Spicing it up with Cloud Comrade: Baba Products powers digital transformation efforts with successful migration to a cloud-based IT infrastructure

• By building a secure, scalable and high-performance cloud-based IT infrastructure, Cloud Comrade equips BABA’S with a strong foundation to support future growth while delivering greater efficiencies, significant cost and time savings.

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 10 May 2021 – Malaysia’s leading manufacturer of spice powder, curry mixes and flour mixes, Baba Products (“BABA’S”) has taken another giant leap forward in its digital transformation with the successful deployment of a secure, scalable and robust cloud-based IT infrastructure.

Ilaventhan Vijaya – Head of Finance, Baba’s Group of Companies

Singapore-based cloud computing consultancy Cloud Comrade led the selection, planning and execution of the migration from an on-premise infrastructure to Amazon Web Services (AWS) as the preferred cloud provider.

Faster order processing, reduced cash cycle

In the first phase of the migration, BABA’S implemented SAP’s future ready enterprise resource planning system, SAP S/4HANA, on AWS and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications. By selecting AWS’s on-demand infrastructure, BABA’S joins over 5,000 customers using SAP on AWS today, to achieve faster time to value, the flexibility to adapt to changing business requirements, and future proofing their SAP workloads with the ability to scale up to 48 TB of memory for their S/4HANA database. BABA’s is using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), which offers the broadest selection of SAP-certified, cloud native instance types, offering the flexibility for BABA’S to support their current and future unique growth requirements. Amazon Elastic Block Storage (Amazon EBS) is used to provide high-performance block-level storage volumes, to keep up with the performance demands of modern SAP workloads. To protect BABA’S data, Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) with its designed for 99.999999999% (11 9’s) of data durability was selected, to resiliently store backups. Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) provides seamless integration between on-premises users and systems, and SAP systems in Amazon VPC. Tools such as AWS Management Console and AWS CloudFormation are used to provide a simple and intuitive web-based interface and to automate the deployment and management of AWS resources. Automation tools such as AWS CloudFormation, the AWS Quick Starts for SAP, and AWS Launch Wizard for SAP, deliver fully functional SAP applications on AWS, such as SAP S/4HANA.

Adopting SAP S/4HANA on the AWS cloud, followed by the SAP Direct Store Delivery mobile app along with its enhanced SAP CRM with photo-taking, has proven cost-efficient for BABA’S, shortening their order processing and delivery times by 50 percent, and reducing order-to-cash cycles by over 40 percent.

Laying a foundation for significant performance improvement and future innovation

Cloud Comrade’s Well Architected Framework also lays a strong foundation for significant performance improvement and future innovation. SAP S/4HANA has helped BABA’S provide real-time decision support to end users, saving processing time and enabling the business to instead focus their resources on strategic growth efforts. As this was a mission-critical application for BABA’S, it was deployed on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications, which is a reliable, manageable, and highly available platform fully optimized for all SAP mission-critical applications.

Speed, flexibility, innovation, and efficiency

To automate the organisation’s HR operations, Cloud Comrade along with AWS helped BABA’s to implement Orisoft’s HR software to offer a complete end-to-end suite of human capital management and payroll solutions. The company also opted for the feature-rich, end-to-end human capital management and payroll solutions offered by SAP SuccessFactors and SAP Payroll due to the speed, scalability, accuracy, efficiency, and compliance with local / regional HR regulations that it delivered.

The automation and ‘anytime, anywhere’ accessibility of the organization’s SAP SuccessFactors enabled BABA’S to save HR staff costs and time, while increasing speed and operational efficiency and ensuring highest levels of security and compliance. Moreover, the real-time reporting and analytics capabilities allows for faster decision-making. BABA’S is reaping the benefits of improved and more efficient recruitment, talent management and employee engagement.

Moving to the cloud a strategic imperative

“We deemed moving to the cloud as a strategic imperative to support our growth plans and customer-centricity. Not only did we recognize the enormous savings in IT infrastructure and manpower costs, but also the great impact of speed, scale and security on almost every aspect of our business that the cloud offered,” said Ilaventhan Vijaya, Head of Finance, BABA’S Group of Companies.

“In Cloud Comrade, AWS and the foundation of SUSE Linux Enterprise, we found the right collaboration and platform to help us make this pivotal transition and transformation. The cutting-edge features, expertise and support during every step of this process contributed to the ROI immediately; well-positioning us to capitalize on new business opportunities.”

“Based on our experience in migration and managed services and a thorough understanding of BABA’S vision and business needs for the future, we were confident that the bespoke cloud-based framework we have developed was the right choice for the company,” said Andy Waroma, Co-Founder and Co-Managing Director of Cloud Comrade. “It is heartening and immensely fulfilling to make a significant positive impact on an already large and fast-growing organization like BABA’S within a short period of implementation. We will always be driven by and committed to enabling our clients get the best ROI on their IT deployments.”

About BABA Products

Established in 1977, Baba Products (M) Sdn Bhd (‘BABA’S’) is Malaysia’s leading manufacturer of curry mixes, spices and flour items with a market share of over 60%. Its vast product portfolio comprises over 30 products ranging from masala mixes, pure spice powders, pure food mixes, snacks and sweet mixes. BABA’S can be found in North America, Canada, Europe, South Africa, Australia, most of Southeast Asia and almost every Malaysian kitchen. Studies show that at least one in the three main meals consumed by Malaysians daily contains at least one product from the BABA’S range. For more information, visit BABA’S.

About Cloud Comrade:

Cloud Comrade is a Singapore-based cloud computing consultancy company with a regional footprint in Indonesia and Malaysia also. The company offers a comprehensive range of services from strategy and design to deployment, migration, and management of customers’ IT infrastructure. Cloud Comrade partners with the best solution providers in the field of cloud computing and is a preferred Amazon Web Services (AWS) consulting partner in ASEAN, as well as a managed service provider for AWS, Google, and Alibaba Cloud. In January 2019, ST Telemedia (sttelemedia.com), an active strategic investor specializing in communications & media, data centers, and infrastructure technology businesses, acquired a majority stake in the company. For more information on Cloud Comrade, visit cloudcomrade.com.

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