The extended cloud collaboration will support strategy for secure and sustainable expansion while maximizing the potential of its technology talent.
Long before the pandemic-driven digitalization movement, a regional logistics provider with operations in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines had already moved operations to the public cloud, reaping untold benefits when the situation demanded agility and efficiency.
Now, to strengthen its hold in last-mile courier services and expand upstream into supply chain management solutions, Ninja Van is channeling even more DX efforts into areas such as talent management, process efficiencies and operational resilience.
Said the firm’s co–founder and CTO, Shaun Chong: “With disruptions to the traditional flow of raw materials and finished goods, there is an urgent need for adaptive micro supply chains that allow businesses to ‘make where they sell’ and fulfill orders quicker.”
Chong was alluding to recent cloud-centric initiatives in that direction, via its new ‘procurement concierge’ that offers services such as supplier sourcing and management; customs clearance; financing; and shipments tracking to help clients to set up onshore or nearshore production and distribution.
In view of the unlimited potential of continual cloud-centered innovation, the firm recently announced the renewal of its partnership with Google Cloud.
Freeing up talent to drive innovation
Via the benefits of the public cloud, Ninja Van consistently makes efficient use of its 150 engineers, developers and data scientists to build products that add value to the business, instead of making them spend excessive time managing complex IT infrastructure.
The firm’s technical teams are free to choose the tools they need to accelerate software development and scale more efficiently, while also reducing technology risk. Using a Google Cloud open-source data processing platform, their data scientists can comfortably process terabytes of data daily to support business needs.
Other cloud tools such as Kubernetes and open-source and pre-built virtual agents were instrumental in the quick development (one-third of the usual time needed from scratch) of the firm’s indispensable chat bots to simulate the quality and immediacy of in-person interactions.
Cybersecurity, zero downtime targets
As Ninja Van continues to help retailers compete in the fast-growing market and expand its services upstream, reliability and data protection remain top priorities.
“Having benefited from security solutions that are (native to) Google Cloud’s infrastructure—such as end-to-end encryption and automated patching against vulnerabilities like Apache Log4j 2—we will now work with their security specialists on additional ways to reinforce our zero trust security model,” said Chong.
He added: “Security has always been a top priority, but as our brand becomes more visible and we connect with more third-parties after expanding upstream, we’re making a deliberate effort to strengthen how we protect our customers’ data,” referring to his firm’s trust in continued and expanded reliance on the existing cloud platform.
Google Cloud’s Managing Director, Southeast Asia, Ruma Balasubramanian, said: “By investing in world-class talent and relentless innovation, the company is well-positioned to deliver the just-in-time production and distribution capabilities that businesses need to satisfy contemporary consumers’ desire for product variety and immediacy,” and reiterated her firm’s commitment to the renewed partnership.
