To maintain its competitive edge, South Africa–based food retailer The SPAR Group LTD is streamlining IT operations and embracing the cloud as part of its digital transformation. In South Africa, SPAR deployed Microsoft Office 365 and is using Microsoft Azure to reduce physical servers by a third and virtual machines by half in two years. SPAR is able to reduce system setup time from hours to just minutes, and with Microsoft Professional Direct support, SPAR is better able resolve Azure issues thanks to quick access to Microsoft professionals.