Case Study: Ferguson achieves rapid remote enablement of 14,000 workers and sustained service levels with NetApp (Azure NetApp Files)

Ferguson empowers remote workers to serve North America

Ferguson, the largest U.S. wholesale supplier of plumbing, lighting, and HVAC with more than 1,400 locations and 26,000 associates, needed to keep essential services and supply chains running when COVID-19 hit. The company faced the urgent challenge of enabling roughly 14,000–15,000 employees to work remotely while maintaining real-time inventory accuracy and high customer service levels during a major operational disruption.

Ferguson accelerated its multi-year cloud journey on Microsoft Azure, deploying Azure NetApp Files and Windows Virtual Desktop alongside Azure Data Lake, SQL Data Warehouse, and Power BI to centralize data and deliver fast, secure remote access. The result: the company moved 14,000–15,000 users to a remote model over a single weekend, improved application and file performance, increased supply-chain visibility, and positioned itself for continued cloud-first operations, better disaster recovery, and edge data strategies.

Ferguson

Scott Wright

Senior Cloud Architect