Ghim Li transforms operations with cloud-based Microsoft solutions

Source: Keynote presentation, Share-the-Point conference. Ghim Li's knowledge portal for senior management is enabled by Microsoft SharePoint.

The Ghim Li Group is a knitwear apparel conglomerate with production responsibilities for global Fortune 500 retailers including US-based Macy’s, Aeropostale, and Walmart. The company conceptualises designs for individual customers, sourcing the globe for the right fabrics and handling the entire supply chain from manufacturing to delivery as required. 

Today, the Ghim Li Group has annual sales of over US$230 million, a presence in Australia, Cambodia, mainland China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka and the US, and a combined workforce of over 10,000. Its global operations are powered by Microsoft.

At the Share-the-Point conference last week, Ghim Li CIO Timothy Ngui recounted an experience with Exchange Server 2007 that catalysed Ghim Li's switch to the cloud: a 'perfect storm' of actions, including large files emailed to multiple recipients, resulted in the company reaching its mailbox capacity and leading to unanticipated - and unacceptable - downtime.

Instead of throwing more hardware at the problem, Ghim Li switched to Microsoft Office 365 and cloud-based Sharepoint, giving the company more flexible and scalability, as needed, without requiring bursts of capital expenditure. With Office 365 Exchange Online, Ghim Li moved mail-related responsibilities such as checking for viruses over to Microsoft and has unlimited archive storage plus much higher mailbox capacities, Ngui noted. 

"We went from a mentality of 'I think the server is down or I think the storage is full' to being so assured of the availability of the solution with Microsoft Office and Exchange Online that we take for granted that it is definitely there and we won't have a problem on it," Ngui said. 

SharePoint has really helped Ghim Li with logistics control, Ngui added. In the past, staff tracked everything with an Excel file that was shared with via email with team members. The files were large, up to 30MB in size, and the PCs were old, which meant long waits just to open the file for editing, and crashes while editing. Staff often ended up updating the wrong file or overwriting entries, especially if they had not renamed the files. 

"A lot of overtime was spent reworking what had been done," Ngui said. "We didn't know what had been overwritten."

Today, the same file is on OneDrive for Business, which allows files to be updated and shared from anywhere and edited by several users at the same time. This has enabled Ghim Li staff to share files across multiple locations without FTP issues or emailing different versions of the same file to each other. SharePoint folders are synced with client desktops automatically, and documents can be co-edited online without overwriting anyone else's work.

"We now know who was editing what when, and we only need the resource of a browser to display it," Ngui said. 

The company has essentially gone paperless because of cloud-based Sharepoint, as files are stored and indexed in the cloud, so eliminating the need for on-premise server resources, and allowing content to be searched easily. 

Staff used to print out meeting minutes in case they lost the files, Ngui recounted, but it was challenging to locate items of information especially if looking back on decisions made some years back. Today, everything is stored in the cloud, where it is backed up automatically, and indexed so that a simple keyword search can pinpoint what is required from the files of meeting minutes. 

The cloud has also come in useful for photographs taken to prove that warehouse operations such as loading of goods have taken place. In the past, warehouse operators would take digital photos which would be stored on PCs. The uploading and sorting process was time-consuming, and the image files could be accidentally deleted or overwritten, either through human error or if the hard drive failed. There was also unnecessary mailbox clutter and network traffic as the files were duplicated in emails as attachments and sent to multiple parties.

Today, Ghim Li uses Windows phones to take the pictures, which are then immediately synced to OneDrive cloud storage, eliminating the uploading process. Sorting is no longer needed as the phone automatically time-stamps and geo-tags the pictures when it takes the pictures. As everything is now on the cloud, there are records accessible by all even if the files on the phone are deleted, Ngui said. 

Source: Ghim Li keynote. A Yammer screen.

Yammer has replaced the functions of a traditional paper-based newsletter with more at Ghim Li, Ngui added. While paper newsletters would need to be printed and physically handed to staff, perhaps placed on notice boards, Yammer is two-way: Ngui said it reaches across the different geographical locations within the company, and responses are received very quickly.

Ngui called Yammer "a collaboration tool where everybody gives opinions". "There's a group of people who love to help others with IT systems. That resource is readily available, 24 hours a day. We get responses from everybody who's in the Yammer network across the world," Ngui said. "Even when everyone's very busy.. people will get in responses as and when they can... Those who usually have great ideas are the quiet ones. Yammer gives them the opportunity to have a voice."

Ngui shared that more than half of Ghim Li's employees are very experienced, technically skilled people, but who are not familiar with using Facebook. Despite this unfamiliarity with social media, 50% of Ghim Li's employees participate in Yammer, he said. 

The company announced its use of Lync (which has since evolved into Skype for Business) in May 2013. At the time, the Singapore-based textile and apparel firm attributed savings of more than S$60,000 per year through Lync alone. 

Lync is Ghim Li's professional voice over IP (VOIP) communications solution. All of the phones at the company are Lync-enabled, giving it a free alternative for international calls and multi-party videoconferences. Presence and status alerts ensure that staff know who is available and who is not, and recordings can be made for offline training. 

Lync allowed its transnational design and production teams to work more closely and quickly, improving collaboration, reducing cost, and making it easier to reach each employee. With videoconferencing, Ghim Li’s global design and production team can review material samples live, improving response times on decisions and shortening speed-to-market.
Customers can easily contact employees because calls are routed to wherever the employee is working, anywhere in the world.

“We needed a unified communications solution that gave us a competitive advantage in this fast-paced fashion industry,” said Ngui at the time of the announcement. “With its myriad of content-rich features, Microsoft Lync delivers all the collaboration benefits within a single system. As a cloud-based and software-only platform, Lync proved easy to install and maintain across all our offices globally.”

With the unified global telephony and audio-video conferencing platform in place, Ghim Li said it saves up to S$50,000 annually in time and travel costs. The company was also able to decommission its existing PBX systems, saving a further S$10,000 per country, per year.