KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 3): Bursa Malaysia-listed logistics and express carrier provider GD Express Carrier Bhd (GDEX) has adopted Nutanix Hybrid Cloud to keep pace with fast-changing demands in e-commerce.

In a statement today, Nasdaq-listed cloud software and hyperconverged infrastructure solutions provider Nutanix Inc said since implementation, the technology upgrade has helped GDEX achieve a threefold increase in business transactions.

It said e-commerce is set to play a catalyst role in Malaysia’s post-pandemic recovery, explaining that the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation expects a 20% growth in e-commerce contribution to the digital economy in 2020, reaching as high as RM170 billion.

This presents a business opportunity for GDEX’s business-to-consumer (B2C) operations, which have tripled in transactions in the last three years and represent 35% of the overall business, it said.

Nutanix said to continue on this growth path, GDEX needed to ensure compliance with service level agreements.

It said prior to adopting the Nutanix solution, GDEX was already managing up to 180,000 consignments a day, and each of these passed through multiple shipment tracking points before reaching its destination.

The tracking points generate data that offers visibility on the shipment status, creating a myriad of records that needed to be processed and stored efficiently.

GDEX managing director and group chief executive officer Teong Teck Lean said the logistics industry is fast changing, and the pandemic has made the business landscape even more challenging to navigate.

“As a customer-focused and technology-driven company, we partnered with Nutanix to ensure that we are always ready to adapt to changes in customer and market demands,” he said.

Teong said the company has since put in place three Nutanix clusters and migrated all its core applications for governing shipments to the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud platform.

Using the Nutanix AOS and Nutanix Prism Pro, the company’s IT team now manages server, storage and networking resources through a single pane of glass.

Meanwhile, GDEX special project advisor Charles Ong said that after comparing its legacy infrastructure with Nutanix’s hyperconverged private cloud where software managed everything, it is clear that the latter will give the rapid scalability the group needs, to support fluctuating volumes at a lower cost.

“E-commerce is both a great business opportunity and a great IT challenge for logistics companies such as ours. Nutanix’s platform is incredibly elastic, enabling us to scale quickly and efficiently, without compromising our service and costs.

“We would not have achieved this success if we continued with our legacy infrastructure. The cost of scaling and management would have eaten into our margins, but with Nutanix, we are able to sustain and scale our operations to consistently meet customer and market demands,” Ong said.

Nutanix Malaysia country manager Avinash Gowda said as Malaysia’s digital economy continues to advance, a new generation of digital consumers has emerged and driven the growth of e-commerce.

“Nutanix has been supporting businesses like GDEX in accelerating their digital transformation, enabling them to scale and meet evolving consumer demands.

“We are pleased to have empowered GDEX with a modern IT infrastructure that allows them to take their business to greater heights,” he said.

Established in 1997, GDEX operates a network of 425 stations, comprising 99 branches, 64 agents, 11 lodge-in centres and 251 reseller agencies, across Malaysia and Singapore.