A Secure IT Future for Hilti with Microsoft Azure and RISE with SAP
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Key Takeaways
⇨ Hilti successfully migrated to RISE with SAP on Azure, significantly enhancing cybersecurity, resilience, and cloud computing benefits while closing its datacenter.
⇨ Hilti leveraged its direct relationships with Microsoft's leadership and technical teams, including FastTrack for Azure and the Microsoft Global Black Belt team, to achieve significant milestones beyond its initial migration to the cloud.
⇨ This move to RISE with SAP on Azure allowed Hilti to reallocate its experts and resources more effectively, creating immediate business impacts that would not have been possible with its own datacenter infrastructure.
RISE with SAP is a managed service offering that many SAP customers are choosing to streamline and expedite their adoption of SAP technologies and cloud integration. Included in the RISE with SAP suite of services, customers have the flexibility to select their preferred cloud service provider. One of the choices that organizations have is Microsoft’s Azure ecosystem that provides comprehensive support at every stage of an organization’s migration journey. For Hilti, challenges related to machine sizes and certifications had suggested a cloud migration for SAP would take much longer. However, the introduction of RISE with SAP and Microsoft’s involvement, facilitated a quicker and seamless transition compared to other potential cloud services providers.
Hilti, a leading supplier for the construction industry, successfully migrated to RISE with SAP on Azure, significantly enhancing cybersecurity, resilience, and cloud computing benefits while closing its datacenter. The streamlined migration enabled by Microsoft and SAP’s expertise facilitated integration and migration of extensive system landscapes. Between October 2021 and July 2022, Hilti structured its migration in three phases to minimize disruption and concurrently launch new initiatives, including the Nuron platform—a 22-volt power tool ecosystem. This strategic upgrade, driven by increased system demands from new programs and a revenue accounting solution, led Hilti to double its SAP S/4HANA capacity from 12 TB to 24 TB in under six months, ensuring continued business support and development even amid a global supply crisis.
Hilti leveraged its direct relationships with Microsoft’s leadership and technical teams, including FastTrack for Azure and the Microsoft Global Black Belt team, to achieve significant milestones beyond its initial migration to the cloud. This move to RISE with SAP on Azure allowed Hilti to reallocate its experts and resources more effectively, creating immediate business impacts that would not have been possible with its own datacenter infrastructure. The company also set a goal to upgrade its SAP landscape every two years to ensure the system remains secure and resilient. This is part of their strategy to utilize Microsoft and SAP’s cybersecurity advancements to protect against technical and operational threats, thus providing peace of mind to both employees and customers.
Following the migration, Hilti expanded its use of Azure, employing over 130 different services such as Azure Firewall and Azure Storage, which enhanced its operational capabilities. The company is poised to close its on-premises datacenter and fully transition to Azure, making it their exclusive computing and disaster recovery platform.
Hilti attributes its successful cloud transition to the collaboration between SAP and Microsoft, highlighting the importance of their partnership and expert support in achieving complex IT goals. This synergy has allowed Hilti to tackle challenges and achieve outcomes that were previously deemed unattainable.
