Commerz Real enters the future of financial IT with SAP RISE on Azure

Commerz Real operated its SAP systems with an external hosting service provider. Slow processing, insufficient real-time monitoring, low flexibility, and increasing compliance requirements made modernization necessary.

Commerz Real migrated its entire SAP system landscape to the SAP Private Cloud on Microsoft Azure as part of a “lift and shift” approach—high security, scalability, and close SAP integration were the key decision criteria.

The new platform improves performance, security, and agility in day-to-day operations. Processes are more stable, system copies are available in hours, security events are detected automatically—and IT can focus on strategic issues.

“The decision to use Microsoft Azure was a deliberate one. In the past, security concerns and strict regulatory requirements kept us from moving SAP to the cloud. Today we say: If you don’t do that, you won’t survive in the market.”

Nadine Felderer, Head of SAP Services, Commerz Real

The challenge: Complex processes, strict regulation—and the desire for more agility

Commerz Real AG, a subsidiary of Commerzbank, manages over 35 billion euros in assets and more than 4,000 rental agreements. The financial services provider, with its focus on real estate, infrastructure, and leasing, operates in a highly regulated industry. This has an impact on the design of its IT. Almost all business-critical processes—from accounting and asset management to transaction processing—run on SAP systems, which have to meet stringent requirements in terms of IT security, compliance, and scalability. However, there came a point when Commerz Real realized that its previous system landscape, operated by an external hosting service provider, was increasingly becoming a bottleneck.

Requirements for speed, transparency, and security were steadily increasing, but the old infrastructure could no longer cope. This was particularly evident, for example, when processing large volumes of data: “Month-end and end-of-day processing in the leasing sector used to take a huge amount of time. In general, long runtimes had a noticeable impact on downstream processes,” explains Nadine Felderer, Head of SAP Services at Commerz Real. The result: delayed system releases for users, blocked follow-up processes, and growing pressure on the specialist departments and IT.

Reporting also had to contend with the consequences of the limited infrastructure. Data extractions into the business warehouse were time-consuming and delayed the creation of analyses and reports—a clear disadvantage for a data-driven industry in which quick decisions are required.

Added to this was the lack of flexibility in the provision of new systems. For project and test environments, for example, servers had to be ordered, procured, and set up manually by the hosting service provider via individual service requests. Felderer recalls: “Procurement and setup used to take several days. That took up valuable time and slowed us down in our strategic and innovative development.”

In addition, the old solution wasn’t able to provide a transparent view of any security incidents or to detect and analyze them in real time. “There were no automated alerts—we could only track security-related events manually and with a time delay,” Felderer says.

As a regulated financial services provider, Commerz Real must be able to prove beyond doubt at any time during an audit that all systems are secure, stable, and compliant—a requirement that could be met only with great effort using the existing infrastructure. “The screwdriver has had its day in our IT,” Felderer says. “We want to focus on what really drives our business forward—and for that we needed a platform that’s flexible, scalable, and future-proof, one that meets the strict regulations and creates space for innovation.”

“Our colleagues immediately noticed that processing goes faster and the processes are more stable—thanks to Azure as the basis for the platform.”

Phil Rüdiger, SAP Platform Manager, Commerz Real

The solution: A new foundation for efficiency, safety, and innovation

By introducing SAP RISE on Azure, Commerz Real has established a modern technological foundation tailored to the needs of a regulated financial services provider. “The decision to use Microsoft Azure was a deliberate one,” Felderer explains. “In the past, security concerns and strict regulatory requirements kept us from moving SAP to the cloud. Today we say: If you don’t do that, you won’t survive in the market.” Commerz Real was impressed by the platform’s high security standards, excellent scalability, and close partnership with SAP—decisive factors for operating the SAP Private Cloud on Azure.

Commerz Real therefore decided to be one of the first financial services providers in Germany to completely migrate all existing SAP systems to the SAP Private Cloud on Azure as part of a “lift and shift” approach. “Despite ongoing operations, we were able to successfully migrate the entire SAP system landscape to the SAP Private Cloud on Azure within eight months. We signed the contracts in December and all productive systems were live by August. To be honest, hardly anyone thought we could do that,” Felderer says. “But it also allowed us to send an unmistakable signal that our rather conservative sector does indeed have the power of digital innovation.”

Since then, the company’s specialist departments have benefited from better performance and more stable processes; for example, in the processing of contract data or the creation of financial reports. “Our colleagues immediately noticed that processing goes faster and the processes are more stable—thanks to Azure as the basis for the platform,” says Phil Rüdiger, SAP Platform Manager at Commerz Real. “This increases the speed and efficiency of our operations across all relevant business processes.”

The provision of test and project environments has also been significantly simplified: it’s now possible to flexibly provide them within a few hours via standardized service requests and then switch them off again if required. The scalability of the platform enables agile project work without long lead times or additional infrastructure costs. “Today, you no longer buy extra servers for a test environment, you simply order them quickly and easily with one click—and use them for exactly as long as you need them,” Rüdiger says.

The new solution based on SAP RISE on Azure also takes IT security and monitoring to a new level of transparency: the platform now automatically detects security events and proactively reports where a response or manual intervention is required. “If the system notices something suspicious, it automatically sends corresponding alerts and we can respond immediately, virtually in real time,” Rüdiger says. “That simply wasn’t possible before.”

With SAP RISE on Azure, Commerz Real has not only modernized its technological foundation, but also created the conditions for actively advancing innovations such as AI, automation, and data-driven work. The platform is now a strategic lever for efficiency and further development—and a clear signal of the company’s digital aspirations.