September 16, 2019

Accenture Helps Exxaro Unlock New Revenue Streams and New Ways of Working with Cloud Technologies

Migrating SAP to Microsoft Azure improves business continuity and agility

JOHANNESBURG; Sept. 16, 2019 – Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has collaborated with Exxaro, one of South Africa’s leading coal producers, to help digitally transform its business and unlock new revenue streams by managing the migration of its SAP solutions, and other centrally-run applications used by Exxaro business units, to Microsoft Azure. This supports Exxaro’s ambition to establish a secure, agile, cost-effective and scalable platform that will improve business processes and continuity.

Accenture created a cloud transformation strategy for Exxaro that defined the business case for migration to a public cloud, a move, which offered the lowest total cost of ownership, improvements to core systems resiliency, and the agility needed to meet customer demands.

In line with Exxaro’s requirement for a swift and secure transition, Accenture designed and built a cloud platform in the South African Azure data centers. This included optimizing Exxaro’s SAP systems to take advantage of cloud architecture benefits and building a more resilient and available architecture to improve business continuity. Accenture then seamlessly migrated Exxaro’s enterprise applications, which included more than 280 Microsoft Windows virtual machines, onto Azure with minimal disruption, while also integrating multiple remote mining locations in South Africa.

Accenture will run, secure and continually optimize Exxaro’s cloud environment in collaboration with its cloud management organization. This will provide resource visibility, management consistency, and operational control for cloud optimization and scale, amidst changing business needs.

“Accenture’s deep expertise in leading on SAP and other application migrations to Microsoft Azure means that Exxaro will benefit from a more secure, scalable and agile operating environment that is more cost effective than standing up a new on-premises data centre,” said Desmond Govender, Group Manager, Information Management, Exxaro. “This will improve business processes and continuity, as well as free up resources to focus on achieving superior business outcomes.”

Pradeep Roy, Cloud Advisory lead for Accenture in Africa, added, “Exxaro’s decision to move to the cloud puts them in a strong position for greater efficiency and innovation. This approach to transformation will deliver a competitive advantage on a secure cloud platform, enabling them to flex based on business demand and accelerate innovation.”

Exxaro selected Accenture for its strong technical knowledge and capabilities, robust partner ecosystem, local expertise and its deep experience implementing large-scale cloud migrations. Accenture has worked on more than 21,000 cloud computing projects for clients, with 80 percent of the Fortune Global 100, and has more than 77,000 professionals trained on cloud technologies and architectures, and more than 50,000 SAP professionals. The company has been innovating in cloud technology for nearly a decade and holds more than 300 granted patents and pending applications across its global cloud portfolio.

About Exxaro
Exxaro is a South African-based coal mining company listed on the JSE and included in the Responsible Mining Index. Exxaro’s portfolio of coal operations includes mines in Mpumalanga and Limpopo supplying to Eskom, other domestic markets and the export markets. Their investment portfolio also includes a 50% interest in Cennergi Pty Ltd, a joint venture with Tata Power, which has developed two wind farms with a combined generation capacity of 229MW (10% of the currently installed capacity of South Africa’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP).

About Accenture
Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions — underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network — Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With 482,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com.

SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE (or an SAP affiliate company) in Germany and other countries. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Please see https://www.sap.com/copyright for additional trademark information and notices.

# # #

Contact:

Jonathan Mahapa
Accenture
+27 11 208 3947
jonathan.mahapa@accenture.com