Easy Buy aims to be leading software-defined enterprise
Easy Buy, one of the leading non-bank financial-service providers in Thailand, has announced plans to fast-track its information and technology deployments by switching to the software-defined IT infrastructure model.
The aim is to transform the company’s system via IT as a Service, where employees can automatically activate IT services on their own.
Director and executive officer Chatchai Lertbuntanawong said the company needed better technology to support more than 2,500 inbound call-centre staff and outbound customer-service employees, and over 80 IT staff.
The listed company’s IT budget is estimated to be around 10 per cent of total revenues for managing the existing system, as well as investing in innovations to enhance services, and facilitating users.
“We need our employees to be able to work from anywhere, anytime, even when they are not in the office, and have flexibility and speed in contacting customers. For this reason, cloud, virtualisation and mobility technology are the main technologies that we are looking for,” he said.
Allowing employees to use their personal smart phones and devices to access work applications anywhere and at any time, the company has already virtualised 1,900 desktops at Easy Buy’s headquarters in Bangkok, as well as in Nakhon Ratchasima and Rayong provinces.
“VMware’s virtualisation technology enables us to move virtual machines from a server experiencing problems to another fully operational machine without interrupting users. Downtime is reduced, with employees able to work instantly upon arriving at the other office location without having to set up new infrastructure. We only took 1.16 hours to move employees from one office to another,” said Chatchai.
The virtualised infrastructure has enabled it to improve the service speed to customers and increase customer satisfaction, taking only 30 minutes for the loan-approval process, he added.
It has also saved operational costs of up to Bt3.6 million per year from utilising electricity from an Internet LAN line.
Hardware maintenance costs such as digital phones, which would have cost up to Bt10 million, have now also been reduced, while management of IT is centralised as software is delivered to employees as a service.
“We will deploy virtualised desktops for another 500 employees in 90 branch offices, to complete 2,400 licences by next year. By fully virtualising storage, network and server, we plan to become the leading software-defined enterprise in Thailand,” said the director.
To date, Easy Buy has deployed VMware’s server virtualisation, vCloud Enterprise Suite (vSphere Enterprise Plus, vRealize Automation, vRealize Operations Enterprise and vCenter Site Recovery Manager), NSX, vRealize LogInsight, vRealize Business and Horizon Enterprise.
