TF Value-Mart Defines Value by Keeping Costs Low on AWS

Malaysia is going local when it comes to grocery shopping. International hypermarkets such as Tesco are exiting the country as local players increase their market share with low prices and innovative concepts that cater to consumers. One key player, TF Value-Mart, started as a family-run hypermarket 30 years ago and has since evolved to become a leading Malaysian hypermarket chain.

In 2015, a private equity firm took over the business and decided that TF Value-Mart’s Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, disparate software offerings, and private email accounts were no longer sustainable. The company needed to modernize its processes. As such, TF Value-Mart migrated to the cloud the following year to improve speed, security, and scalability in line with its business expansion.

TF Value-Mart started its cloud journey with another service provider but ended up migrating to Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2018 based on the recommendation of its managed IT provider, G-AsiaPacific, an Advanced Consulting Partner in the AWS Partner Network (APN). “The AWS team was proactive and approached us to offer their support in improving the technology running our business. I was pleasantly surprised by the level of service offered,” says Anthony Lee, chief financial officer at TF Value-Mart.

TF Value-Mart maintains a lean IT team of three and relies on partners such as G-AsiaPacific to implement technology solutions that are aligned with its business goals. Cost control, for example, is a top priority to remain competitive and offer consumers the low prices expected in a hypermarket environment. TF Value Mart is leveraging Savings Plans, a flexible pricing model offered for AWS Compute Services, and is saving approximately 35 percent on its Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances usage.

Branches of TF Value-Mart are scattered across West Malaysia in second- and third-tier towns, making it tedious and time consuming to monitor its performance. To solve this, the company is using AWS Virtual Private Network (AWS VPN) to establish a secure connection from its on-premises servers running in stores to the AWS Cloud, where data and reports can be accessed anytime, anywhere. “With AWS, we have a reliable cloud infrastructure that provides regular updates on our stores’ performance,” Lee says.

Since 2015, TF Value-Mart has doubled its number of stores from 18 to 36 and has increased its annual revenue by 60 percent. The AWS Cloud architecture has scaled seamlessly to support this growth, and the company has experienced no downtime. To maintain a smooth user experience for its employees, TF Value-Mart has upgraded most of its virtual machines to Amazon EC2 R5 Instances, which are memory optimized for accelerated performance. TF Value-Mart plans to launch at least three new stores a year and continues to build brand value in the eyes of consumers.

“We needed a robust cloud provider to expand with us in terms of scalability and security, which we found in AWS,” Lee says.

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