Woolworths has completed its migration to Microsoft Azure in just under two years since the grocery giant first announced its plans to do so.

Under the eight-month project, Microsoft assisted Woolworths with migrating its SAP mission-critical applications and platforms, including SAP ERP and SAP Cloud platform, into Azure. Specifically, this consisted of transitioning more than 20 SAP applications, 75 terabytes of data, 135 database servers, and 435 application servers that underpin the group's retail business, supply chain, corporate finance, and enterprise support teams.

According to Microsoft, Woolworths used SAP's Near Zero Downtime service, which resulted in the potential outage window being reduced from a few days to 17 hours. Alongside the cloud migration, Woolworths took the opportunity to redesign its disaster recovery capability, compressed the size of its data by half, and upgraded its operating system and database.

Woolworths CIO John Hunt said the project sets the retailer up for ongoing ERP modernisation and its eventual plans to move to SAP S/4 HANA on Azure.

"At Woolworths Group, we're leveraging the cloud to drive innovation and improve speed to market. Our cloud transformation is a key enabler for delivering superior customer and team experiences across our stores and digital channels," he said.

"As part of this cloud transformation, the SAP migration to Azure is another milestone on our roadmap in providing technology solutions for the ever-changing digital landscape. TCS, Microsoft and SAP have been long-standing partners of ours and, given their in-depth understanding of Woolworths and expertise in cloud technologies, we are pleased to have partnered with them on this strategic initiative."

Meanwhile, rival Coles has partnered with Relex to use a cloud-based AI platform to automate and forecast stock replenishment across its 931 liquor stores nationally, as well as five distribution centres that service its liquor brands.

It's the same technology that Coles has been using to replenish its fresh produce stock across more than 850 supermarkets nationally.

"Relex has a proven track record of helping retailers master the intricacies of each retail category's specific inventory management needs," Coles Liquor transformation and supply chain general manager Genevieve Hawkins said.

"This is an exciting and important investment for Coles Liquor, which will materially improve our ability to have the right stock in the right place for suppliers, shops, and customers."

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