Oriental Holding is a leading importer, exporter, wholesaler and retailer of Asian food products. From its first toko in 1986 on the Nieuwmarkt in Amsterdam, Oriental Holding has grown into the largest Asian supermarket chain in the Netherlands with 24 stores, 2 wholesalers and 10,000+ unique products. The assortment is expanded daily with the latest food trends, to respond to the ever-changing market. In order to make this possible and realize growth ambitions, the company is committed to the far-reaching digitization of its operations and Supply Chain Management.
Customer perspective
Rapidly changing world
“We went from a conventional company to an IT-driven organization in a very short time. In less than 11 months, we implemented three major new systems that help us in the back office, in supply management and in the stores. This digitization is inevitable because you want to avoid single points of failure and knowledge and not be completely dependent on people. The pandemic – and current logistics challenges – have made it clear that you have to be able to respond to changes. In doing so, good and efficient IT is also an important prerequisite for growth.”
Overview and direction IT partners
“After such a large 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 prevent our team from becoming stagnant. Databalance has taken a pioneering role in this. They have the knowledge to make responsibilities transparent, to guide us and to relieve us of worries. With the help of an Information and Security Officer, we gained a lot of peace and overview in a short period of time, from which we can now work more professionally going forward.”
Virtual Information and Security Officer
“We don’t need to know everything ourselves. That is also impossible. The world is becoming more and more complex and there is more and more technology. 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 the monitoring. The Virtual Security Officer is also very important to us. Everything has to be ‘secure’ and all our partners are screened on their security provisions.”
Oriental Holding has quickly built an IT infrastructure in the private cloud with all their business-critical applications and data. They have made a significant step in further automating all their operations and are deliberately seeking a partnership. They understand the value of IT to their organization. Our Virtual Officers have short lines of communication with both Oriental Holding’s management and all vendors. We have a strategic partnership in which we consult at both operational and tactical levels.
Looking forward together
