Foodstuffs North Island - Best Tech Awards 2025 Business Transformation
Empowering Strategic Transformation through LeanIX at Foodstuffs North Island Download the DocumentSAP Australia and New
Zealand Best Tech Awards
2025
Zealand Best Tech Awards
2025
Best Tech SAP
Industry WebsiteProduct and Services Featured SAP Solutions
Retail —
Grocery & Food
Distribution
https://www.foodstuffs.co.nz/Leading grocery retail brands:
New World, Pak’n Save,
Foursquare, Gilmore’s, Liquorland
SAP LeanIX
Foodstuffs North Island is New Zealand’s leading grocery retailer, proudly operating trusted and beloved brands including New World, Pak’n Save, 4 Square,
Gilmore’s, and Liquorland. As a 100% New Zealand-owned cooperative, Foodstuffs is deeply connected to the communities it serves, playing a fundamental
role in ensuring access to quality food and supporting the local economy.
Facing increasing operational complexity and the challenges of modern retail, Foodstuffs recognised the critical need to transform how it manages its enterprise
architecture to stay agile and responsive. Through a strategic partnership with SAP and Kapish, they adopted Lean IX—a powerful enterprise architecture tool
that provides a unified, real-time view of their technology landscape.
This submission highlights how Lean IX has become a vital enabler for Foodstuffs, streamlining decision-making, improving collaboration between business and
IT, and reducing risk across their entire operation. The solution is empowering hundreds of employees to work smarter and faster, improving business resilience
and ultimately enhancing the customer experience for thousands of New Zealanders every day.
Empowering Strategic Transformation
through LeanIX at Foodstuffs North Island
Business Transformation
Industry WebsiteProduct and Services Featured SAP Solutions
Retail —
Grocery & Food
Distribution
https://www.foodstuffs.co.nz/Leading grocery retail brands:
New World, Pak’n Save,
Foursquare, Gilmore’s, Liquorland
SAP LeanIX
Foodstuffs North Island is New Zealand’s leading grocery retailer, proudly operating trusted and beloved brands including New World, Pak’n Save, 4 Square,
Gilmore’s, and Liquorland. As a 100% New Zealand-owned cooperative, Foodstuffs is deeply connected to the communities it serves, playing a fundamental
role in ensuring access to quality food and supporting the local economy.
Facing increasing operational complexity and the challenges of modern retail, Foodstuffs recognised the critical need to transform how it manages its enterprise
architecture to stay agile and responsive. Through a strategic partnership with SAP and Kapish, they adopted Lean IX—a powerful enterprise architecture tool
that provides a unified, real-time view of their technology landscape.
This submission highlights how Lean IX has become a vital enabler for Foodstuffs, streamlining decision-making, improving collaboration between business and
IT, and reducing risk across their entire operation. The solution is empowering hundreds of employees to work smarter and faster, improving business resilience
and ultimately enhancing the customer experience for thousands of New Zealanders every day.
Empowering Strategic Transformation
through LeanIX at Foodstuffs North Island
Business Transformation
Challenges
As Foodstuffs North Island grew to operate diverse retail brands—including New World, Pak’n Save, 4 Square,
Gilmore’s, and Liquorland—across numerous locations, their IT environment became increasingly complex. Legacy
systems and siloed data created barriers to gaining a clear, unified view of technology and business assets across
the organisation.
Without a centralised platform, teams faced difficulties in understanding dependencies and risks, which slowed
down strategic planning and increased operational uncertainty.
Key challenges included:
• Limited centralised visibility: Difficulty consolidating diverse business and technology assets across brands
and locations, leading to fragmented insights.
• Manual, resource-heavy processes: Roadmap development and interface mapping were time-consuming and
prone to oversight, impacting responsiveness.
• Inadequate impact assessment: Limited ability to rapidly assess how changes affected interconnected
systems, raising risk exposure and slowing innovation cycles.
• Complex management of integration and obsolescence risks: Identifying duplication and end-of-life assets
was challenging, making it harder to maintain operational stability.
These challenges constrained Foodstuffs North Island’s ability to maintain effective governance over its technology
estate and respond swiftly to evolving business needs, risking delays in transformation initiatives critical to their
retail operations and customer experience.
As Foodstuffs North Island grew to operate diverse retail brands—including New World, Pak’n Save, 4 Square,
Gilmore’s, and Liquorland—across numerous locations, their IT environment became increasingly complex. Legacy
systems and siloed data created barriers to gaining a clear, unified view of technology and business assets across
the organisation.
Without a centralised platform, teams faced difficulties in understanding dependencies and risks, which slowed
down strategic planning and increased operational uncertainty.
Key challenges included:
• Limited centralised visibility: Difficulty consolidating diverse business and technology assets across brands
and locations, leading to fragmented insights.
• Manual, resource-heavy processes: Roadmap development and interface mapping were time-consuming and
prone to oversight, impacting responsiveness.
• Inadequate impact assessment: Limited ability to rapidly assess how changes affected interconnected
systems, raising risk exposure and slowing innovation cycles.
• Complex management of integration and obsolescence risks: Identifying duplication and end-of-life assets
was challenging, making it harder to maintain operational stability.
These challenges constrained Foodstuffs North Island’s ability to maintain effective governance over its technology
estate and respond swiftly to evolving business needs, risking delays in transformation initiatives critical to their
retail operations and customer experience.
