Southwire: Powering endless digital possibilities with SAP cloud migration
About Southwire
As one of the leading manufacturers of wire and cable used in the transmission and distribution of electricity, Southwire aids the delivery of power to millions of people worldwide.
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About Nimbl
As part of the Global Premium boutique, NIMBL focuses on helping clients achieve business transformation through its 1,800 consultants.
With SAP on Google Cloud, Southwire improves performance, reliability, security, and scalability of its critical SAP environment while setting a foundation for digital innovation.
Google Cloud results
- Reduces risk of cloud migration with support from the Google Cloud Acceleration Program
- Eliminates downtime to keep 30+ factories running 24/7
- Jumpstarts digital transformation initiatives
- Creates future opportunities for Southwire with AI/ML capabilities
Migration in 22 hours with zero impact on revenue
Whether they know it or not, people around the world are impacted by building wire and utility cables every day. Southwire is one of the world’s leading developers, manufacturers, and suppliers of these vital components. Nearly one in two new homes built in the United States contain Southwire wire.
One of the reasons that Southwire has maintained its position as an industry leader for over 70 years has been its commitment to continual improvement. SAP solutions play an important role in this drive for innovation, as it provides the intelligence and efficiency that Southwire needs to improve products, processes, and service. Dan Stuart, Senior Vice President of IT Services, decided that the company was ready to take the next steps in innovation: promoting digital transformation by upgrading the SAP footprint and bringing systems to the cloud.
“Our experience running SAP on Google Cloud has been overwhelmingly positive. Not only is our SAP on Google Cloud environment more flexible, scalable, and secure, but it also puts us on the right track for a digital future.”
—Dan Stuart, Senior Vice President of IT Services, Southwire“Getting into the cloud positions us to accelerate our digital transformation,” says Stuart. “It allows us to turn up capacity or add new services as needed, without spending time and resources worrying about the infrastructure. While we could have done the SAP upgrades on-prem, it made more sense long term to make the switch to the cloud now and be ready for the future.”
Southwire began looking for a cloud platform that could serve as a strong foundation for their SAP environment while supporting new technologies and innovations for years to come. The company chose Google Cloud for its flexibility, scalability, and security.
“As part of the board of directors for ASUG, the world’s largest SAP user group, I hear a lot of talk about SAP deployments,” says Stuart. “Like the stories I’ve heard, our experience running SAP on Google Cloud has been overwhelmingly positive. I am confident that working with Google Cloud not only gives us great SAP performance, but also puts us on the right track for a digital future.”
“The white-glove approach to service from Google Cloud and NIMBL fits well into our own culture of putting customers first. You could tell that the Google Cloud and NIMBL teams were determined to see us succeed.”
—Dan Stuart, Senior Vice President of IT Services, SouthwirePushing digital transformation
Southwire’s initial push to digital transformation within ITS was built on four central pillars. First, the company wanted to upgrade to Enhancement Package 8 for SAP ECC to take advantage of the latest advanced functionalities available for this critical ERP system. Second, Southwire aimed to deploy SAP Business Warehouse on SAP HANA to accelerate vital reporting for all business users. Third, the company wanted to upgrade to the latest version of SAP Process Orchestration—an essential component that touches every manufacturing interface in all Southwire facilities. The fourth and most significant part of the digital transformation plan involved migrating these three key SAP applications to Google Cloud. This could not have been done without the efforts of all Southwire employees, “One Southwire.”
While Southwire looked at different cloud providers, Stuart was impressed by the depth of the Google Cloud and SAP partnership. Some at Southwire were hesitant about making significant SAP updates and attempting cloud migration simultaneously. The Cloud Acceleration Program (CAP) helped reassure Southwire that Google Cloud was the right choice through expert support that reduced the risks of migration.
To support the transformation, Southwire worked with technology partner NIMBL. NIMBL supported the full migration, including building a project plan around implementation, helping with the testing process, and providing key strategic advice around best practices, configurations, and risk mitigation strategies.
“The white-glove approach to service from Google Cloud and NIMBL fits well into our own culture of putting customers first,” says Stuart. “You could tell that the Google Cloud and NIMBL teams were determined to see us succeed.”
“A critical success factor for a complex project like this is the need to plan for and minimize major disruption to the business. Post go-live we were successful in that we did not experience any major issues to the business, which is a significant accomplishment.”
—Joe Schleupner, Senior Director of ITS Planning and Integration - PMO, SouthwireSignificantly reduced downtime with smart infrastructure
Southwire has more than 30 manufacturing facilities across the United States running 24/7 to keep up with demand. Any downtime directly affects productivity and revenue. With help from Google Cloud and NIMBL, Southwire completed the SAP migration to Google Cloud over a planned maintenance weekend.
“Just moving to the cloud was quite a feat because we were dealing with so much data, but in total the three SAP systems were down for only 22 hours,” says Joe Schleupner, Senior Director of ITS Planning and Integration - PMO. “And to be honest, half of that time was spent testing our systems. We could have completed the migration in half the time if we weren’t being so cautious. But there were zero issues or delays—it just worked.”
Even after migrating, Southwire discovered that making changes to the system was fast, easy, and resulted in no downtime. Certain system changes which normally involved taking down SAP for at least an hour now created no interruptions to services.
“We were delighted to see that it was business as usual at Southwire for our SAP system in the cloud on day 1,” says Schleupner.
In addition to significantly reduced downtime, running SAP on Google Cloud improves security. Southwire can rest assured that the built-in comprehensive cloud security will keep the SAP environment highly secure.
“A critical success factor for a complex project like this is the need to plan for and minimize major disruption to the business. Post go-live we were successful in that we did not experience any major issues to the business, which is a significant accomplishment,” says Schleupner.
Endless digital possibilities
Migrating the SAP environment to Google Cloud does more than improve performance of business-critical applications. It also adds game-changing technologies that prepare Southwire for a digital future.
“Operating on Google Cloud is a great way to jumpstart our technological roadmap in many ways,” says Stuart. “While we’re currently only using Compute Engine, what I like about Google Cloud is that it has so many solutions available. When we’re ready to move forward with new initiatives, Google Cloud has the tools to support our success.”
Southwire is in the middle of planning a disaster recovery environment that will boost business continuity. Stuart also recognized the opportunity to leverage Google with connected-factory and factory-automation initiatives, this opens up the possibilities of AI/ML capabilities within Google Cloud.
“Now that we have a foundation built on Google Cloud and supported by NIMBL, we can move faster and leverage our current investment in new ways,” says Stuart. “There’s endless possibilities with Google Cloud. We just need to decide where we want to go.”
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Southwire
As one of the leading manufacturers of wire and cable used in the transmission and distribution of electricity, Southwire aids the delivery of power to millions of people worldwide.
About Nimbl
As part of the Global Premium boutique, NIMBL focuses on helping clients achieve business transformation through its 1,800 consultants.