In a world where e-commerce is becoming an increasingly popular purchasing channel, having an efficient delivery service is critical. Businesses must ensure they can get their products into the hands of customers as swiftly as possible.
To achieve this, businesses of all sizes are turning to logistics and delivery companies. Choosing the right provider ensures they have the geographical coverage and service quality needed to maintain their market position and brand reputation.
Delivering in Southeast Asia
Ninja Van Group is an express logistics company that provides supply chain solutions across Southeast Asia. In 2014, Lai Chang Wen, Shaun Chong, and Boxian Tan came together with a shared vision to tackle logistics challenges in the e-commerce space, combining their complementary skills to build the company.
Today, Ninja Van Group operates in six countries: Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam — handling close to two million parcels daily. During the last 12 months, it has served close to two million shippers and delivered parcels to 131 million recipients.
Technology underpinning operations
To support its expanding logistics network, Ninja Van Group has built a technology-driven infrastructure that supports every aspect of its operations. From real-time tracking tools to advanced data analytics, these systems play a crucial role in ensuring reliable service delivery.
From the outset, the company adopted a cloud-native strategy to maximise flexibility, responsiveness, and cost efficiency. By operating in the cloud, Ninja Van can scale dynamically to meet fluctuating customer demands while also reducing operational overheads. This approach enables the organisation to explore new growth opportunities without being constrained by traditional infrastructure limitations.
The role of privileged access management
Given its reliance on digital infrastructure and operational data, Ninja Van prioritises privileged access management (PAM) to safeguard its systems. Ensuring that only authorised personnel can interact with critical digital resources at any given time is essential to maintaining security and system reliability.
Mateen Sayyed, Regional Head of Identity & Access Management at Ninja Van Group, said, “After carefully assessing offerings from a range of privileged identity vendors, a decision was made in late 2021 to engage BeyondTrust. We were very impressed with the features of its Password Safe solution, along with the experience and capabilities offered by their Professional Services team.”
One of the key factors in selecting BeyondTrust was its willingness to develop integrations with Google Workspace, Google Cloud, and a combination of commercial and in-house-developed SaaS applications. Such integrations often require significant time, effort, and financial resources.
“With BeyondTrust, not only could we bring together the privileged access for these applications into a single pane of glass, but we were also able to significantly reduce the resources needed to manage it,” remarked Sayyed.
BeyondTrust’s willingness to work with Ninja Van and adapt its solution to fit existing systems was a key factor in the selection process. Sayyed noted that BeyondTrust took the time to fully assess Ninja Van’s needs before designing and deploying a system that fully integrated with its existing infrastructure. Even after implementation, BeyondTrust has remained closely involved as a trusted technology partner, supporting Ninja Van’s evolving security needs.
Implementing a secure access framework
To integrate PAM into its existing infrastructure, Ninja Van Group worked closely with BeyondTrust to develop a series of custom plug-ins. The deployment followed a staged approach and was completed in about 18 months.
Sayyed likened the process to building a bridge, explaining that Ninja Van’s engineers worked from one side while BeyondTrust worked from the other. “While we were each focused on our own roles, we had to be sure that the bridge would eventually meet in the middle. BeyondTrust was very good at making this synergy happen,” he said.
With the PAM solution fully deployed, Ninja Van has strengthened identity security across the organisation. User access rights are now segmented, reducing the risk of unauthorised access spreading across multiple applications in the event of a security breach. This enhances overall resilience and better protects critical assets.
Beyond security improvements, the solution has also made it easier for Ninja Van to test new ideas and potential services. Teams can now be granted secure access to applications and data within days, allowing them to prototype and experiment more efficiently.
Sayyed noted that the PAM solution met all of Ninja Van’s key criteria, including compliance, cloud adaptability, minimal operational complexity, tailored plug-in capabilities, pricing considerations, and strong local support.
“With privileged access management in place, we are well-positioned to continue Ninja Van’s planned growth path and meet customer requirements across the region,” he concluded.
