ThaiBev

Sermsuk elevates business capacity with trusted cloud computing services and solutions delivered by Leap Solutions Asia

Thai Beverage Public Company Limited, widely known as ThaiBev, is Thailand’s and the region’s leading beverage producer and distributor. The company’s product range covers a wide variety of beverages including spirits, beer, non-alcoholic drinks under the ‘Chang’ brand and ready-to-drink ‘Oishi’ tea. A subsidiary of the ThaiBev Group, Sermsuk Public Company Limited has been engaged in the production and distribution of ‘est’ carbonated drinks, ‘Crystal’ drinking water and many other beverages distributed through retail markets and shops of small to large scale.

Challenges of IT infrastructure

Like other fast-growing organizations, Sermsuk is inevitably encountering challenges brought by its IT infrastructure expansion, which is needed to meet the increasing demands of users. These requirements lead to a more sophisticated IT infrastructure system, as well as the need for IT specialists who can help maintain and develop the company’s IT system. In turn, this brings greater competitiveness and satisfies the demands and expectations of users for a highly-efficient IT system that can operate continuously and without interruption.

Mr. Teerapan Luengnaruemitchai, Director, Office of Information Technology, Thai Beverage Public Company Limited, as the top executive overseeing IT affairs for ThaiBev and its subsidiaries, said that ThaiBev has implemented various IT systems. “Some of these server are taken care of by internal resource, while others have been relocated to a cloud computing system to promote more effective and streamlined operations.”

For example, its SAP business application is being hosted by T.C.C. Technology Co., Ltd.’s datacenter, with Leap Solutions Asia serving as a cloud service provider. Leap Solutions Asia has been recognized by ThaiBev as a highly-capable company with the expertise needed to manage and provide consultations on the cloud computing system in the most effective manner. Leap Solutions Asia’s professional services help minimize the operational burden of ThaiBev’s IT team, allowing them to spend more time on the development of innovations and improved applications.

Aware of the benefits of the cloud computing system its parent company has received, Sermsuk has shifted to the SAP Application as a cloud service model too. The company has entrusted Leap Solutions Asia team to take care of the cloud system. Furthermore, it plans to relocate all of its servers to the Hosted Private Cloud platform.

Leap Solutions Asia’s Hosted Private Cloud (Leap GIO Private) provides users with a key advantage just like having their own physical servers, allowing the Sermsuk IT team to freely create multiple servers for different applications to best suit their preferences. The company is charged for a monthly service fee for the physical server, regardless of the number of their built virtual servers, with the possibility of a minimum 1-month contract. This has enabled Sermsuk to manage the costs of its IT system more effectively, helping accommodate its anticipated business growth in the future.

Mr. Nuntakrit Vattanaliangjai, IT Manager, Information Technology Department, Sermsuk Public Company Limited, explained that “Leap Solutions Asia offers Public Cloud services (Leap GIO Public) that facilitate the scalability of computing resources in a timely manner. In the past, if we experienced computing resources problems such as insufficient memory units or hard disk space, we would normally have to purchase equipment, which took some time. However, with the Public Cloud system, we can now instantly scale-up or scale-down memory units without wasting time, which has been proven to clearly improve our operational efficiency. With the help of the professional cloud service provider, our IT department has reduced its burden of work dramatically.”

Sermsuk is considering relocating its head office in the future, and IT operations are a great concern. If the company does relocate its office, it needs to invest in construction of a new computer room and purchase more rack servers. It is likely that this would bring the company extremely high costs, so utilization of a cloud computing system would ensure more efficient cost management.

Disaster management is another important factor that needs to be taken into account. “We learned an important lesson from the massive flooding that occurred in 2011. If all our computing resources were kept centrally at the office, we would not be able to manage our internal IT systems at all since we would not be able to enter the flooded office. In contrast, if our IT infrastructure is hosted at a more secure place, like relocating our servers to run on Leap Solutions Asia’s cloud computing systems stored at T.C.C. Technology Co., Ltd.’s datacenters in various locations, our IT staff would be able to continue working through any type of disaster, ensuring business continuity for the organization. The servers of Leap Solutions Asia are designed to operate seamlessly whatever unexpected incidents arise,” Nuntakrit said.

Selection criteria for cloud solutions and services

When choosing a cloud service provider, both top executives agree that their first priority is delivery of solutions. When problems arise, how well and how fast the service provider can collaborate with the company and fix the problems is also important. From their experiences, Leap Solutions Asia has the capacity to implement solutions very quickly, which is regarded as a crucial factor for them, particularly when their critical SAP application is running on the cloud system.

Benefits from cloud utilization and services

Nuntakrit pointed out that Leap Solutions Asia’s cloud solutions and services have greatly benefited Sermsuk in many ways, such as saving operational time, giving the company’s IT team more time to develop other innovations. The company has received faster and more responsive services from Leap Solutions Asia. Its IT team no longer needs to maintain the IT systems 24/7 as in the past, as this mission has been delegated to Leap Solutions Asia. If any errors in the system are detected, the service provider will report to the Sermsuk IT team immediately so that the errors can be resolved in a timely manner.

Teerapan added that once certain tasks are outsourced, the IT team is able to focus on other matters, for example, organizing training to enhance staff IT knowledge and skills, as well as development of other applications to better satisfy business needs.

Future investment plans

Sermsuk will follow the IT Master Plan mapped out by ThaiBev Group to plan its future investment projects. Some will be projects jointly-developed with other subsidiaries of ThaiBev Group. Teerapan revealed that “Strategically, to invest in cloud application services, we have to consider how business specific the software is and what level of competitiveness it will bring to us. We have decided to develop and maintain applications involving the company’s most critical matters ourselves. For generic applications such as the email system, we have utilized outsourced cloud applications in order to save operating time and achieve better value for money.”

Leap Solutions Asia (LSA) is a joint venture between T.C.C. Technology Co., Ltd., Thailand’s leading datacenter service provider, and Internet Initiative Japan Inc. (IIJ), one of Japan’s largest providers of internet and cloud service systems.