Lidl’s Parent Teams Up with Google to Redefine Cloud Sovereignty in Europe

Lidl’s parent company, Schwarz Group, is advancing its strategy of controlling its business operations by partnering with Google to deliver secure and sovereign cloud-based collaboration for German and European regulated industries.

Through this partnership, Schwarz Group’s StackIT, the retailer’s cloud provider, will offer client-side encryption for customers’ Google Workspace data. StackIT ensures that customer data remains within the European Union, with full redundancy provided by backups hosted solely in European data centres to meet demands for data protection, residency, and 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.”