Ally Logistic Property Gains Timely, Accurate Data to Support Expansion with SAP S/4 HANA on AWS
2022
Ally Logistic Property (ALP) implemented SAP S/4HANA on AWS to streamline data processing and reduce the time and manual effort required for financial reporting. ALP is an institutional logistics property developer, operating six multi-warehouse logistics parks in Taiwan. The business is using Amazon EC2 for compute, Amazon EBS for storage, and Amazon VPC to support its SAP implementation.
With the implementation of SAP on AWS, we’ve improved the accuracy, transparency, and timeliness of financial data."
August Shiau
VP of Administration, Ally Logistic Property
Modern Warehouses Powered by Technology
With rising income levels, Asia’s consumers are projected to be at the forefront of global consumption growth in the next decade. From 2020–2030, consumers in the region will make one out of every two transactions. An uptick in consumption has fueled increased demand among retailers for modern storage and logistics services. Founded in 2014, Ally Logistic Property (ALP) is Taiwan’s largest institutional property developer. ALP provides a one-stop solution for clients such as Estée Lauder and Decathlon, fulfilling their warehousing, logistics, and distribution needs.
ALP’s six logistics parks in Taiwan, including the country’s largest facility dedicated to cold-chain storage,
resemble art museums rather than industrial storage buildings. Inside, they’re just as modern. ALP believes in harnessing technology to differentiate its business and create value for its clients. Automation, including self-driving lifts and robots, helps power each futuristic facility.
Cloud Technology Drives Value and Innovation
The cloud is a cornerstone of ALP’s technology-inspired vision, and the business developed its core logistics platform on Amazon Web Services (AWS). The platform—running on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Services (Amazon EKS)—includes systems to control warehouse management, inventory, execution of robotics within warehouses, and a client-facing order management system.
International expansion was on ALP’s agenda from the start and is the main reason they chose AWS. “AWS is an international company with a strong reputation in Taiwan and beyond. This makes us more credible with our target clients in new geographies,” says Nancy Cheng, marketing and public relations manager at ALP. The company has recently set up branch offices in Malaysia and Vietnam to bring its vision to more countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
Seeking Updated Data to Support Decision-Making
To support expansion and consolidate internal processes, ALP decided to implement SAP S/4HANA on AWS. The company had a relationship with Ernst & Young (EY) as its corporate auditor, and brought in EY Advisory Services, an AWS Partner, to support its SAP implementation.
Timeliness of data was one of the main issues ALP was looking to address with SAP. The financial department was previously restricted in its ability to instantly provide updated data for management’s review. Accounts receivable (A/R), profit and loss, and similar reports were compiled manually, which caused a delay in reporting and often led to errors.
Customized Implementation with Automated Maintenance
The first phase of the project took five months, in which EY performed a needs analysis before providing recommendations on system design. Together with AWS, EY suggested ALP implement three modules: SAP FICO (Finance and Controlling), SAP RE (Real Estate), and SAP PS (Project System). To support the SAP implementation, ALP is using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Elastic Block Storage (Amazon EBS), and Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC). EY also provided training to help upskill ALP’s employees in day-to-day SAP operations.
By running SAP on AWS versus on premises, ALP estimates it’s saved hiring at least one employee dedicated to system and hardware maintenance. SAP upgrades and patches are rolled out automatically on the AWS Cloud, and the AWS services supporting SAP are likewise maintained by AWS teams.
Reduced Manual Effort with Streamlined Data Processing
Administrative complexity has also gone down with SAP on AWS. ALP maintains several large warehouse facilities across its six logistics parks in Taiwan, with each warehouse supporting 4 to 45 tenants. “It was very complex to manage all our different clients, each with a unique leasing contract. We had to put in a lot of manual effort,” says August Shiau, vice president of administration at ALP.
Each of the SAP modules have contributed to streamlined data processing and a reduction in manual effort. SAP RE, for example, serves as a central repository for all leasing contracts with ALP’s warehouse tenants, and shares data with SAP FICO to track each client transaction.
“With the implementation of SAP on AWS, we’ve improved the accuracy, transparency, and timeliness of financial data. We can now devote more resources to serving our clients and performing business analysis rather than data collection,” Shiau says.
Solid Foundation for Financial Reporting and Expansion
Most significantly, the time required to generate reports has decreased. The speed and quality of A/R reports has particularly improved ALP’s cash flow, due to faster collection of receivables and the ability to consolidate multiple customers’ data according to custom filters.
With SAP, ALP’s finance department can download A/R reports directly and forward them to the business development team to follow up with clients who are late in making scheduled payments. Shiau emphasizes, “We now have a solid foundation for financial reporting. This empowers our finance team to provide on-demand insights that support data-driven decision-making.”
Lower time-to-analysis will be critical as ALP plans further expansion in the region. The time-to-market from the start of warehouse planning until the first tenant moves in is typically 2–3 years. Insights into market demand during the planning and initial phases of new projects is essential to satisfy projected demand without waste.
“As we’re expanding, we need data at an early stage to formulate our business strategy, because the financial outlays can be extensive. Buying land, preparing for construction, hiring teams to manage the warehouse…all of these activities plus our diverse customer service offerings necessitate near real-time data and flexible data retrieval. We’ve achieved this with SAP on AWS,” concludes Cheng.
About Ally Logistic Property
Ally Logistic Property (ALP) is Taiwan’s largest institutional logistics property developer, with six modern logistics parks in Taiwan and an expanding presence in Southeast Asia. ALP’s mission is to make the logistics industry simpler, smarter, and more sustainable.
Benefits of AWS
- Shortens time to generate key financial reports
- Reduces manual effort for data collection and processing
- Improves accuracy and timeliness of data for management review
- Saves hiring 1 person to maintain systems and hardware
- Reduces complexity with consolidated storage and reporting
- Supports expansion with internationally recognized cloud foundation
AWS Services Used
SAP S/4HANA on AWS
SAP customers can fully realize all the benefits of SAP S/4HANA in the AWS Cloud for systems of all sizes.
Amazon Virtual Private Cloud
Define and launch AWS resources in a logically isolated virtual network
Amazon Elastic Block Storage
Easy to use, high performance block storage at any scale
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
Secure and resizable compute capacity for virtually any workload
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