Kubota ANZ transitions core and critical systems to cloud

Microsoft is delighted to announce leading heavy equipment manufacturer and supplier, Kubota ANZ, is transitioning core and mission-critical applications, including SAP, to Microsoft Azure. This establishes a highly scalable and agile digital foundation to support the company’s significant growth plans, accelerate opportunities for innovation and establish a more resilient and responsive platform to serve its 186 dealerships across Australia and New Zealand.

For more than 40 years, Kubota has been Australia and New Zealand’s leading supplier of agriculture, construction, and power equipment. Until recently, many of its digital platforms were hosted centrally by its parent, Kubota  Japan, on-premise. However, Kubota ANZ’s significant growth ambitions prompted it to transition core applications, starting with its SAP ERP system, to Azure allowing it to scale rapidly and access a broad array of cloud-based tools and services to accelerate innovation efforts.

Kubota has taken the opportunity to enhance IT governance to ensure any changes or updates to systems align with the organisation’s strategic goals.

Working with specialist SAP and cloud consulting business, Zag, now part of Accenture,  Kubota completed the SAP system carve out from Japan and transition to a local cloud instance in just five months.. Zag also supported Kubota’s disaster recovery upgrade and technical re-platforming.

According to Daniel Lodder, Head of Enterprise IT, Kubota ANZ; “It’s been a very smooth and successful transition. And having come from a couple of organisations where I’ve worked on Azure migrations, this is by far one of the biggest and most complex.”

With critical SAP applications hosted in local instances of Azure, data sovereignty is addressed and the ANZ IT team can now more directly support staff and add value to operations through enhancements and alternations to core SAP systems based on local needs.

Additionally, the transition of SAP to Azure lays the groundwork for a planned upgrade to SAP S/4HANA in the medium term.

Lodder noted that the digital modernisation allows Kubota ANZ to be nimbler when responding to the needs of Kubota dealers which is critically important to maintain distributor loyalty in a fiercely competed sector.

Jonathon Bonicci, IT Service Delivery Manager, Kubota ANZ, added; “We’ve been able to simplify things with just having a workload in Azure. From a cost perspective, we’ve been able to realise a significant amount there.

“We’re in the process of upskilling our team to have their own Azure certifications so we can spin up Virtual Machines (VM), complete our own optimisations and extend and manage our platform.

“We intend to leverage a lot of other functionality from Azure and the Microsoft stack.

Nick Mulcahy, CEO, Zag Australia said; “It was important for Kubota Australia and New Zealand to simplify workloads and scale up to meet the changing needs of local dealers and stay ahead of the curve in such a competitive landscape.

The migration of its large SAP workload from Japan into Azure in Australia was completed 100% remotely, from the initial kick-off meeting right through to project completion. It’s exciting to see Kubota leap towards becoming a more agile and autonomous enterprise by transitioning to Microsoft’s innovative cloud technology.”

About Kubota

For more than 40 years Kubota Australia has been Australia’s leading supplier of agriculture, construction and power equipment.

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more.

About Zag, part of Accenture
Zag, part of Accenture, provides SAP, Cloud and Spatial solutions, support, and consulting advice to enterprises across Australia and New Zealand.

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