Shipping firm Ocean Network Express (ONE) is enhancing its operational efficiency by running its mission critical SAP systems on Google Cloud, to unlock business insights and accelerate time-to-insight, to leverage data analytics services like BigQuery, and to enhance employee collaboration with Google Workspace.
As one of the largest container shipping companies globally, Singapore-based ONE handles transactions with as many as 14,000 customers across 63 countries every day. To manage these, ONE previously relied on an SAP accounting system hosted locally in each country on its legacy cloud platform.
To modernise its systems, ONE migrated to an SAP S/4HANA enterprise resource planning (ERP) finance software hosted on Google Cloud. Shifting from its on-premise infrastructure to the public cloud gives ONE the ability to scale its ERP systems up and down to meet changes in customer demands and data volumes.
ONE is also integrating its SAP system with Google Cloud’s data analytics solutions to gain a unified and real-time view of data across its global organisation. This enabes ONE to better predict demand in the supply chain and make business decisions faster.
Plans to modernise its legacy data environment with a data lake using BigQuery are also underway and are expected to be completed by third quarter of 2021.
“By accelerating the use of data analytics to enhance operational efficiencies and predict, ONE can better meet changes in customer demands and data volumes and make business decisions faster,” said Kosuke Wada, SVP at ONE.
“Our move to Google Cloud is a realisation of a centralised and intelligent system that allows us to act on trusted and up-to-date information to shape our data cloud strategy,” said Wada.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, ONE was able to minimise the impact of office closures and travel restrictions on its customers by using Google Workspace, in particular using Gmail and Google Meet to stay connected with customers, vendors, and colleagues, whether they were working remotely or in the office.
Already in the process of rolling Google Workspace out to its 8,000-people employee base, ONE is able to deliver seamless customer service from any device and ensure prompt responses to sales inquiries from shippers to the tight coordination of cargo between ports and countries.
