有时候，即使是在IT行业，放慢速度也会带来巨大的回报。对于Wolverine的世界来说，COVID-19证明了这一点。
Wolverine首席信息官Dee Slater表示，尽管许多公司为了应对大流行而加速了云迁移，但这家拥有140年历史的鞋履制造商暂停了大部分技术项目，专注于维持业务，这一决定让该公司在实现目标方面略落后，但更有可能取得成功，这要归功于更先进的云服务和工具的可用性，以缓解向混合云基础设施的转型。
Slater说:“当疫情来袭时，我们暂停了一下。“现在我们正在努力，真正专注于现代化我们的工作方式，简化和简化跨平台的工作，并在我们的指尖上获得可操作的数据。”
Mich的The Rockford。这家总部位于美国的公司最著名的产品是靴子和嘘嘘热狗，最近还收购了Merrell、Sperry、Saucony和sweat Betty等品牌。该公司最初于2019年启动了云之旅。
但当新冠肺炎来袭时，该公司在试图保持业务流动的过程中面临了几次危机，云计算转型被推迟了。Slater说:“我们需要做出一些艰难的决定。这次大流行没有剧本。我们的数据之旅才刚刚开始。”
其中一个危机就集中在Wolverine的供应链上。与大多数制造商一样，在大流行的早期，金刚狼的供应链问题迅速显现出来，鞋子的交货时间翻了一番，部分原因是跨境采购材料变得非常困难。这对Slate来说尤其具有挑战性，他不仅是Wolverine的首席信息官，还是供应链和共享服务的高级副总裁。
自2006年以来一直担任首席信息官Slate说:“这是人们谈论的‘首席信息官+’角色之一。我的工作还包括物流、分销、贸易合规或我们的货物运输、我们的联络中心和我们的项目管理办公室。”
Wolverine的鞋子在170个国家销售，在越南、印度尼西亚、香港和中国。该公司还在加利福尼亚州、密歇根州、肯塔基州以及加拿大安大略省设有配送中心。
围绕《Wolverine》全球制造和分销足迹的问题立即成为业务关键。Slate说，例如，越南在大流行期间关闭了两个月。为了优化重新开业的业务，Wolverine IT使用Microsoft Power BI建立了供应链数据模型，在工厂恢复运营后优先考虑哪些品牌应该首先生产。
Slate表示，Wolverine的核心基础设施依赖于SAP和微软(Microsoft)，该公司目前使用SAP SAC分析“在供应链数据方面进展顺利”，但尚未着手数字化转型的其他方面，比如建立数据湖和拥抱人工智能。目前，Slater的计划是完成Wolverine基于微软Azure的混合云，目前已经完成了一半。
Wolverine依赖于七个数据中心，其中两个由第三方合作伙伴运营。Slate表示，公司总部的本地数据中心与Azure和其他公共云连接，并补充说，Wolverine已经将大约500项服务从本地迁移到Azure云中。
她说，虽然大流行减缓了Wolverine的混合云转型，但现在有大量新工具和程序可以帮助迁移，这使得延迟变得更容易接受。例如，Wolverine已经签约了Rise with SAP，这是一种新的SAP服务，可以最大限度地减少将Wolverine的本地SAP堆栈迁移到Azure的迁移挑战。该公司还在使用Azure Arc，这是微软在大流行前几个月推出的云管理工具，现在使Wolverine能够构建可以在数据中心、边缘和多云环境中运行的应用程序。
首席信息官表示，Arc等工具为Wolverine提供了“管理其流程的单一窗口”。“当我们谈到Wolverine的现代化工作时，它不是轻轻一按开关就能实现的。因此，我们实际上必须管理内部部署遗留解决方案的组合，因为我们有现代的云计算新工作方式。”
Slate表示，Wolverine的云业务主要是“将我们的数据放到云端，这样我们就可以以前所未有的方式进行连接，让数据变得更加强大。”为此，该公司计划在2023年开始创建一个数据湖。
她说，该制造商还将继续开发其SAP SAC分析基础设施，并开始构建机器学习模型，以根据数据湖中的数据生成见解和指令。
Slate说:“第一步是简化和标准化所有数据，这样我们就有了共同的流程和实践，例如，我们可以将机器学习应用于其中，并在构建数据湖时摆脱一些平凡的任务。然后我们将开始应用人工智能来帮助提供信息、预测，并实际开始为我们做出一些决定。我们目前还没有这样做。”
虽然疫情的拖延增加了现在迅速采取行动的冲动，但Slate仍然希望确保以适当的方式采用机器学习等新技术。“我们不是一家软件公司。我们是一家制鞋公司……购买的是一个商业流程，在我们实施它的时候，记住这一点是至关重要的。”她说。
如果说Wolverine的大流行经历让我们明白了什么，那就是技术可以成为业务的驱动力，但最终，业务需求是第一位的。
首席信息官补充道:“这是关于优先考虑哪些业务解决方案。这场大流行既是祝福也是诅咒——原因很明显，但技术的迅速采用让很多人来敲我的门，准备使用系统和数据。这是关于优先考虑谁先去，以什么顺序去。”
这是一个相当大的文化转变，就在几年前，甚至IT人员都对变化持谨慎态度。Slate回忆起2017年，当公司最初邀请微软参加为期三天的云认证课程时，员工们的负面反应——在Wolverine的云项目开始之前，首席信息官能够消除这种看法。
IT团队很担心，因为许多人认为迁移到云端会减少他们的工作。
Slate说：“但在会议结束时，每个人都明白这是未来的方式;这将允许我们扩大或缩小规模，这是一条伟大的职业道路。我很高兴地告诉大家，我们的人员流动率最低，因为我们的团队看到了愿景。他们会继续支持我们。”
首席信息官认为，通过这种方式，疫情期间推迟云迁移实际上有助于留住员工。Slate说，这也帮助公司吸引了更多的人才。
