Featured content from our partner, Lenovo.
Fast, lean, agile: Nice Apparel can react rapidly to changing market demands with real-time data analytics powered by SAP S/4HANA running on Lenovo ThinkSystem servers, powered by 4th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors, and protecting all the important data with Lenovo and Veeam solutions.
Who is Nice Apparel Company Limited?
Activewear manufacturer Nice Apparel Company Limited, a subsidiary of Nice Group Holding Corp Company Limited, was founded in Thailand by Mr. Prasop Jirawatwongin in 1983. Today, Nice Apparel operates 15 manufacturing sites in Thailand, Cambodia, China, and Vietnam. The company employs around 21,000 people and delivers more than 72 million pieces of apparel to top global sportswear and athleisure brands.
The Challenge
Fueled by changing consumer habits, lifestyles, and the rise of athleisure—casual, comfortable clothing suitable both for exercise and everyday wear—the global activewear market is projected to grow to over $305 billion by 2030.1 Business is booming for Nice Apparel, which supplies some of the world’s best-known activewear brands. In fact, the company records a 17 percent year-on-year increase in annual revenues.
Keen to capitalize on this trend, Nice Apparel aimed to drive up operational agility and efficiency. The goal was to deliver more products to more clients—no easy task, as Mr. Prapakorn Sitthichaikasem, Chief Digital Officer (CDO) at Nice Apparel, explains: “Fashion trends move quickly, so we need to be able to react fast to changing client specifications and market demands. To do this, we need accurate, real-time insights into everything from sales and merchandising to supply chain to manufacturing, logistics, and finance.
“The challenge we faced was that our previous SAP ERP solution couldn’t deliver real-time access to data or provide the level of insight we needed, which meant that business decisions were often made using outdated information. The underlying infrastructure was also beginning to show its age and reports were slow to run, further hampering our analytics and planning capabilities.”
“We’d outgrown our existing SAP ERP platform, and the IT team was constantly fighting fires due to a lack of compute resources.” —Mr. Prapakorn Sitthichalkasem, Chief Digital Officer (CDO), Nice Apparel Company Limited
Sprinting Ahead
To better support its growing business, Nice Apparel decided to move to SAP S/4HANA—unlocking the latest industry best practices as well as new real-time data analytics and reporting capabilities.
The company selected Lenovo ThinkSystemSR850 V3 servers, powered by 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, to serve as the backbone for its new SAP S/4HANA environment. “Of all the hardware vendors we considered, only Lenovo could deliver servers equipped with the latest-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors,” recalls Mr. Sitthichaikasem. “This was a key deciding factor for us, as we wanted to take advantage of the performance acceleration that came with the latest Intel technology.”
Hardware
- Lenovo ThinkSystem SR850 V3 powered by 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors
- Lenovo ThinkSystem DE6400H Hybrid Storage Array
- Lenovo ThinkSystem DE2000H Hybrid Storage Array
Software
- Lenovo XClarity AdministratorSAP S/4HANA
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications
- Veeam Backup & Replication
- VMware vSphere
Services
- Lenovo Premier Support
- Lenovo Professional Services for Deployment
Smooth Migration
Working with Lenovo and a local implementation partner, Nice Apparel configured and deployed eight Lenovo ThinkSystem SR850 V3 servers to support the new SAP S/4HANA environment, which has 8 TB of memory and runs SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications as its operating system. Connected to low-latency Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series storage arrays and virtualized with VMware vSphere, the new platform combines high performance with dependable reliability.
During the deployment, Lenovo helped Nice Apparel establish a backup environment to support disaster recovery. The company deployed a dedicated Lenovo ThinkSystem SR850 V3 server and Lenovo ThinkSystem DE6400H and DE2000H hybrid storage arrays, powered by Veeam Backup & Replication software—taking advantage of more than five years of collaborative working between Lenovo and Veeam.
Finally, Nice Apparel worked with a local SAP specialist to migrate workloads to the new platform. “With help from Lenovo and our local partners, we went from planning to full production with SAP S/4HANA in just three and a half months,” says Mr. Sitthichaikasem.
“Lenovo’s support throughout the design, planning, and deployment phases was excellent. Their hardware experts provided quick, effective responses to all our questions, as well as personalized advice and hands-on skills transfer." —Mr. Prapakorn Sitthichaikasem, Chief Digital Officer (CDO), Nice Apparel Company Limited
Results
Today, Nice Apparel uses SAP S/4HANA to gain a single, accurate view of every aspect of its business. The Lenovo and Intel technologies have lifted system availability to 99.99 percent 2 and delivered a significant performance boost, enabling up to 40 percent faster query processing and report generation.2
“Running SAP S/4HANA on the latest Lenovo ThinkSystem infrastructure and 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors means we benefit from lightning-fast query processing and real-time analytics,” says Mr. Sitthichaikasem. “This enables users to pull reports and run analytics jobs faster than ever, empowering us to respond much more rapidly to volatile market demands, emerging fashion trends, and changing client specifications.”
- 99.9% system availability 2
- 40% faster query processing and report generation 2
- 30% reduction in IT management time 2
- 20% lower IT operational costs 2
- 15% improved overall productivity 2
- 62% to 68% faster RPOs and RTOs respectively 2
Easing Pressure on IT
By upgrading the infrastructure underpinning its SAP environment, Nice Apparel has plenty of capacity to support current and future business requirements. As well as providing vital headroom for growth, this has eased pressure on the IT team and lowered IT operational costs.
Nice Apparel takes advantage of the Lenovo XClarity Administrator tool to monitor for hardware issues, manage firmware compliance and updates, and schedule maintenance windows—all via an intuitive web-based dashboard. “Automating system maintenance with Lenovo XClarity has helped the IT team to reduce server downtime by around 20 percent, minimizing disruption to business operations,” comments Mr. Sitthichaikasem.
“Activewear trends are constantly evolving. Real-time insight into business operations, enabled by SAP and Lenovo solutions, is helping us to keep pace with the latest trends and accelerate production of new styles for our clients.” —Mr. Prapakorn Sitthichaikasem Chief Digital Officer, Nice Apparel Company Limited
Why Lenovo?
After deciding to migrate from SAP ERP to SAP S/4HANA, Nice Apparel had to choose the right deployment options for its needs and budget.
Mr. Sitthichaikasem recalls: “We weighed up the pros and cons of both cloud and on-premises deployments, considering flexibility, scalability, and return on investment. We concluded that an on-premises deployment offered the optimal balance of price, performance, and scalability.”
Nice Apparel evaluated proposals from several infrastructure providers before selecting Lenovo. “We made this decision based on the quality of Lenovo’s hardware, the strength of its warranty and support services, and total cost of ownership of the solution. Lenovo has proven to be the ideal partner to help build and support our new SAP S/4HANA platform.”