Global transport and logistics company goes digital to transform its operations

Outdated technology that had reached its limits

For A.P. Moller - Maersk, data is fast becoming its most important asset. Yet with data housed across three continents, making the most of its information presented a difficult challenge. One of the largest shipping companies in the world, Maersk had much of its data siloed in five regional datacenters in Europe, Asia, and the United States, preventing employees from obtaining full visibility into information across the company. At the same time, the datacenters had reached their capacity, which limited growth. And performance problems, such as outages and latency, lowered availability and hampered employee productivity.

Security was a concern as well. “Security was an aspiration that we weren’t meeting,” says Andy Laurence, Senior Director Head of Production Services at A.P. Moller - Maersk. “We needed to figure out how to better secure our business and our files, and ensure that all of our data in every location was protected.”

To lower the company’s risk and position it for continued growth, Maersk decided to close its five regional datacenters and move to the cloud. “We knew that we didn’t need to own our datacenters,” says Ralf Weissbeck, Chief Information Officer of APM Terminals at A.P. Moller - Maersk. “And we wanted to get out of them quickly from a risk perspective, because we had a lot of outdated IT infrastructure spread all over the world.”

Maersk wanted to decommission its regional datacenters within a year, a daunting task considering the 80 business applications and 14.4 million user files they housed. “Everybody told us that it was an impossible mission that nobody had done before,” Weissbeck says.

Digital transformation with a reputable partner

After researching different options, Maersk chose to migrate its regional datacenters to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform and partner with Microsoft Enterprise Services to make the transition. “As we made the digital transformation, we needed a reputable partner with the right experience,” says Andy Laurence, Senior Director Head of Production Services at A.P. Moller - Maersk. “Based on our selection criteria, we found that Microsoft Services came out the best.”

Maersk and Microsoft Enterprise Services established a team of business and technical talent from both companies to brainstorm how Microsoft technology could improve the shipping company’s business performance and productivity. They created key business improvement initiatives, developed an implementation roadmap, and took advantage of the latest technologies to accelerate employee adoption.

Altogether, it took only six months to decommission the five datacenters and move the workloads to the cloud, with some applications available for use within just weeks. “We followed a very quick planning and execution cycle to get up and running,” says Laurence. “We moved many, many systems—including millions of files and a high percentage of our actual workload—but still the migration went rapidly and smoothly, with zero business impact.”

Better performance, less risk

By moving its regional datacenters to the Azure platform, Maersk has ended its reliance on obsolete hardware, while significantly decreasing operational costs. It has also mitigated its on-premises security risks, taking advantage of the tight physical and operational security that Microsoft datacenters provide. “We now have disaster recovery and failover, which we lacked before,” Laurence says. “We’re in a much better position.”

Maersk also enjoys far better performance and scalability, which has improved employee productivity and positioned the company for future growth. “With the infrastructure as a service (IaaS) model, we can easily scale up and down based on the needs of the respective business unit,” Weissbeck says. “We now have much more flexibility to serve our customers’ needs.”

With its migration to Azure, Maersk has found a way to integrate cloud-based data once stored in its regional datacenters with data still housed on-premises—making it possible to obtain better visibility into information across the company. “By bringing our business into a more centralized structure, we’ve been able to standardize processes, lower our operating costs, and gain a comprehensive view into our information,” says Laurence.

The intelligence needed for optimal performance

Maersk is using the deeper insights gained from its improved data flow to transform its operations. With the ability to better predict maintenance needs, for instance, the company plans to take proactive actions that reduce the nearly 4 million repairs carried out on its container vessels each year.

The greater insights also lead to innovative customer products and services that generate new revenue streams. For example, the company’s global logistics firm Damco helps its customers better track product deliveries—identifying supply chain disruptions such as bad weather, container ship crashes, and railway strikes—so they can spot potential problems and keep their goods moving even when something goes wrong.

“Developing that sort of technology on our own just wouldn’t be efficient or cost-effective,” says Henning Goldmann, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Damco. “So we engaged Microsoft Services to not only deploy the technology for our business needs, but also to help us develop insights into data, technology, and the best ways to bring new offerings to the market.”

Maersk estimates that the power of data will eventually save the company tens of millions of dollars each year, while creating a marketplace of applications and digital products that help its customers make better business decisions. Says Ibrahim Gokcen, Chief Digital Officer at Maersk, “Eventually our vessels, containers, and other assets will be generating terabytes of data on operations and activities in real time, and machines and people will be talking to each other, learning things about our operations and our customers that we can’t even imagine now—and they’ll be available as products, for download.”

Based on the performance of Microsoft Enterprise Services, Maersk recently selected Microsoft as its preferred cloud partner for its larger digital transformational journey. Maersk is betting on Microsoft to fuel its growth by powering the company’s global logistics across the globe and helping it to create digital products and services across all of its brands. “To be successful, we need to partner with the people who have the knowledge, capabilities, and skills to help us on our digital journey,” Weissbeck says. “That’s why we chose Microsoft Services.”

Find out more about Maersk on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.