Mr Price cuts application estate by nearly 75% through cloud-led modernisation
Marilize Redelinghuys, head of retail modernisation at Mr Price Group, addresses the risks and challenges of modernising legacy applications for cloud at the ITWeb Cloud Summit.
Mr Price Group, a South African retail company, has cut its application landscape by nearly three-quarters over the past five years, as part of a technology modernisation initiative. This transformation, led by Marilize Redelinghuys, reduced the number of systems from nearly 400 to 103, while the company's revenue grew by 87% and its store count increased by 124% during the same period.
The group, which operates in various sectors including apparel, homeware, sports, telecoms and financial services, now employs approximately 33,000 associates and has revenue of R42.7 billion. Redelinghuys emphasized that cloud strategy should be based on application decisions, not the other way around, and advised selecting a cloud strategy after determining which applications to use.
The company also stressed the importance of scrutinizing software vendors and upskilling engineers, as well as assessing licensing models that can scale with business growth. Redelinghuys warned that simply moving servers to the cloud without upgrading and modernizing is not enough, as this can lead to more expensive legacy solutions in the cloud.
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