她说:“员工们很高兴有一个谈论技术、投资技术和使工作技术现代化的首席执行官。当然，招聘是有挑战的，但我认为我们在吸引和留住员工方面比同行有优势”，这要归功于公司正在进行的转型，以及未来的机遇。
原文：
Sometimes — even in IT — slowing down can pay off big-time. For Wolverine Worldwide, COVID-19 proved the point.
While many companies accelerated their cloud migrations in response to the pandemic, the 140-year-old boot and shoe manufacturer halted much of its technology projects to focus on keeping the business afloat, a decision that left the company a bit behind where it wanted to be but better positioned to succeed, thanks to the availability of more advanced cloud services and tools to ease its transformation to
“When the pandemic hit, we took a bit of a pause,” Slater says. “Now we are well under way and really focused on modernizing the way we work, streamlining and simplifying work across platforms and having actionable data right at out fingertips.”
The Rockford, Mich.-based company best known for its boots and Hush Puppies, and more recently its acquisitions of the Merrell, Sperry, Saucony, and Sweaty Betty brands, originally launched its cloud journey in 2019.
But when COVID hit, the company faced several crises as it tried to keep its business flowing, and the cloud transformation got pushed back. “We had some tough decisions to make,” Slater says. “There was no playbook for this pandemic. We were just starting on our data journey.”
Prioritizing the supply chain
One such crisis centered on Wolverine’s supply chain. As was the case for most manufacturers, supply chain issues quickly materialized for Wolverine in the early days of the pandemic, with lead times for shoes doubling, in part because getting materials across borders had become arduous. This was especially challenging for Slater, who is not only Wolverine’s CIO but also its senior vice president of supply chain and shared services.
“It’s one of those CIO-plus roles that people talk about,” says Slater, who has served as CIO since 2006. “The plus part of my role includes logistics, distribution, trade compliance, or the movement of our goods, our contact centers, and our project management office.”
Wolverine’s footwear is sold in 170 countries and is manufactured in Vietnam, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and China. The company also operates distribution centers in California, Michigan, and Kentucky, and in Ontario, Canada.
