Helping Businesses Succeed in a Cloud-Driven Future: Takeaways from ANSI and Crayon’s Partnership during the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19, the highly infectious disease responsible for the global pandemic of the 2020s, changed the world’s business landscape for good. Some companies shuttered for lack of customers or due to the skyrocketing costs of doing business. Others, however—like those involved in the essential industries of food and supermarket retail as well as online services like web design—scrambled to meet rising customer demand, as well as the steep expectations that came with it.

Early on in the pandemic, it became clear that businesses could not subsist on the same outdated and siloed-off solutions as before. Business owners who wanted a fighting chance for their companies saw the need to guide their constituents through a permanent digital transformation. The answer lay in real-time and round-the-clock business data visibility, seamless linkages between onsite and online operations, and an even stronger commitment to satisfy customers. All these converged in one important type of innovation: the cloud.

How have businesses adapted to cloud-driven operations amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and who are the people behind their success? To illustrate, here’s the story of ANSI Information Systems’ partnership with Norwegian IT solutions provider Crayon and the companies that they have since helped through their expertise.

Drawing from a Rich History of Adapting to Different Business Environments

ANSI is already well established in the Philippines’ tech industry as a multi-awarded POS system developer and vendor of business solutions. The company has been in business for more than 30 years, and, in that time, has earned distinctions from Epson, IBM, Toshiba, and SAP.

Helping businesses adapt to digitally-driven and hypercompetitive environments is ANSI’s bread and butter. To this end, we have partnered with client businesses like FamilyMart, Savemore, Jollibee, Amici, Silver Finance, and Universal Motors Corporation to modernize their systems for the digital age. Our flagship products include enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions, point of sale (POS) software, self-order payment kiosks.

From the very beginning, our business model has been about giving our partners the tools to succeed as they face challenges of increasing difficulty. As the pandemic came closer and closer to home, we knew we would need to step up in our vision. Luckily, doing so became easier when we cemented a partnership with like-minded people at Crayon.

Forward-Thinking Solutions for Businesses in the New Normal

After governments declared the need to work from home in order to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, demand for robust and flexible cloud services was swift. Charlene Sun, ANSI’s Vice President for Sales and Marketing, said that it didn’t take long for Filipino businesses to shift their operations to the cloud.

But the sudden spike in demand for cloud services, especially those that would run on a Microsoft operating system, necessitated help from another IT partner. ANSI found the ideal candidate in the Norway-headquartered Crayon, a company that specializes in rightsizing IT estates for expanded cloud operations, optimizing hybrid cloud and multi-cloud environments, and rolling out scalable data solutions for clients.

In Crayon, ANSI found a kindred company that also believed in the potential of technology for the greater good, as well as in the value of excellent customer support. Crayon shared ANSI’s attentiveness to detail and unfailing commitment to helping customers in a timely manner. For these reasons, as well as Crayon’s sterling reputation for best-practice IT methodologies, ANSI chose Crayon as its official Microsoft partner for the rollout of its newest SAP Business One cloud offering.

The end result was a successful deployment of SAP Business One on Microsoft Azure for four of ANSI’s major clients, with a value of 44,000 in Azure Consumed Revenue or ACR. It was not without its challenges, however. One of these clients ran business properties in the Philippines and in Iraq, all of which subscribed to different database types. ANSI and Crayon had to lead the difficult process of consolidating both the Philippine and Iraqi servers as well as the client’s constituent databases, all while maintaining platform extensibility and preparing the client’s other companies for their future migration.

Thanks to the good work done by ANSI and Crayon, these companies now enjoy full visibility over their data and unified operations across countries, time zones, and business quarters. They are better prepared to serve an increasingly complex market in the digital era, which they will definitely need as the business landscape accommodates onsite, remote, and hybrid working conditions.

What’s Next for ANSI and Crayon?

Happily enough, the partnership between ANSI and Crayon has not yet ended. The two companies are currently in talks to develop a POS system that possesses a cloud-based backend, something that Sun says has drummed up interest among ANSI’s customers.

With such a POS system in place, Sun shares, clients will be able to achieve a fully consolidated view of all their stores and branches, no matter where they are. Crayon has helped oversee testing and setup for this POS product, and if all goes well, customers will be able to integrate with it very soon.

Interested in a partnership that will yield a successful digital transformation for your company, much like the one mentioned above? Contact ANSI now and ask us about the products in our portfolio.