Salling Group, Denmark’s largest retailer, successfully transitioned from ECC to SAP S/4HANA, completing the migration of approximately 50 TB of data in just 19 hours with minimal disruption, positioning itself for future growth and sustainability.
From ECC to S/4HANA: Secure, fast, and future-ready – built for expansion across Europe
Salling Group, Denmark’s largest retailer, faced a pivotal moment in its digital transformation journey. With more than 2,100 stores across Denmark, Germany, Poland, Latvia, and beyond, with ambitions to expand further into the Nordics and Europe, Salling Group recognized the need to transition from ECC to SAP S/4HANA. The move was essential to support future growth, but it had to be executed quickly and with minimal disruption to daily operations.
Salling’s data migration journey to S/4HANA
For a retailer of Salling’s scale, long periods of downtime are not an option. Any interruption in the systems would prevent stock replenishment, directly impacting customer service and revenue.
The data migration challenge was compounded by the sheer scale of the data involved: high-velocity, high-volume information flowing constantly through the business. On top of this, Salling required a fully auditable trail detailing the migration process to ensure compliance and transparency.
To meet these demands, Salling partnered with SNP, leveraging their experience and proven track record in the retail sector. Partnering with IBM in the pre-project phase helped to build a clear and aligned transformation roadmap, beginning with an IBM Rapid Move assessment and collaborative workshops that set the direction and foundations for the SAP S/4HANA migration project.
Using Kyano Foundation, the team first performed a detailed scan and analysis of Salling’s system to identify dependencies, data volumes, and potential risks. Kyano Validate ensured data integrity throughout the migration, providing automated checks and verifying the transferred data. Kyano CrystalBridge facilitated the transfer into the target S/4HANA system using the near-zero downtime approach.
Together, these tools gave Salling confidence in their data migration plan, confirmed that downtime targets could be met, and provided clear visibility into how each step would be executed.
Ahead of schedule: How Salling completed their data migration in just 19 hours
SNP successfully completed the data migration of about 50 TB of compressed data from Salling’s ECC system into one of the largest scale-up HANA target systems ever implemented – 32 TB in size. While the target downtime was set at 24 hours, SNP achieved the data migration in just 19 hours.
During an early test migration, the team identified opportunities to optimize the process. Rather than seeing this as a setback, Salling trusted SNP’s guidance. The result was a smooth, efficient, and secure migration completed well within the planned downtime and positioning Salling Group for continued growth and a future-ready IT landscape.
By moving to S/4HANA, Salling Group has reduced both product waste and their carbon footprint, making the business more sustainable. As part of the data migration, over 33 billion finance documents were created in the new S/4HANA system. The data migration was completed faster than planned, enabling Salling to accelerate their move to RISE with SAP.
At the same time, the shift to cloud infrastructure supports Salling Group’s goal of achieving carbon-neutral IT operations by 2026.
This project demonstrated SNP’s ability to handle vast amounts of data securely and with minimal disruption. Salling valued not only the technical expertise but also the flexibility and collaborative approach of the SNP team.
Benefits
- Fast, reliable cutover: Data migration completed in 19 hours, below the 24-hour target.
- Secure large-scale migration: ~50 TB of compressed ECC data moved into a 32 TB scale-up HANA target system with full auditability.
- Salling have been able to accelerate their move to RISE due to the efficiency of the ECC to S/4 project.
- Future-ready infrastructure: Cloud-based architecture supports the goal of carbon-neutral IT operations by 2026.
SNP exceeded our expectations by completing the data migration in just 19 hours – coming in below our target downtime of 24 hours. Their expertise and collaborative approach gave us confidence throughout the project and positioned us to accelerate our move to RISE with SAP.
Alan Jensen
CIO of Salling Group
