Building a Safe and Efficient Digital Future with CarrefourSA

A Strategic Digital Transformation Journey

The multifaceted challenges faced by CarrefourSA, a leading retail player, in pursuit of its digital transformation goals necessitated a comprehensive and strategic technology partnership. In this journey, CarrefourSA joined forces with Bilgi Birikim Sistemleri (BBS), a leading IT company in the sector since 1992 and a strong systems integrator. This collaboration has evolved into a holistic success story, aiming to build CarrefourSA's digital future on a secure and efficient foundation, encompassing a wide range of services, from cybersecurity and business process automation to infrastructure modernization and regulatory compliance.

The Challenge: The Multilayered Needs of Modern Retailing

Every step taken in the digitalization process brings with it new challenges. For CarrefourSA, these challenges are concentrated in areas vital to business continuity, such as cybersecurity threats, regulatory compliance, data protection, and operational efficiency. Addressing these needs from an integrated perspective was critical for the company to maintain its competitive advantage and face the future with confidence.

The main challenges facing CarrefourSA can be grouped under the following headings:

Regulatory Compliance and Data Security: Ensuring full compliance with increasingly stringent data protection regulations such as KVKK and GDPR, thoroughly establishing the technical infrastructure required by these regulations, and protecting corporate data, one of the company's most valuable assets, against potential leaks and losses were among the top priorities.
Advanced Cyber Threats: With the increasing number of end users working both in the office and remotely, providing end-to-end protection against cyberattacks targeting user devices and aiming to infiltrate corporate networks has become a necessity. This necessitates an advanced security architecture that can be centrally managed and reported.
Operational Inefficiency and Manual Processes: The manual execution of many operational processes, such as contract tracking, document management, and internal workflows, was leading to both wasted time and inefficiency. Digitizing these processes, enabling automation and reducing manual workload, was a critical goal for increasing operational agility.
The Need for a High-Performance Infrastructure: Continuously growing virtualization platforms and critical SAP infrastructures required a high-performance, uninterrupted hardware infrastructure to meet the growing resource demands. Accelerating processing-intensive processes, such as weekly SAP reports, was crucial for timely business decisions.

These interconnected challenges presented a picture that needed to be addressed with a holistic and strategic approach rather than singular solutions.

Offered Solution: Comprehensive and Integrated Technology Strategy

In response to the challenges CarrefourSA faced, BBS introduced a holistic architectural vision aimed at creating a resilient, agile, and adaptable retail operation, rather than a series of isolated projects. Leveraging its broad competencies as a systems integrator, BBS implemented this vision with an integrated strategy built on three key pillars: proactive cyber defense, intelligent automation, and modernized high-performance infrastructure.

Proactive Defense Architecture: The Six Cornerstones of Cybersecurity

This comprehensive project, which began in the last quarter of 2021, completely restructured CarrefourSA's security posture with strategically deployed technologies in six key areas. This strategy transformed cyber defense from a reactive approach to a proactive protection model that anticipates and blocks potential threats:

End User Security: Antivirus and EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) solutions were integrated to protect end user devices, which are the most common way to infiltrate corporate networks.
Data Leak Prevention (DLP): DLP and Database Activity Monitoring solutions were implemented to prevent data loss, which directly affects corporate prestige and regulatory compliance.
Safe Internet Access: Web Proxy infrastructure was designed to protect users against threats that may arise from malicious websites and to implement a safe Internet access policy.
Central Log Management (SIEM): The SIEM solution was implemented to centrally detect anomalies and suspicious activities in all systems and provide immediate intervention.
Privileged Identity Management (PAM): To eliminate one of the highest-risk insider threat vectors, PAM architecture was established to control and secure privileged accounts accessing critical systems.
Attack Simulation: An attack simulation platform was deployed to continuously test the effectiveness of all security investments and to be prepared for "zero-day" attacks.

Increasing Efficiency and Control: Security and Automation with IBM

To eliminate key business risks such as operational inefficiency and manual processes, BBS designed a transformative automation and security strategy centered around IBM's enterprise software suite.

