Achieving growth in a rapidly changing world
Highlights of the collaboration:
- Adapting to a dynamic market environment
- Comprehensive IT partner management
- The value of Virtual Officers
- Looking to the future together
Oriental Holding is a leading importer, exporter, wholesaler and retailer of Asian food products. Having started in 1986 as a small shop in downtown Amsterdam, Oriental Holding is now the biggest Asian supermarket chain in the Netherlands, with twenty-four stores, two wholesale outlets and a range of ten thousand-plus unique products. New items are added to the range daily, in response to changing food trends and a dynamic market environment. To ensure the agility that model demands, and to realise the company’s growth ambitions, Oriental Holding is committed to comprehensive digitisation of its operations and supply chain management.
A rapidly changing world
“In a very short space of time, we have transformed ourselves from a conventional organisation into an IT-led organisation. In less than eleven months, we have rolled out three crucial new systems, for back-office administration, supply chain management and in-store operations. Comprehensive digitisation was vital for the elimination of single points of failure and single points of knowledge, so that the organisation is not dependent on individual people. The pandemic – and the current logistic challenges – has made it clear that the ability to respond to change is essential. Sound and efficient IT is also a prerequisite for growth.”
Management and oversight of IT partners
“After such a big project, with multiple IT partners, there are always many challenges and points that do not work immediately. We do not have sufficient knowledge of IT, do not speak ‘the language’ and therefore do not always know who is responsible for what in the chain of partners. At the same time, we need to avoid our team becoming inactive. Databalance has taken a lead in this. They have the knowledge to make responsibilities transparent, guide us and provide assistance. With the help of an Information and Security Officer, we gained a lot of peace and overview in a short time, from which we can now move forward more professionally.”
Virtual Information Officer and Virtual Security Officer
“We don’t need to know everything ourselves. This is also impossible. The world is becoming more and more complex and technology is advancing. So how should you hire someone if you have no IT knowledge yourself? Databalance does have this knowledge and with their Virtual Information and Security officer, we can bind this knowledge to us and focus on what we are good at. The Virtual Information Officer has everything mapped out, is in charge of IT partners and service management. But also arranged monitoring. The Virtual Security Officer is also very important to us. Everything has to be ‘secure’ and all our partners are screened for their security capabilities.”
IT maturity
Oriental Holding has quickly constructed an IT infrastructure in the private cloud to run all their business-critical applications and store all their data. The new set-up represents a major step towards full automation of the company’s activities. Oriental Holding is committed to proceeding on the basis of partnership. They understand the value of IT to their organisation. Our Virtual Officers have short lines of communication both to Oriental Holding’s management, and to the company’s suppliers. We have formed a strategic alliance characterised by operational and tactical dialogue.
“Software needs a good infrastructure to run on. It’s a vital relationship. Our productivity has increased enormously since we automated everything. An organisation can’t evolve if its IT isn’t capable of evolving with it.” – Patricia Sjauw, COO, Oriental Holding
Looking to the future together
Oriental Holding’s next critical, large-scale project is already lined up: in 2023 the company plans to start construction of a sizeable warehouse. The new facility will provide 40,000m2 of storage, relieving the logistic pressure and boosting the company’s ability to supply a growing network of shops. Oriental Holding’s successful partnership with Databalance provides a solid basis for realisation of this bold initiative. The operational stability provided by the partnership enables both parties to look to a future of continued progress facilitated by mutual respect, open and transparent dialogue and two-way learning.
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