Bengaluru: Olam International transformed its global infrastructure by using the Nutanix Cloud Platform to run multiple digital platforms in a hybrid cloud environment that connects farmers and customers, and drives data-driven decisions across its value chain.
Olam is a leading food and agri-business, supplying food ingredients, feed and fibre to thousands of customers worldwide. The company works with millions of farmers, globally, for whom data on modern harvesting methods, demand situations, and real-time market prices is crucial to increasing profitability for their farming businesses.
“Cloud is the biggest boon for agribusinesses. Farmers need to juggle multiple variables and parameters to manage their yield and income, including weather situations and real-time demand. In line with this, we launched three cloud-native digital platforms to provide our network of farmers with such data to help them make informed critical decisions,” said Thiagaraja Manikandan, President & Group CIO/CTO, Olam International. “Our efforts were made possible by the hyper-agile, scalable hybrid cloud environment we run with the help of the Nutanix Cloud Platform.”
Olam identified that digital technology had the potential to transform its business, beyond just improving operational efficiency. But it needed to deploy a software-defined solution because its legacy three-tier infrastructure did not have the capacity to withstand outage scenarios and meet performance needs, nor did it enable Olam to leverage disruptive technologies like machine learning or big data analytics. Using a hybrid cloud strategy, Olam is now able to maintain critical enterprise applications in its private cloud and use public cloud to connect its extended business ecosystem including farmers, suppliers, warehouses, factories, and logistics to customers.
“Olam’s legacy infrastructure was unable to adapt and support newer technologies. In short – it was out of date and of limited value, especially in the agribusiness which is dependent on real-time data across multiple touchpoints. Olam is now able to stay ahead of potential disruption with their end-to-end digital transformation – and with hybrid cloud, they are set to maximize the value of their private and public cloud investments,” said Faiz Shakir, Director, Sales, India and SAARC, Nutanix.