Privileged Access Management (PAM) - IBM Security Verify Privilege: This project maximized the security of privileged identities and passwords that provide access to critical systems. Capabilities such as automatic password changing and logging of all sessions prevented potential threats. This first project, completed in 2022, earned CarrefourSA the "Privileged" award as proof of its success .
Business Automation (IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation): This solution, which digitizes document management and workflows, has transformed CarrefourSA's operational processes. In particular, the implementation of the "Contract Management" module has moved all contract tracking to a digital platform, eliminating manual workloads.
Identity Management (IBM Security Verify Governance): This platform, which enables all digital identities within CarrefourSA to be managed from a single center, offers the opportunity to perform authorization analyses and easily detect orphaned accounts in the systems.
API Management (IBM Cloud Pak for Integration): All APIs that make up CarrefourSA's digital assets can now be managed, discovered, and tested from a single interface. This significantly simplifies API management processes.

Taking Performance to the Top: Modern Infrastructure with HPE

Infrastructure modernization to meet CarrefourSA's increasing workloads and data volume constituted one of the most critical aspects of the project. HPE solutions, proven for their performance and reliability, were selected for this purpose. High-performance HPE DL380 rack servers and the HPE AI-based Alletra 9080 data storage product were strategically deployed to meet the resource needs of the virtualization infrastructure, which was completed in 2022. In the first quarter of 2023, the HPE Superdome solution, which offers high-level processing power for SAP HANA infrastructure, one of the most critical workloads, was implemented.

These comprehensive and integrated solutions went beyond being mere technical improvements for CarrefourSA and translated into directly measurable business results.

Results Achieved: Measurable Business Value and Skills Gained

?The success of technology investments is measured by their tangible contributions to CarrefourSA's operational capabilities and strategic objectives. The project has delivered tangible benefits across a wide range of areas, from security and efficiency to infrastructure performance and centralized control.

The table below summarizes the project's key improvement areas and the concrete results achieved in these areas:

*Improvement Area*	*Implemented Solution Summary*	*Concrete Results Obtained*
Regulatory Compliance and Data Protection	DLP, Database Activity Monitoring, SIEM	The technical infrastructure required by regulations such as KVKK and GDPR has been created, and the potential for data loss has been prevented.
Infrastructure Performance and Availability	HPE DL380, Alletra 9080 (2022) and HPE Superdome (2023)	High performance and 100% data access were achieved in the virtualization infrastructure, and the preparation time of weekly SAP reports was shortened.
Operational Efficiency and Automation	IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation	All operational processes such as contract management have been digitalized, reducing manual workloads.
Central Management and Control	IBM Identity Management, API Connect, PAM	All digital identities and APIs can now be managed from a central interface, providing secure access to systems.

Behind these impressive technical and operational achievements lies the human factor, the most valuable component of the project, and the strong collaboration established between the two institutions.

Formula for Success: Strategic Business Partnership

Given that technology alone doesn't guarantee success, the most critical element underlying this project was the strong synergy established between the BBS and CarrefourSA teams. From planning to implementation, the entire project was driven not by two separate companies, but by a single team focused on a common goal.

This "one team" approach, working in complete harmony and efficient collaboration , was crucial to the project's strategic success. In such a complex, multi-vendor transformation project, this synergy accelerated decision-making processes, prevented potential scope overruns, and most importantly, ensured that security, automation, and infrastructure components were seamlessly integrated from the outset, rather than simply added on as afterthoughts. The professionalism of both CarrefourSA's competent technical team, with its intimate understanding of its business and needs, and BBS's certified expert team formed the foundation of this success.

This strong partnership has not only ensured the success of current projects, but has also created a solid foundation of trust for future steps.

Looking to the Future: Continuous Development and Long-Term Collaboration

This comprehensive transformation project with CarrefourSA represents not a finishing touch for BBS, but the beginning of a long-term strategic partnership. The ongoing support provided under the current operational support service agreement demonstrates that this partnership is not limited to project delivery. These achievements serve as a springboard for future innovations. In this regard, BBS has clearly defined its future goals:

To ensure the uninterrupted continuation of the efficient and harmonious cooperation established with CarrefourSA.
To continue to support CarrefourSA's ever-evolving technology infrastructure at both hardware and security layers.
To undertake pioneering projects that shape the sector in line with changing technology and customer needs.

This successful partnership between CarrefourSA and BBS provides a powerful example of how a strategic technology collaboration can solve today's complex challenges and create a solid and innovative foundation for the competitive world of the future.