Komatsu and T-Systems in South Africa extend partnership – sign multi-million rand cloud computing deal
28 November 2011
Global construction, machinery, mining and equipment manufacturer, Komatsu Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd has signed a multi-million rand deal to migrate its SAP environment to T-Systems private hosted cloud computing service in South Africa.
The migration to T-Systems’ cloud offering will see Komatsu benefit from an improved service across a virtualised and standardised platform that scales to meet the company’s ICT needs in a flexible, pay-per-use environment.
Additionally, the company will benefit from a hosted service that meets the highest global standards for availability and backup, disaster recovery and security. Importantly, the move mitigates the under-utilisation of assets.
Headquartered in Isando, Johannesburg Komatsu has for the last five years used T-Systems as an outsourced hosting partner for its enterprise-wide SAP environment. Moving to the cloud was therefore a natural evolution of the companies’ relationship, underpinned by T-Systems’ globally-recognised cloud computing expertise.
Comments Mike Blom, Managing Director of Komatsu Southern Africa: “Over the years our relationship had gone from strength-to-strength. Our next step was to obtain an even higher level of service but at a lower cost. This was a key decision factor for us.
“T-Systems’ cloud computing service met this requirement, enabling us to improve on efficiencies, service levels
– all at lower cost. It is undoubtedly a good model; ultimately, IT spend will improve the way we manage our business.”
Explaining the rationale behind migrating Komatsu to the cloud, Len de Goede, Vice President Systems Integration, T-Systems in South Africa. says it was always apparent from the start and particularly in the last two years that Komatsu’s data and overall business growth would see the company spending additional money on storage.
“The timing for this project is therefore good as it provides a flexible option that supports the growth strategy of Komatsu.”
Komatsu’s migration to T-Systems’ private hosted cloud offering is testament to the strength of the companies’ five-year relationship. “As partners we grew together, however, it was particularly T-Systems’ ICT expertise and service offering that enabled us to evolve towards a mature technology infrastructure,” says Blom.
“Our partnership has come to the point where we are not only buying a product from T-Systems but also building on our mutually beneficial relationship. We stand to benefit significantly from a cost, efficiencies and service perspective.”
Adds de Goede: “The strength of our business case also clearly demonstrated to Komatsu what they stood to gain by migrating to the cloud. It made business and financial sense to both us and them.”
The actual migration to the cloud is also simplified as Komatsu does not run multiple business applications. The majority of the company’s business process transactions are run on SAP that in turn simplifies the integration process with T-Systems cloud offering.
The project will commence immediately with a planning phase estimated to take one month followed by the implementation phase which will take three months to complete. Thereafter additional services will be added when required, through the highly scalable and standardised nature of the cloud computing offering. It is anticipated that the migration will be completed quickly as the entire cloud offering is based on a standardised platform.
T-Systems South Africa
Corporate Marketing & Communications
Jane Wessels
Communications Specialist
Tel: + 27 011 254 7789
E-Mail: jane.wessels@t-systems.co.za
About Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom is one of the world’s leading integrated telecommunications companies with around 128 million mobile customers, 35 million fixed-network lines and approximately 17 million broadband lines (as of June 30, 2011).
The Group provides products and services for the fixed network, mobile communications, the Internet and IPTV for consumers, and ICT solutions for business customers and corporate customers. Deutsche Telekom is present in over 50 countries and has around 241,000 employees worldwide. The Group generated revenues of EUR 62.4 billion in the 2010 financial year
– more than half of it outside Germany (as of December 31, 2010).
About T-Systems
Drawing on a global infrastructure of data centers and networks, T-Systems operates information and communication technology (ICT) systems for multinational corporations and public sector institutions. T-Systems provides integrated solutions for the networked future of business and society. The company’s some 47,600 employees combine industry expertise and ICT innovations to add significant value to customers’ core business all over the world.
T-Systems generated revenue of around EUR 9.1 billion in the 2010 financial year.
