Adidas modernizing ERP system with new cloud platform
A global athletic brand is migrating its enterprise infrastructure to an upgraded cloud environment.
Adidas AG has selected Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its preferred cloud provider for SAP workloads. As a result, Adidas will migrate its SAP environment to AWS and implement an SAP S/4HANA platform. By running these SAP workloads in the cloud, Adidas intends to digitize core business processes across its value chain to provide better consumer experiences, become a more data-driven business, and support new business models such as direct-to-consumer.
The new cloud-based ERP system will also support the company’s physical sales channel by enabling the integration of SAP environments with AWS capabilities, such as machine learning and analytics, to streamline supply chain, inventory, and merchandising operations for retail stores around the world. By creating a cloud-based consumer experience, Adidas can offer personalized discounts, early access to new releases and collaborations, priority consumer service, and the ability to personalize experiences and offers.
Another global athletic brand, Under Armour, also recently deployed Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its preferred cloud provider for SAP. The company completed the migration of its SAP environments to AWS earlier this year, in a similar effort to provide a foundation for improving performance and visibility across its design, merchandising, planning, manufacturing, supply chain, and sales distribution channels.
Adidas also plans to build a cloud-based data lake on AWS to gain visibility across its enterprise. In addition, the company will utilize AWS machine learning capabilities, such as Amazon SageMaker, to better predict seasonal demand for products to ensure the right product is available at a specific warehouse or retail store at the right time to increase customer satisfaction.
Furthermore, Adidas will also apply Amazon SageMaker to provide personalized online products and fit recommendations. Using high-performance computing capabilities of AWS, Adidas is able to run complex workloads simultaneously for its global design teams to modernize 3D design capabilities at scale.
AWS will also enable Adidas to create “digital twins,” virtual representation of its product lines, that the company hopes will speed up the design and creation process, reduce costs, and allow for greater design collaboration with consumers and designers. And AWS sustainability programs will help Adidas to reduce the environmental impact of its cloud usage.
“We want to drive innovation across our business, which includes everything from how we design our products to how we engage with the consumers who buy them. By committing to cloud infrastructure, we have the scalability and elasticity we need to handle the seasonality of our business during peak demand, and support the projected growth in our e-commerce business in the years to come,” said Markus Rautert, senior VP, technology enablement at Adidas AG. “Deploying SAP environments on AWS isn’t just about transforming our technology, it’s about transforming business opportunities and using AWS’s wide range of cloud capabilities to create efficiencies and bring us closer to consumers.”
“We are seeing a fundamental change in how consumer goods companies run their technology infrastructures. Adidas joins the thousands of customers that run SAP on AWS, leveraging AWS’s reliable and scalable global infrastructure and unmatched SAP experience to provide key insights, drive innovation, and support the creation of new products and services,” said Greg Pearson, VP of worldwide commercial sales at Amazon Web Services Inc. “We look forward to working with Adidas on its SAP and digital transformation strategies that will help speed the introduction of new cloud-based customer experiences like its mobile app, tailored shopping, and personalized offers that deepen the consumer relationship.”