Clients > The Home Depot

The Home Depot
Location: Atlanta, GA
Web: http://www.homedepot.com
January – July 2008

Managing an Ariba 8.22 Upgrade @ The Home Depot

Background

Since 2001, The Home Depot (THD) has successfully used Ariba's integrated eProcurement solutions to manage the buying process including operating resources, services, store capital, and goods for resale.  During this time, THD had gone through several software updates including a major upgrade from Ariba Buyer 7.1a to 8.1.

2008 would be no exception. Being a heavy user of IBM technology, THD made an internal decision to upgrade from DB2 from 7.1 to 7.2 and AIX from 5.1 to 5.3. Given these OS and database versions were not supported on 8.1, an upgrade to Buyer 8.2.2 was the only option.

Challenge

Since the last major upgrade, THD had gone through several resource changes and adjustments.  With a relatively small team supporting Ariba internally, THD recognized the need to make the upgrade as smooth a process as possible. Selecting a partner experienced with Ariba upgrades would be an important factor in managing against certain key success factors:

- Maintain the existing yet complex interface between Ariba and SAP
- Migrate existing code customizations into the new environment
- Effectively work with the existing offshore infrastructure currently supporting Ariba
- Improve internal knowledge of Buyer 8.2.2 to effectively support the user base post-upgrade

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