Halfords transforms service quality with HP

Halfords has transformed its quality of services by moving its SAP® for Retail set of solutions to an HP Helion Managed Virtual Private Cloud environment.
Under the five-year contract, HP Helion Business Applications for SAP will enable Halfords to transform its IT operations with a dynamic delivery model that will optimize costs, increase commercial flexibility and drive change across the business.

The UK's leading retailer of automotive, leisure and cycling products, Halfords Group plc operates more than 460 stores throughout the UK and Ireland. The company, which has more than 12,000 employees, generated revenues in excess of £870 million in 2013.

“We selected HP as a strategic partner to support our SAP systems upgrade,” says Anna Barsby, CIO, Halfords. “HP demonstrated a proactive end-to-end service for our SAP solutions with the ability to flex the workload, which increases our commercial agility. As well as providing a lower risk solution in a cost-effective way, this positions us for future growth.”

Designed to support mission-critical workloads and meet regulatory requirements for data protection, HP Helion Managed Virtual Private Cloud provides 24x7 operation, management and monitoring of Halfords’ SAP systems. This results in better utilization of software, people and skills. The flexible, cost-effective infrastructure and applications can be rapidly scaled to meet Halfords future requirements.

HP provisions Halfords’ SAP ERP application, SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse component, SAP Process Integration technology and business intelligence solutions from SAP, as well as other SAP components, from two secure data centers. The disaster-tolerant solution meets robust service level agreements aligned to the needs of Halfords’ business, and provides the agility to meet the growing demands on its IT services.

“Retailers like Halfords need the flexibility of short-term scalability to cope with changing IT requirements,” says Howard Hughes, senior vice president & general manager, HP Enterprise Services EMEA. “HP will enable the company to optimally manage its SAP applications – which is key to greater efficiency, innovation and growth.”