Ocean Network Express (ONE), which owns the sixth largest fleet of containerships in the world, is working with Google Cloud to advance its digital transformation and data cloud strategy.

The shipping company is enhancing its operational efficiency by running its mission critical SAP systems on Google Cloud, unlocking business insights and accelerating time to insight leveraging data analytics services such as BigQuery, and enhancing employee collaboration with Google Workspace.

As one of the largest container shipping companies globally, ONE handles transactions with as many as 14,000 customers across 63 countries every day. To manage these, it previously relied on an SAP accounting system hosted locally in each country on its legacy cloud platform.

To modernise its systems, ONE migrated to 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 to gain a unified and real-time view of data across its global organisation, thereby helping the shipping company 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 later this year. This will enable ONE to consolidate and analyse data from its SAP ERP and other data sources to generate more business value from its data and advance ONE’s competitive advantage in the market.

“Modernising our legacy infrastructure requires a strategic rethink of the way internal data are captured and processed at all levels of the company,” said Kosuke Wada, senior vice president at ONE. “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. 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.”

The Covid-19 pandemic amplified the importance of shipping to the smooth flow of raw materials, fuel, food and medical supplies. From the get go, ONE was able to reduce 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 8000 employees, 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.

ONE can also protect its employees’ accounts and company data by enabling security features such as two-step verification on Google Workspace. Furthermore, administrators use Cloud Identity Access Management to define access to work data on Google accounts ensuring data are kept securely on company owned devices and affording flexibility to users when required.

“ONE is a testament to what enterprises can achieve when they embrace the cloud to modernise and future-proof their business,” said Ruma Balasubramanian, managing director for Google Cloud in south-east Asia. “Their digital transformation with Google Cloud will enable them to measurably improve the quality of their decisions, crunch vast quantities of data to achieve unprecedented clarity, and improve employee collaboration in this ever-evolving work environment.”

With its global headquarters in Singapore, ONE is a joint venture between K Line, MOL and NYK. It provides container shipping services to 257 container ports all over the world. The company’s fleet of 224 vessels includes some of the world’s largest container ships, with a capacity greater than 24,000 TEU.

Google Cloud accelerates organisations’ ability to transform their business digitally. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their partner to enable growth and solve critical business problems.