Solution
Foodstuffs North Island selected LeanIX as the cornerstone of their enterprise architecture transformation. The decision
was driven by LeanIX’s robust, out-of-the-box meta-model that aligned well with their need for simplicity and scalability,
avoiding time-consuming customization. With expert guidance from Kapish, the implementation was smooth and
efficient, enabling rapid onboarding and certification of the architecture team.
Key elements of the solution included:
This comprehensive approach positioned Foodstuffs North Island to actively manage their technology landscape, assess
risks, and make strategic decisions with agility and confidence.
• Centralised mapping and modeling of business and technology assets, capabilities, and critical integrations
• Visual solution architecture capabilities built in part from the LeanIX enterprise models with embedded drawing
tools, allowing for real-time updates and scenario planning
• Integration with existing systems to create a trusted single source of truth across the organization
• Governance frameworks embedded in LeanIX, supporting architecture review boards and technical design
authorities across enterprise and solution decisions
• Early adoption of AI-driven agents to automate solution design alignment, ensuring compliance to Foodstuffs
principles and enterprise standards
Foodstuffs North Island selected LeanIX as the cornerstone of their enterprise architecture transformation. The decision
was driven by LeanIX’s robust, out-of-the-box meta-model that aligned well with their need for simplicity and scalability,
avoiding time-consuming customization. With expert guidance from Kapish, the implementation was smooth and
efficient, enabling rapid onboarding and certification of the architecture team.
Key elements of the solution included:
This comprehensive approach positioned Foodstuffs North Island to actively manage their technology landscape, assess
risks, and make strategic decisions with agility and confidence.
• Centralised mapping and modeling of business and technology assets, capabilities, and critical integrations
• Visual solution architecture capabilities built in part from the LeanIX enterprise models with embedded drawing
tools, allowing for real-time updates and scenario planning
• Integration with existing systems to create a trusted single source of truth across the organization
• Governance frameworks embedded in LeanIX, supporting architecture review boards and technical design
authorities across enterprise and solution decisions
• Early adoption of AI-driven agents to automate solution design alignment, ensuring compliance to Foodstuffs
principles and enterprise standards
Impact
More than 200 solution designs
reviewed annually with real-time,
automated feedback, accelerating
project timelines and improving
quality assurance.
Architecture review times reduced by
over 90%, from days to under 10
minutes through AI-driven, self-
service capabilities.
Over 15,000 technology assets
consolidated into a single risk profile,
enabling comprehensive and strategic
asset management.
The implementation of LeanIX has transformed how Foodstuffs North Island governs and evolves its complex IT environment. By
consolidating disparate data into a single platform, teams now have immediate visibility into dependencies, risks, and opportunities,
significantly reducing manual effort and error.
Key impacts include:
Looking ahead, Foodstuffs North Island plans to further leverage agentic AI capabilities coupled with LeanIX’s modelling capabilities to
accelerate the transformation journey.
• Accelerated decision-making with rapid scenario modeling and automated solution architecture reviews,
cutting days of work to minutes
• Improved risk management through proactive identification of obsolescence and integration vulnerabilities
• Enhanced collaboration and governance via structured feedback loops embedded in project and architecture
review processes
• Greater alignment between business priorities, risk appetite and technology investments, enabling efficient
resource allocation and cost transparency
• Empowerment of solution architects with AI-assisted tools that enhance design quality, identifies gaps and
strengthens compliance
More than 200 solution designs
reviewed annually with real-time,
automated feedback, accelerating
project timelines and improving
quality assurance.
Architecture review times reduced by
over 90%, from days to under 10
minutes through AI-driven, self-
service capabilities.
Over 15,000 technology assets
consolidated into a single risk profile,
enabling comprehensive and strategic
asset management.
The implementation of LeanIX has transformed how Foodstuffs North Island governs and evolves its complex IT environment. By
consolidating disparate data into a single platform, teams now have immediate visibility into dependencies, risks, and opportunities,
significantly reducing manual effort and error.
Key impacts include:
Looking ahead, Foodstuffs North Island plans to further leverage agentic AI capabilities coupled with LeanIX’s modelling capabilities to
accelerate the transformation journey.
• Accelerated decision-making with rapid scenario modeling and automated solution architecture reviews,
cutting days of work to minutes
• Improved risk management through proactive identification of obsolescence and integration vulnerabilities
• Enhanced collaboration and governance via structured feedback loops embedded in project and architecture
review processes
• Greater alignment between business priorities, risk appetite and technology investments, enabling efficient
resource allocation and cost transparency
• Empowerment of solution architects with AI-assisted tools that enhance design quality, identifies gaps and
strengthens compliance
“”“LeanIX is a powerful decision support tool that enables us to be more
relevant for our business, so they can make fully informed decisions that
lead to optimized investments, risk mitigation driving value for our
customers.
This tool has been able to meet our needs, grounded in building confidence
and trust to meet our complex planning and road mapping needs.”
— Damian Barr, Head of Strategy and Architecture, Foodstuffs North Island
relevant for our business, so they can make fully informed decisions that
lead to optimized investments, risk mitigation driving value for our
customers.
This tool has been able to meet our needs, grounded in building confidence
and trust to meet our complex planning and road mapping needs.”
— Damian Barr, Head of Strategy and Architecture, Foodstuffs North Island