Case Study: Marks & Spencer achieves 35% faster overnight batch processing and 2-hour earlier supplier orders with Hitachi Vantara

M&S Migrates to Hitachi Solution to Support Rapid Batch Processing and Ensure Daily Availability of UK’s Best-Loved M&S Foods

Marks & Spencer (M&S), the UK retailer with over 850 stores and a major food business, faced a critical challenge: overnight batch processing of thousands of daily sales reports was getting dangerously close to the 5:15 a.m. supplier-order deadline, risking late deliveries and stockouts during peak seasons. To modernize and simplify its storage landscape, M&S engaged Hitachi Vantara, deploying Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) G1000 systems with Hitachi Accelerated Flash and Hitachi Command Suite.

Hitachi Vantara led a migration of about 750 TB across 6,000 virtual machines and 180 IBM AIX logical partitions to two VSP G1000 systems, completed on time and without business interruption. The solution cut device footprint by ~75%, reduced storage acquisition costs by more than 30% and storage-related operational IT expenses by over 50%, and improved overnight batch processing by 35%—regularly sending supplier orders more than two hours earlier and effectively eliminating late deliveries.

Marks & Spencer

Mark Dickinson

Head of Technology Operations