KB Food Company is Australia’s largest seafood company operating at all levels of the supply chain including; catching, processing, manufacturing, importing, exporting and wholesaling. The company provides over 100,000 tonnes of seafood annually to leading foodservice operators and major supermarkets. In Western Australia, KB Food Co. purchases and handles around 70% of all commercial fish caught, direct from vessels to our modern facility we can produce a range of products suitable from retail to wholesale.

KB Food Co. takes the responsibility to the environment and future generations very seriously and has a commitment to promoting sustainable and environmentally friendly, ecologically sound practices. The operating brands include, KB Seafood Co, Just Caught Frozen Seafood, KB’s, and By George. The business is one of the most awarded and successful food service operators in Australia and the largest privately-owned operator of Western Rock Lobster.

KB Food Co. have a large ERP environment helping to run a diverse and complex business. A key decision for this implementation was to look at how the ERP system was going to support the business into the future. A previous Microsoft Dynamics environment was reviewed on the basis of alignment with the broader business strategy and alternative solutions were looked at as part of the project.

SAP S/4 HANA was a shortlisted offering as it ticked a number of boxes for the business: Align into the business ERP strategy for future, integration with HQ policies and a scalable offering to allow for growth. KB Food Co. reviewed a number of Cloud Providers with proven capabilities in SAP implementations.

Alibaba Cloud demonstrated the greatest overall advantage across 3 key criteria throughout the entire process from evaluation to implementation. Firstly, being one of SAP’s strategic partners, Alibaba Cloud provides SAP certified cloud infrastructure in Australia with high performance and reliability to host SAP S/4 HANA.

Secondly, Alibaba Cloud has built a very robust ecosystem based around SAP, with a dedicated team of experts and high engagement from Alibaba Cloud’s consulting partner Ernst & Young who were involved in all stages of the SAP deployment.

Lastly, the long-term cost of hosting SAP on Alibaba Cloud was thoroughly analyzed and proven to be more cost effective when comparing with other hyperscale cloud providers.

Another value-add Alibaba Cloud has delivered for this project is the ability to accelerate the network connection between KB Food Co. offices in Australia and China. By leveraging a Cloud Enterprise Network (CEN), Alibaba Cloud has been able to deliver enhanced connectivity via leveraging private networks across multiple sites, and addressed operating within compliance rules for the regulatory requirements in China.

A critical factor of implementation success was the network. As Australia's borders have been closed during the pandemic and the implementation team were based in China, being able to carry out the successful project relied on the performance and reliability of the network. The team managed to implement and go-live with the ERP system thanks to a solid and fast private network connection.

This secure network connection has enabled the project team of KB Food Co., Ernst & Young and Alibaba Cloud to successfully manage a range of elements remotely including communication, configuration, testing, tuning and training.

KB Food Co. takes advantage of the following services and solutions provided by Alibaba Cloud:
- SAP S/4 HANA on Alibaba Cloud
- High availability cloud architecture
-Large machines and components supporting HA design, marketplace image
- Consulting service to help deploy SAP on cloud

The business is now looking at moving more services and infrastructure into Alibaba Cloud as well as a warehouse management system as a part of its overall Cloud strategy and digital transformation to improve operational efficiency and drive innovation.