Issues surrounding Wolverine’s global manufacturing and distribution footprint became instantly business critical. Vietnam, for instance, was closed for two months during the pandemic, Slater says. To optimize business on its re-opening, Wolverine IT built supply chain data models using Microsoft Power BI to prioritize which brands it should manufacture first once factories resumed operation.
Wolverine, which Slater says relies on SAP and Microsoft for its core infrastructure, is now “well along the journey in supply chain data” using SAP SAC analytics but has yet to embark on other aspects of its digital transformation, such as building a data lake and embracing AI, she says. Currently, Slater’s plan is to complete Wolverine’s hybrid cloud based on Microsoft Azure, which is now at the halfway mark.
Wolverine relies on seven data centers, two of which are run by third-party partners.
The on-premises data center at its corporate headquarters connects to Azure and other public clouds, Slater says, adding that Wolverine has moved roughly 500 services from on-prem to the Azure cloud.
While the pandemic slowed down Wolverine’s hybrid cloud transformation. The abundance of new tools and programs now available to aid in migration is making the delay more palatable, she says. For example, Wolverine has signed on to Rise with SAP, a new SAP service that is minimizing the migration challenges of moving Wolverine’s on-premises SAP stack to Azure. The company is also using Azure Arc, a Microsoft cloud management tool that launched just months before the pandemic and now enables Wolverine to build applications that can run across data centers, edge, and multicloud environments.
Tools like Arc give Wolverine a “single pane of glass to manage its processes,” the CIO says. “When we talk about modernizing work at Wolverine, it does not happen with the flip of a switch. So we actually had to manage the combination of our on-premises legacy solutions. As we have our modern new ways of working in the cloud.”
Wolverine’s cloud push is largely about “getting our data in the cloud so we can connect in ways we have not done before, making that data even more powerful,” Slater says. To that end, the company plans to start creating a data lake in 2023, she says.
The manufacturer will also continue developing its SAP SAC analytics infrastructure and begin building machine learning models to generate insights and directives based on data that resides in the data lake, she says.
“Step one is streamlining and standardizing all the data so we have common process and practice that we can apply machine learning to. For example, and get rid of some of those mundane tasks as we build out our data lake,” Slater says. “We will then start applying AI to help inform, predict, and actually start making some of those decisions for us. We are not currently doing that.”
While the pandemic delay has increased the urge to move quickly now, Slater still wants to ensure new technologies. Such as machine learning, are adopted in the appropriate manner. “We are not a software company. We’re a shoe company … buying a business process,” she says. “Keeping that in mind as we’re implementing it is critical.”
And if there’s anything Wolverine’s pandemic experience has enforced, it’s that technology can be a driver of business, But in the end, business needs come first.
“It’s about prioritizing which business solutions go first,” the CIO adds. “This pandemic has been a blessing and a curse — a curse for the obvious reasons. But the rapid adoption of technology has a lot of people knocking on my door ready to use systems and data. And it’s about prioritizing who goes first and in what order.”
That’s quite a cultural shift from just a few years ago when even IT staff were wary of change. Slater recalls the negative reaction employees had when the company initially brought Microsoft in for a three-day cloud certification class in 2017 — a perception the CIO was able to smooth over before Wolverine’s cloud project started.
The IT team was apprehensive because many thought moving to the cloud would eliminate their jobs.
“But by end of that session, everyone understood that this was the way of the future; this was going to allow us to scale up and scale down and be a great career path,” Slater says. “I’m happy to report that we’ve had minimal turnover because our team saw the vision. They’re sticking with us.”
In this way, the delay of the cloud migration during the pandemic actually helped with employee retention, the CIO maintains. It also helped the company attract additional talent, Slater says.
“Employees get excited to have a CEO who talks about technology and investing in technology and modernizing the work technologies,” she says. “Certainly, recruiting has its challenges, but I think we have an advantage versus our peers for both attracting and retaining employees” thanks to the company’s ongoing transformation, and the opportunities ahead.
本文由数字化转型网翻译而成，作者：Paula Rooney，翻译：数字化转型网郑亚茹；翻译审核：数字化转型网默然。
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