Within Unilever’s IT, a number of key initiatives have been implemented in support of the company’s continuous improvement goals, many of which combine under the SOLAR Program. By transforming and transitioning services into a centralised support model, this pan-European initiative is making a significant contribution to improve efficiencies, reduce costs and support Unilever’s Green IT initiatives and Sustainability Living Plan.

The SOLAR program aims to achieve this by bringing together efficiencies in regional delivery, virtualisation of infrastructure and managing suppliers and contracts more effectively across the region. It was within SOLAR’s context that Microsoft introduced Avanade to Unilever. Microsoft knew Avanade’s experience of large global scale projects would bring SOLAR the correct mix of innovative process and proven method not found in other solution partners.

The key objective was to compare performance and enterprise capabilities against VMware™ and build a robust business case to benefit increased datacentre consolidation, virtualisation in remote office locations and managing the cost reduction of migrating VMware® machines to Hyper-V™.  An increase from 41% to a projected 65% by mid-2012, targeting six-figure operational cost saving resulted in a compelling case for change.

The combination of Avanade’s Next Generation Datacentre and Migration Factory assets enabled the project to hit the ground running, accelerating delivery in ways that, Microsoft acknowledges, no other solution partner can.

The application of both the Next Generation Datacentre and Migration Factory assets culminated in the error free migration of 1000 servers over six months and the ability for Unilever to operationalise on-going server migration activity in-house.

Avanade’s people, enterprise know-how, unique relationship with Microsoft, proven skills and replicable technology assets delivered against Unilever’s SOLAR program key aims and maximised SOLAR efficiencies in European regional delivery.