Schwarz Group partners with Google on EU sovereign cloud

Google has partnered with retail giant Schwarz Group to deliver what the pair claim is truly secure and sovereign cloud-based collaboration for German and European regulated industries.

Through the partnership, Schwarz Group’s StackIT, the cloud provider for the retailer, which operates as an independent company offering sovereign cloud capabilities, will provide client-side encryption of customers’ Google Workspace data.

StackIT said customers’ data will remain resident within the European Union (EU), with full redundancy offered by backups hosted solely in its European datacentres to meet customer demands around data protection, data residency and data resiliency.

“Germany and the EU have until now lacked enterprise-grade cloud collaboration solutions that fully address the sovereignty requirements of regulated industries, including ensuring all data is secured and backed up on local soil with absolutely no opportunity for access by foreign nations or platform providers,” said Rolf Schumann, co-CEO of Schwarz Digits, the IT and digital division of the Schwarz Group.

“Our partnership and new offering with Google Cloud will fill this gap with an entirely new business model.”

Client-side encryption means Google has no access to customers’ data. According to Schwarz and Google, this safeguards the sovereignty of not only Schwarz Group, but also all customers who value the independence of their operations, giving them full confidence that their data is always in their control.

“This new partnership will enable the companies of Schwarz Group to combine its leadership in digital transformation with Google Cloud’s strengths in productivity, collaboration and security, enabled by our cutting-edge AI,” said Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet. “Together, we are opening up a world of new, sovereign opportunities for European organisations to innovate and build on our joint solutions, accelerating a new era of innovation.”

Through the partnership, Google Cloud’s security will be integrated with those of XM Cyber, Schwarz Digits’ hybrid cloud security company. This integrated offering will then be distributed to customers via the Google Cloud Marketplace.

According to Google and Schwarz, this integrated security will help German and European organisations, particularly those in highly regulated industries, raise the bar on their enterprise and multi-cloud security. In addition, XM Cyber’s Continuous Exposure Management will be embedded into the sovereign Google Workspace office productivity suite offered to European enterprises.

“This partnership changes the game for regulated industry players in Europe by removing the sovereignty and security concerns that often hold back more ambitious adoption of the cloud for productivity and collaboration,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. “Our alliance with companies of Schwarz Group will enable entire industries in Europe to deliver digital innovation with security and compliance at its core.”

Schwarz Group is Europe’s largest retailer, and the fourth-largest in the world. The company plans to transition its global office workforce to Google Workspace. The partnership with Google, according to Schwarz Group, enables critical workplace data to be protected against third-party access including foreign government institutions, and also transferred to alternate service providers if needed.

“Switching to Google Workspace is an important step for us out of legacy and into innovative, efficient and future-proof cloud-based collaboration,” said Christian Müller, Co-CEO of Schwarz Digits. “Google Workspace is the most secure and reliable productivity platform in the industry today, and we expect our organisation-wide migration to have significant flow-on benefits to all areas of operations from simplifying IT management to rendering our point-of-sale workflows significantly more efficient.”