There are some people who want to work but have a hard time finding their place in the regular labor market. That’s where Stroom Maatwerk comes in. The Belgian social enterprise employs socially vulnerable groups and manufactures custom solutions for their clients. To keep track of stock, production, and orders, they use a solid SAP ERP system. When Stroom Maatwerk wanted to move their system to a cloud environment, they chose Google as preferred hyperscaler.
Stroom Maatwerk is a custom company that creates opportunities for those who have a hard time to access the regular job market. Think people with physical or mental disabilities, psychological issues, language barriers or ex-convicts. Stroom Maatwerk employs them to manually manufacture products for their clients and stock parts. Examples include customized packaging, mechanical assembling, and textile.
From private to public cloud
“We use SAP to scan incoming parts, keep track of timings and stocks and invoicing. Our customers also expect traceability and real-time updates on the progress of our work”, says IT Business Partner Adriaan Schepers.
"Until recently, our SAP environment was hosted on a private cloud. But we wanted more cost transparency and flexibility, so we decided to look for a partner that could host SAP on a public cloud."
This offered a few major advantages for Stroom Maatwerk:
More system transparency
Better monitoring of CPU usage
Cost optimization by not having to run SAP 24/7
Finding the right partner
Stroom Maatwerk eventually found their ideal SAP-partner in Flexso. “We compared a few potential partners on pricing, transparency and way of working”, Adriaan explains. “Flexso came out on top. They had a clear approach and were utterly correct in their cost structure where every euro we would spend, could be justified.”
After weighing different cloud providers, Stroom Maatwerk found the latter to be the most suitable for its purposes. “The biggest advantage of Google Cloud is that their pricing model is more flexible and scalable. If we suddenly need more storage, we simply add more performance. So, for our needs, Google Cloud turned out to be the most efficient”, Adriaan explains. "Moreover, Google Cloud offers an affordable and professional enterprise infrastructure layer."
Unburdening from technical issues
“The cooperation is simply splendid. Our direct contact, Flexso's Project manager, was really involved from day one, immediately finds a good solution to any issue and works correctly on all levels”, Adriaan continues. “Flexso is very approachable too. We just drop a chat message, and always get an answer within the hour. It’s a pleasure to work like this.”
“Flexso was the ideal partner to completely unburden us of any technical issues”, says Adriaan. “In fact, we’re now also using Flexso’s Managed Services to support and maintain our SAP solution. This completely frees us up to focus on other things, like future innovations.”
A team effort and shared success
With the support and relevant expertise of GC innovate, the Google Cloud Partner within the Cronos Group, the migration process went flawlessly.
With their experience and expertise with Google Cloud, a secure and performing cloud data environment was put into place, tailored to the technical requirements, and needs of Stroom Maatwerk's infrastructure. As a trusted SAP pilot, and a closely following project manager, It took Flexso only a matter of time to land the Stroom Maatwerk datacenter to its safe haven: Google public cloud.
Future innovations
Concretely, the organization is looking to integrate SAP Analytics Cloud in their business model. “And further into the future, I’d like us to become more data-driven. We could connect our ERP data with other sources like production times and HR data, using a data warehouse to increase efficiency even further.”
“All in all, we simply wanted a reliable partner that would unburden us and provide a performant and cost-efficient ERP system. Flexso fulfilled that expectation, and then exceeded it with their proactivity and excellent communication. This is truly a model project and cooperation”, Adriaan concludes.
Which hosting solution meets your SAP requirements?
Stroom Maatwerk chose Google cloud to support its future growth. Find out which hyperscaler suits your cloud strategy in our e-book.
