This past year has shown us how important it is to be ready for the unexpected. We spent a lot of time talking with customers, and it was rewarding to hear their stories of using technology to respond quickly to changing business needs. This was especially true for those who were well down the path of digital transformation. For example, Coats was an early mover to the cloud and was able to adapt quickly to the increased demand for thread to make the world’s personal protective equipment (PPE). In April, Carhartt shifted US production to manufacture medical gowns and masks, and with the help of Microsoft Teams, was able to continue its work to migrate mission-critical business applications to SAP S/4HANA on Microsoft Azure.
Another great example is Walgreens Boots Alliance. They had planned to start a migration of their massive 100 TB SAP HANA database in March, just as the pandemic began. Thanks to the use of Microsoft Teams and the well-defined reference architectures and programs we’ve built with SAP as part of the Embrace initiative, the migration was completed successfully in less than 20 hours. Walgreens Boots Alliance is now the largest SAP S/4HANA scale-out deployment on Azure. They have been able to adapt quickly to give customers the options they need for mobile shopping, curbside pickup, and new pharmacy services. For so many collaboration projects like these SAP migrations, Microsoft Teams has proven essential.
These mission-critical SAP applications are the lifeblood of many organizations, and customers are increasingly moving them to the cloud to gain agility and resilience, and to transform with a cloud platform that supports greater data insights and future innovation. Today we are announcing an extensive expansion of our endorsed cloud partnership with SAP to deliver new integration of Microsoft Azure and Teams across SAP business solutions.