Manchester Airports Group (MAG) will be utilising RISE with SAP, in collaboration with AWS, to facilitate the group’s digitisation across several areas of business.

MAG operates Manchester, London Stanstead and East Midland airports, as well as a 50% investment in the £1 billion Airport City development at Manchester Airport. In 2019, the airports collectively served 60 million passengers.

The partnership with SAP will form the foundation of a MAG initiative called ‘Project Build Back Smarter’, focussed on total departmental transformation, including a move to the cloud.  

SAP worked with MAG to identify a roadmap to support its post-pandemic recovery through the initiative, which involved meeting the challenges that MAG was experiencing, including reduced staffing through continued furlough schemes.

MAG went live on RISE in March this year, with the first phase being the movement of its existing ECC estate into the cloud, with a view to moving to SAP S/4HANA cloud in the near future.

“Following a challenging period for the airport industry, we’re now seeing a resurgence in the number of people wanting to get away,” said Nicholas Woods, CIO at Manchester Airport Group.

“As passenger numbers continue to increase, we need to be as agile as possible to deliver the best possible service for our customers and to respond to our colleagues’ needs in the workplace. Our SAP partnership allows us to do just that, initially shifting key functions to the Cloud, with a view to completing a full digital transformation in the next few years.” 

Michiel Verhoeven, UK & Ireland Managing Director at SAP, added, “We’re delighted to be supporting Manchester Airports Group as it embarks on its journey towards full digital transformation. The tourism industry has been profoundly affected over the last couple of years, but as MAG becomes more agile, automated and insights-driven, it is putting itself in the best possible position to take off as global restrictions ease.”