Leading Italian grocery retail chain selects HP to unify and streamline IT

Under the five-year contract, HP Helion Managed Virtual Private Cloud and HP Application Maintenance Services will enable SMA to move from an IT-centric delivery model to a dynamic delivery model that will optimize costs and drive change across the business.

SMA has 9,500 employees and more than 1,500 Simply, IperSimply and PuntoSimply stores in 19 regions across Italy. The company is now focusing its expansion strategy on emerging markets.

“We need a reliable end-to-end IT solution which not only meets our current business needs but can also be rapidly scaled to meet future challenges,” says Mr. De Luca, CIO, Simply Market. “HP will help us achieve our strategic goal to transform IT operations in the Cloud by delivering flexible services on a pay-per-use basis, reducing total cost of ownership and speeding availability of new features.”

Moving to a highly efficient hybrid IT delivery model based on HP Helion Managed Virtual Private Cloud will enable SMA to adopt a flexible, cost-effective infrastructure on a pay-per-use basis. As well as transferring all SMA’s core retail applications to a Cloud platform, HP will provide full Application Maintenance Services, giving SMA better control over their portfolio.

Delivered from a secure HP data center in Basiglio, these holistic services will help SMA meet regulatory requirements for data protection and ensure ongoing business process support. To enhance the resiliency of SMA’s business, a Cloud Continuity Option for flexible disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) has also been provided out of the HP Recovery Center in Cernusco.

“Investment in applications is critical to the future success of a modern enterprise like SMA,” says Mr Colella, vice president & general manager, HP Enterprise Services Italia. “HP will allow SMA to optimally manage its applications – which is key to greater efficiency, innovation and growth.”