant Pick n Pay Group has migrated its entire on-premises information technology infrastructure to its public cloud computing platform.

The company is holding it up as an example of the seamless transition to its cloud that’s enabled by its migration partner Lemongrass Consulting. Lemongrass is an AWS Premier Consulting Partner with competencies in both migration and SAP software. That expertise came in very helpful for Pick n Pay, which migrated the on-premises SAP environment that manages its entire business onto AWS, implementing a modern SAP HANA platform in the process.

Pick n Pay said that by moving to AWS, it will be able to streamline its business operations and modernize its supply chain network for individual stores. In addition, it hopes to create new digital customer experiences and expand its business.

As a result of the migration, Pick n Pay said, it’s now using multiple AWS cloud services, including its compute, storage, database, analytics and business intelligence offerings, to automate many of its day-to-day business operations, gather real-time insights and more. The retailer explained that by analyzing data in the cloud in real time, it can now forecast demand, identify customer patterns and improve its in-store and online shopping experiences.

Moreover, AWS allows it to scale the infrastructure resources it uses dynamically in response to demand. This elasticity ensures it can serve thousands of South African customers during its busiest periods. In addition, Pick n Pay said, AWS enables it to perform more efficient market tests and develop new products in a way that’s more efficient and cost-effective.

Pick n Pay Chief Information and Technology Officer Chris Shortt said the move to AWS is a game-changing strategy for the company. “The cloud will help us stay relevant and accessible in a high-volume, low-margin marketplace that demands efficiency above all else,” he said. “In addition, the new cloud-based business intelligence platform enables us to make even more data-driven decisions that can help us deliver lower prices and more value to our customers.”

Just as important is the new SAP environment. By modernizing its SAP workloads on AWS, Pick n Pay said, it’s better able to connect operations, sales, customer survey and loyalty data across its organization. That way, it can streamline its supply chain networks, forecast inventory and conduct detailed market analysis more effectively than before.

Pick n Pay took advantage of the Lemongrass platform, which comes with proven templates and patterns to help automate the migration of its SAP environment to AWS. The company also used AWS’ Application Migration Service to move 185 non-SAP workloads to the AWS cloud.

“Pick n Pay is the first South African retailer to join the thousands of customers that run SAP on AWS, using AWS’ reliable and scalable global infrastructure and proven SAP experience to provide key insights, drive innovation and support the creation of new products and services,” said Chris Erasmus, AWS’ South Africa country manager.

Photo: Pick n Pay Group