When Pick n Pay and Endoxa enquired about moving their workflow solution to Microsoft Azure, BUI was the one name that came up again and again. The migration (July 2021) went off without a hitch. And everyone involved can now sleep a lot easier in the knowledge that even in the event of a catastrophic failure, the entire system will be up and running again in 15 minutes.
For over a decade, retail supply chain workflow specialists Endoxa has enabled Pick n Pay to digitize many of its processes, including master data alignment, new product listings, and automating supply chain reporting. By automating key supply chain processes and making commercial transactions electronic, Endoxa’s software has “saved us lots of time and money” says Gary Lea, Group Executive Retail Finance at Pick n Pay. Endoxa and the electronic supply chain, he adds, have helped pave the way for the retailer’s incredible recent growth: in the last eight years, its total number of stores has more than doubled from 992 to 1994.
So integral is the workflow solution to Pick n Pay’s day-to-day operations, that the parties’ SLA requires Endoxa to be up 99.75% of the time. While the system has only ever gone offline once in over a decade, with demands like this it should come as no surprise that both parties were itching to move the system to the cloud. “Our system relies on very high resilience of data and uptime,” explains Endoxa director and Head of Software Development, Vlad Surducan. “Azure brings huge peace of mind.”
“Switching to Azure was critical for us,” adds Lea. “As a retailer, if you’re not moving to the cloud, you’re going to be left behind.”
