Hilti future-proofs its IT environment using RISE with SAP on Azure

Building a better future for its business and industry

Hilti’s tools and consumables, including hammer drills, fasteners, nails, and screws, are found on job sites in more than 100 countries. Although its brand focuses mainly on physical products, the company also strives to digitalize the construction industry through end-to-end technology solutions, a strategy it employs with its own systems. It’s already taken a leadership role across its industry, being one of the first SAP customers to introduce a 24 terabyte (TB) virtual machine to support its large-scale SAP S/4HANA deployment.

Continuing that momentum, Hilti wanted to be one of the first adopters of the RISE with SAP offering, which brings project management, technical migration, and premium engagement services together in a single contract. The accelerated, on-demand business transformation solution was the perfect match to help evolve the company’s massive SAP landscape, which serves as the backbone of the company’s transactional business.

Whether a customer is making a purchase or inquiring about one, their satisfaction relies on Hilti’s SAP landscape, particularly its S/4HANA implementation, working on demand and at scale. Account managers who work in the field use SAP solutions to place orders and look up information, while back-office teams like finance and sales manage everything from accounting to printing shipping labels. “We wanted a future-proof technological environment in a modern datacenter with far less energy consumption than our own and more resilient than our current setup,” explains Dr. Andreas Weiner, RISE Program Manager and Head of Strategic IT Projects at Hilti.

The IT team recommended moving Hilti’s on-premises SAP landscape to the cloud as quickly as possible using RISE with SAP and adding new services along the way. The final piece of the puzzle was selecting the best infrastructure platform to host the RISE with SAP solution and support its growth plans. “We firmly believe a professional cloud supplier and partner can run our services better than we can,” says Dr. Christoph Baeck, Head of IT Platforms at Hilti.

The company had a strong history with Azure since first onboarding cloud services on the client side of its business in 2015. Enjoying clear value almost immediately, Hilti was already issuing all of its new internal workloads in Azure rather than on-premises by 2016, marking a clear cloud-first strategy from then on. As it prepared for the RISE with SAP migration, Hilti evaluated a target architecture proposed by SAP on each of the major cloud service providers. Azure again came out on top as the premier cloud provider for its RISE with SAP implementation. “Our recommendation to our CEO and CIO boiled down to Microsoft having the most suitable offer and being SAP’s longest-standing partner,” says Dr. Weiner. “Additionally, sustainability is increasingly becoming relevant, and Microsoft’s sustainability recognition from EcoVadis differentiated it from the rest.”

Combining the best of Microsoft and SAP to meet ambitious goals and launch new programs

With access to market-leading capabilities from both Microsoft and SAP, Hilti achieved several ambitious goals for its migration to RISE with SAP on Azure. These included increasing cybersecurity and resilience, addressing the life cycle of its major hardware investments and datacenter, and further exploring benefits it had started to gain from cloud computing over the years. “From the outset, our plan was to close our datacenter and move our SAP system landscape to the cloud,” says Dr. Weiner. “When RISE with SAP appeared as a one-stop solution, we knew we could move much faster by relying on the teams from SAP and Microsoft, which not only helped us build the solution and connect it to our other systems in Azure but also has experience with migrating large system landscapes and environments.”

Hilti carried out the RISE with SAP implementation between October 2021 and July 2022 and structured it in three waves for maximum impact with minimal disruption. In doing so, it was able to launch new programs in parallel with running on RISE with SAP and seamlessly drive improvements throughout the business. For example, Hilti recently introduced Nuron, an all-new, 22-volt power tool platform that unifies a wide range of tools in a single ecosystem. That launch, together with the requirements brought on by an SAP revenue account and recognition solution implementation, led to an increase in volume needs for its system landscape and was a key driver for the company to upgrade and scale up its S/4HANA deployment from 12 TB to 24 TB. “We needed that capacity and space to continue supporting our business without sacrificing any business developments, including Nuron and a revenue accounting and recognition solution,” says Dr. Weiner. “If we hadn’t scaled up, this would have had a significant business impact, so we’re happy we could do it in less than six months using RISE with SAP on Azure—in the middle of a global supply crisis, no less.”

Going beyond the initial migration to boost capacity and cybersecurity

By tapping into its direct relationship with Microsoft’s leadership and technical teams, including support from the Microsoft Global Black Belt team, Hilti managed to reach multiple milestones beyond the initial migration project. This rapid progress created immediate business impact that Hilti says it couldn’t have achieved in its own datacenter. ”RISE with SAP on Azure helped us move our experts and resources into areas where they can add the most value, which was a game-changer,” says Dr. Baeck.

Beyond RISE with SAP, one of Hilti’s goals is to upgrade its SAP landscape to the latest release every two years, keeping the environment highly safe and secure. Although the company doesn’t operate in a regulated industry, it’s proud to tap into Microsoft and SAP’s cybersecurity investments to address not only technical threats but threats to day-to-day reliability and resilience, giving peace of mind to its employees and customers.

RISE with SAP on Azure: Making things happen that Hilti never anticipated

When Hilti discovered RISE with SAP on Azure, it was confident that it was the right offering at the right time. “In 2018, our then-CEO asked when we planned to have SAP in the cloud, and we said it would probably be at least five years because we struggled with machine sizes, certifications, and so on,” says Dr. Weiner. “From a timing perspective, SAP offering RISE with SAP as a program where Microsoft was on board was a lucky coincidence. We wouldn’t have moved as fast or been as happy if it was another cloud services provider that we didn’t know as well.”

Since migrating to RISE with SAP on Azure, Hilti has expanded to more than 130 different Azure services, including Azure Firewall and Azure Storage, which deliver value-added capabilities to its existing environment. “We’re about to move everything that’s left in our on-premises datacenter to Azure, and with that, shut it down and make Azure our sole computing and disaster recovery environment for standard software,” says Dr. Baeck.

The company credits its outstanding success in the cloud to the people (SAP and Microsoft experts), the partnership (between SAP and Microsoft), and the project (RISE with SAP on Azure), all of which helped its IT team achieve even its most ambitious goals. “With RISE with SAP on Azure, Microsoft and SAP are acting as one team in difficult situations, and we’re benefitting from the full focus of two big players making things happen that we would have never anticipated could be possible,” says Dr. Weiner.

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