Like many successful multi-national companies, data is critical to Geberit. To better gain insights from their data, the European leader in sanitary products deployed SAP HANA Cloud as the center of their new hybrid data strategy. With this solution, Geberit streamlined their landscape and eliminated the need for middleware tools. Now, they gain the single, federated point of access to real-time data needed to make timely business decisions.
Founded in 1874 in Switzerland, Geberit has grown enormously since its earliest days. With Geberit’s global reach and a vast base of customers, gaining insights from data has never been more important. However, rapidly changing technology and a growing amount of data made getting insights from all their data a challenge. That’s why they decided to fully embrace a hybrid data strategy. This strategy would make it easier to use all data – and not just some – to make timely business decisions. A hybrid strategy would also leverage their on-premise investments while gaining the flexibility offered by the cloud.
Here is the story of how they accomplished this with SAP HANA Cloud, a fully-managed and cost-efficient cloud database platform.
SAP HANA Cloud will be center for all reporting in our data landscape. It's the single source of truth that connects all our data sources and gives us the insights we need.
Marius Reck, Head of IT Business Support Applications at Geberit
Geberit’s previous data landscape consisted of a mix of both SAP and non-SAP solutions. This setup included SAP BW on HANA, Microsoft Azure SQL Database, and Dynamics 365 – all of which they wanted to continue using. However, the setup also included middleware data solutions needed to get this setup working.
The setup with middleware leads to data errors and performance issues. There was also no single point of access for this data – particularly for important CRM data. Moving data through all these storage options was a challenge that offered little flexibility. Getting insights from all this data was time-consuming.
To build a landscape for the future, Geberit sought simplification with these goals:
SAP HANA Cloud achieved everything Geberit hoped to accomplish.
For SAP HANA Cloud to serve as the center of this new landscape, the ability to seamlessly connect to different data sources was necessary. This process turned out even easier than Geberit hoped for. Connecting SAP HANA Cloud to their Azure SQL Database took just 15 minutes.
This connection enables Geberit to load data directly between the two solutions, without the need for their previous middleware tools. With these middleware tools removed, they can now reliably connect their CRM data out of the Azure SQL Service to SAP HANA Cloud.
Also, SAP HANA Cloud connects with their SAP BW on HANA, helping better bridge their on-premise systems to the cloud. This new landscape gives Geberit the full benefits of the cloud on top of their on-premise investments. With SAP HANA Cloud, they scale up when needed and easily make connections to new data sources.
Whether data is stored on-premise or in the cloud, or comes from SAP or non-SAP sources, SAP HANA Cloud brings this data together through virtualization or replication. Geberit decides with complete flexibility where to store the data and how.
Connecting all our data sources to SAP HANA Cloud was necessary for the project to succeed. We couldn't be happier with how easy this all was. This was a much faster process than expected. Any new data sources can be just as easily connected, which gives us a lot of flexibility for the future.
Daniel Rothmund, Head of SAP Development and Global IT Architect at Geberit
The ultimate goal of creating this new landscape was to easily get value from data. SAP Analytics Cloud connects to SAP HANA Cloud to make that happen. As a replacement to Geberit’s previous BI solution, business users gain the real-time access needed to perform advanced analysis.
The advanced functionality of SAP Analytics Cloud uses all data sources for improved business intelligence and planning. Users can quickly run simulations and create visual reports without worrying about silos or inconsistent data. This new data landscape increases agility for making data-backed decisions through SAP Analytics Cloud.
Geberit’s new data landscape accomplishes exactly what they set out to do. Thanks to SAP HANA Cloud, they simplified their landscape and launched a brand-new hybrid data strategy.
SAP HANA Cloud is the heart of this new landscape, creating a central point of access that leverages all on-premise and cloud data. The ultimate goal for Geberit is to move as much into the cloud as possible, but that takes time. For now, SAP HANA Cloud empowers them to make this transformation on their own terms. When they’re ready, SAP HANA Cloud can easily connect to whatever cloud solutions they want to use in the future. Geberit’s new landscape is future-proofed, giving them the blend of flexibility and performance they hoped for.
SAP HANA Cloud sets us up for the future. It solves a lot of issues and opens up many possibilities. We now have the flexibility in our cloud journey that we always wanted.
Marius Reck, Head of IT Business Support Applications at Geberit
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