Fawaz Abdulaziz Alhokair & Company announced that it is moving the vast majority of its technology infrastructure to Amazon Web Services (AWS) to empower the company with the most advanced cloud technologies in order to serve the customers better.

One of the largest franchise retailers in Saudi Arabia, Mena, Central Asia and Caucasus regions, Fawaz Abdulaziz Alhokair today operates more than 1,700 stores in 12 countries.

This cloud transformation will observe the company moving its last on-premises data centre to the AWS Cloud by the end of this year to accelerate its overall digital transformation strategy.

Alhokair is working with AWS Advanced Consulting Partner Computer World International to support the migration and continued adoption of AWS services.

The company, which employs more than 10,000 people, boasts over 75 global brands covering a vast range starting from women and menswear to department stores, shoes and accessories to cosmetics, food and beverages and entertainment.

Earlier this year, Alhokair had developed an IT infrastructure and cloud strategy.

CEO Marwan Makarzel said this strategy was focused on helping the business adapt to the fast changing retail industry that today is omni channel and catering to a digitally-connected consumer base.

The company chose AWS as its preferred cloud provider because of its agility and breadth of services.

 

In its first phase of cloud adoption, Alhokair moved its core line-of-business applications to AWS, which have seen significant improvement in scalability, availability and performance, stated Makarzel.

As Alhokair continues its cloud adoption, the company will be building its ecommerce and Business Intelligence (BI) platforms on AWS as it develops its omni channel strategy.

The ecommerce platforms will be supported by analytics, prediction and recommendation engines that leverage machine learning services such as Amazon Sagemaker and Amazon Forecast to provide a personalized shopping experience.

Alhokair is looking forward to take advantages of its large retail data sets with data analytics services such as Amazon Redshift to acquire better business and customer insights, said the top official.

The adoption of AWS will also enable the company to enhance warehouse management systems operations with the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions to reduce costs and bring greater efficiencies, he added.

 

On the AWS collaboration, CIO Mohammed Alenazi, said: "Cloud adoption is a significant step in our digital transformation journey and we are excited by the innovation opportunities we are building on AWS."

"We have been able to make this incredible shift within a sixty day timeframe only. In today’s fast changing retail landscape, we recognize the importance of being agile, scalable, speed and availability, and the AWS Cloud is the perfect solution for us to do that. As a customer centric company, we are now in a position to pilot and innovate rapidly in order to satisfy our customers and bring them the best shopping experiences," he added.

 

AWS Head of Middle East Vinod Krishnan said: "The retail industry is going through significant changes with companies needing to adapt quickly to changing consumer behavior who are increasingly shopping online."

"We are excited to work with Alhokair’s forward-thinking approach to digital transformation with cloud adoption, driven by its focus on catering to customer needs. Building its infrastructure on AWS will enable the company to be innovative in ways never possible before, and we look forward to support in their continued growth," he added.-TradeArabia News Service

Copyright 2019 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

Disclaimer: The content of this article is syndicated or provided to this website from an external third party provider. We are not responsible for, and do not control, such external websites, entities, applications or media publishers. The body of the text is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis and has not been edited in any way. Neither we nor our affiliates guarantee the accuracy of or endorse the views or opinions expressed in this article. Read our full disclaimer policy here.