Business opportunity
A container shipping and logistics company with more than EUR 40 billion in annual revenue aims to enhance operational efficiencies and boost customer service levels through systems modernization.
The company saw an opportunity to reduce friction in its business processes and enable new AI-powered capabilities by modernizing its ERP landscape and moving it to the cloud. The right ERP modernization could reduce technical debt and generate cost savings in IT assets and operations, freeing up funds for investment in innovation. The company expected the effort to simplify and standardize its ERP systems, facilitating faster technical transformation in the future.
Technical challenge
With core finance systems running on SAP ECC 6.0, the logistics company was facing an end-of-support deadline. Its chosen modernization path was RISE with SAP, a transformation methodology based on migrating to SAP's cloud on Amazon Web Services (AWS). After the migration, the logistics company also planned to replace ECC with the latest SAP S/4HANA applications.
In addition to the challenge of migrating its large and complex SAP landscape, the logistics company needed to move ancillary technical services such as scheduling, printing and audit logs. These fall outside of the RISE scope but are vital elements. Given the mission-critical nature of the systems, it was imperative to minimize risk and potential business disruption.
Our solution
Together, the logistics company, Kyndryl and SAP developed a detailed plan to migrate 48 SAP systems to SAP RISE on AWS in three waves, while moving the supporting services outside the RISE scope to a separate AWS landing zone. Acting as lead migration partner under the SAP RISE brownfield migration model, Kyndryl coordinated the end-to-end technical migration with SAP Enterprise Cloud Services (ECS). The work included architecture workshops, proofs of concept, mock migrations, detailed cutover planning, system and data migration, and post-migration validation.
A structured governance model helped the teams manage the scale, complexity and interdependencies of the program. Consistent meetings helped active tracking of risks, assumptions, issues and dependencies to keep the logistics company, SAP, AWS and Kyndryl aligned throughout each migration wave. This approach also enabled Kyndryl to identify where the validated RISE bill of materials required adjustment—for example, additional CPU or memory for more demanding SAP components—and to coordinate changes with SAP.
Kyndryl also migrated ancillary services not covered by RISE, including scheduling, printing and audit logging, to a separate AWS landing zone. By coordinating the migration of the core SAP landscape and the surrounding technical services as a single program, Kyndryl supported the scheduled go-lives while minimizing disruption to business operations.
Following the migration, the logistics company selected Kyndryl to continue providing managed technical services and governance working with the logistics company and SAP to define the required services, establish a clear responsibility matrix and agree the necessary SLAs. This created a managed-services layer connecting SAP ECS with the additional services required to maintain continuity and quality of service in the post-migration environment.
Working alongside Accenture, Kyndryl is preparing the technical foundation for the future transformation to SAP S/4HANA. This includes introducing Kyndryl’s Clean Field approach to reduce custom code and enable continuous transformation, while allowing legacy source systems to be progressively decommissioned.
The power of partnership
As an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner, Kyndryl drew on its strategic relationship with AWS for the migration through the hyperscaler’s Rise with SAP program. The partners operated through a clearly defined delivery model: SAP provided and operated the RISE environment on AWS infrastructure, while Kyndryl acted as the migration and managed-services partner, executing the partner-led brownfield migration in collaboration with SAP Enterprise Cloud Services (ECS) and the customer.
Across the wider program, Kyndryl coordinated technical dependencies and time-sensitive activities with SAP ECS, AWS, Accenture and IBM.