It’s not a question of »if« a company should move to the cloud – it’s how quickly can they make the change.

There are many factors to consider when migrating to the cloud such as choosing the right provider, the level of service, the type of cloud, and the implementation strategy.

You can use 50 people to build a house, or you can redesign the way you work so that only the right people are needed. This is the approach that Zoi takes during a cloud migration project – efficiency over brute force. 

It is rare to find something that is perfect “out-of-the-box” which is why we like to customize apps for customers to give them a better fit. 

At a quick glance, the cloud might seem costly because of high subscription fees, however, the total cost of ownership is often lower than owning and managing servers.

MAINTAINING A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN A FAST-PACED WORLD

The world is changing faster and becoming more competitive every day. Maintaining a competitive advantage in this fast-paced world is a multifaceted challenge that involves not only managing the present but also keeping an eye on the future. In order to remain competitive, it is important for companies to embrace change by being flexible and agile, while maintaining a sustainable and cost-effective environment that still delivers a high degree of value. Many companies are using digitalization strategies to help them cope with these challenges. One of the leading digitalization strategies is moving business operations to the cloud, as this provides the perfect platform for digital transformation. Some benefits of the cloud can be seen below.

Kärcher is digital pioneer and has a history of embracing the latest technology and adapting its workforce accordingly. Therefore it was no surprise that the company was eager to move its business operations to the flexible and agile cloud platform.

MIGRATING BUSINESS OPERATIONS TO THE CLOUD

There are many factors to consider when migrating to the cloud such as choosing the right provider, the level of service, the type of cloud, and the implementation strategy. For many companies, this specialized knowledge does not exist internally which is why it is common to seek the help of external consultants, such as Zoi. At Zoi, we have been cloud native since our inception in 2012 and have been helping companies implement cloud solutions ever since. 

Kärcher chose to work with Zoi because of their cloud first mindset and successful history of helping to implement digital transformation. 

DELIVERING THE RIGHT SOLUTION AND PATHWAY

Even if the goal of cloud migration is the same, there is no standard solution. This is because every company’s requirements are different. In order to meet the individual requirements of our customers, we at Zoi do not apply any “out-of-the-box” approaches that generate uniform migration paths. In fact, the opposite is true! 

We worked together with Kärcher to develop a custom migration roadmap with different scenarios depending on the application to be migrated. 

The first step in the migration process was to assess and prioritize all the existing applications. One of the important opportunities when moving to the cloud is right-sizing the payload. This means two things. First, we help the customer to determine what they really need so that they are not overprovisioned and paying for unnecessary things. Second, right-sizing helps to reduce the amount of data to be transferred making things cheaper and easier. 

A good analogy is: You can use 50 people to build a house, or you can redesign the way you work so that only the right people are needed. This is the approach that Zoi takes during a cloud migration project – efficiency over brute force. 

Existing applications were prioritized into 3 categories:

1. Migrate
2. Do not migrate
3. Retire / Decommission 

The first category (Migrate) follows a more involved route to the cloud, while the remaining two were either retained in their current state (Do not migrate) or removed entirely (Retire / Decommissioned). 

The next step was migrating the apps to the cloud by placing them in one of 4 further categories: 

1. Re-platforming (Lift & Reshape)
2. Re-hosting (Lift & Shift)
3. Re-purchasing (Drop & Shop) 
4. Re-factoring (Re-write & Decouple)

These 4 categories use a mixture of manual and automated migration tools. It is rare to find something that is perfect “out-of-the-box” which is why we like to customize apps for customers to give them a better fit. 

Migrating apps to the cloud is just the beginning. Equally important are the validation, transition, and implementation steps. Firstly, security is extremely important for Zoi and Kärcher, therefore a comprehensive security assessment and functional validation were performed to ensure all necessary precautions were taken when migrating apps. Secondly, transitioning away from legacy systems requires significant change management. When introducing new systems employees often experience a type of “withdrawal” from the legacy system. Managing employee expectations and easing the transition to the cloud is very important and something Zoi helped Kärcher with. The last step in the process is implementing the cloud, which means a full launch of the new system. 

BENEFITS BY THE NUMBERS



Kärcher’s move to the cloud took seven months from planning to implementation. After conducting a migration readiness assessment and prioritizing the different apps at Kärcher it was determined that 10 % of apps could go directly through re-hosting (Lift & Shift) and the remaining 90 % would have to be rebuilt, re-platformed, and modernized (right-sized) for the cloud. 

Nearly 100 apps, from software asset management to warehouse control and manufacturing execution systems were migrated to the cloud over the 7-month project duration. This accounted for approximately 70 % of applications at Kärcher. In addition, 140 physical servers were converted to virtual systems, 70 on-site databases were moved to managed services in the cloud, and 170 TB of raw data was moved to a virtualized environment. 

TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP: AN IMPORTANT DECIDING FACTOR



Cost-effectiveness is particularly important since many decision-makers in companies often look at digital transformation through a cost-focused lens. At a quick glance, the cloud might seem costly because of high subscription fees, however, the total cost of ownership is often lower than owning and managing servers. 

By migrating to the cloud, Kärcher was able to realize a cost reduction of 20 % compared to their previous server and data center setup. The cost reduction mainly came from re-platforming (SQL to RDS), right-sizing of apps, and less overhead (e.g. license management). 

The cloud has promoted stability, flexibility, cost-efficiency, transparency, agility, and much more at Kärcher. Furthermore, the cloud was already put to the test by the Covid-19 pandemic when thousands of employees at Kärcher were forced to move suddenly and simultaneously to the home office. The cloud helped them to continue working effectively and collaborate on work remotely – something that would have been particularly challenging otherwise. The cloud provides a competitive advantage in a fast-paced world and is helping to drive digital transformation at Kärcher. There has never been a better time to move to the cloud. 

ABOUT KÄRCHER

Alfred Kärcher GmbH & Co. KG is headquartered in Winnenden, Germany, and has 150 subsidiaries in 78 countries. They are the world's leading supplier of cleaning technology and are probably best known for their high-pressure cleaners and range of products and services for professional cleaning of offices, hotels, and supermarkets. The family-owned company employs around 14,400 people and can look back on a company history spanning more than 85 years.

Some of the benefits of adopting a cloud first mindset.

Depending on how apps are prioritized, they will take a different migration route. 

The total cost of ownership of the cloud is often lower than self-maintained server systems.