The Carrefour supermarket chain in Belgium is migrating its business-critical SAP systems and supply chain data to Google Cloud.

Carrefour is building a data cloud, migrating its data centres to Google BigQuery for storage and analysis, and helping create a framework for projects in mobile and ecommerce, data analytics, and machine learning.

Having used Google Workspace since 2019, Carrefour is now turning to Google Cloud to support the next phase of its digital transformation. With the creation of its new data cloud, the company’s teams will have more access and analytics capabilities for product, consumer and supply chain data sets.

High visibility into supply chain data means Carrefour will be able to ensure that products, including perishable food items, arrive in stores and in the hands of consumers quickly and efficiently. In addition, an improved view of consumer trends will enable the retailer to create personalised experiences for shoppers, including targeted promotional offers.

Carrefour is also moving to SAP S/4 Hana on Google Cloud, and will bring other parallel workloads into a Google Cloud environment, enabling secure, low-latency access to business-critical applications and improved data analytics for its teams across the country.

Additionally, given the critical nature of its SAP systems, the retailer is enabling increased uptime with Google Cloud’s elastic infrastructure and live migration capabilities, ensuring no disruption to its operations during the migration.

“Data are a critical asset for Carrefour Belgium as we develop new consumer experiences and streamline our supply chains,” said Stijn Stabel, chief technical officer at Carrefour in Belgium. “We’ve been using Workspace for the last two years to foster a collaborative culture, so this feels like a natural next step for our business. Our renewed partnership with Google Cloud will provide us with a centralised view of these data, helping to deliver new, more meaningful experiences for our customers and modernise our business processes with the power of data. Additionally, bringing our company-wide SAP environment into Google Cloud ensures that we are running these critical applications securely and reliably, and on sustainable and scalable cloud infrastructure.”

Carrefour’s migration of data and applications to Google Cloud is expected to be completed by 2022.

“We’re proud to partner with Carrefour Belgium and to support its digital transformation,” said Joris Schoonis, managing director for Benelux at Google Cloud. “By implementing a data cloud, and by migrating its SAP systems into a cloud environment, Carrefour Belgium is building a foundation for future innovation and growth.”

Carrefour has 786 stores in Belgium including hypermarkets, supermarkets, Carrefour Express local shops and 230 Carrefour Drive collection points. It has more than 11,300 employees.

Carrefour Belgium is part of the French Carrefour Group, one of the largest food retailers in the world with more than 321,000 employees. With a turnover of almost €80.7bn in 2019, Carrefour has 12,200 stores in more than 30 countries.