HKT’s fully integrated solutions empowered Chow Tai Fook’s cross boundary digital transformation
2021-09-27
The Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group (CTF) is one of Hong Kong's most renowned jewellery companies. Founded in 1929, it has more than 90 years of history and is widely recognized for its trustworthiness and the authenticity of its high-quality products.
Over the years, CTF has grown its retail network rapidly across greater China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia and the United States. Currently, CTF has over 4,800 points of sale global.
To continue growing in today's changing marketplace, CTF has been developing its e-commerce businesses and integrating smart retail technologies and omni-channel retailing into the jewellery shopping experience. CTF has also enhanced its virtual presence to allow customers to shop online and collect their items in person at a store, and to link online orders at physical stores to their e-commerce platform.
Seamless connection across boundaries
To address the surging demand for O2O (Offline to Online) integration, CTF need to improve its network infrastructure in a cost-effective way to simplify access at different locations. To achieve this, CTF also needed a stable and high-quality bandwidth connection to accommodate the skyrocketing network traffic brought about by their cloud-based retail applications.
After studying CTF's existing network structure and business growth requirements, HKT designed a managed SD-WAN service to speed up CTF's network deployment, improve their agility, and reduce the cost of their interconnected and distributed networks. During the project, the CTF and HKT project teams achieved some remarkable records, including installing over 100 shops in one day, completing an urgent shop activation within 12 hours, increasing a shop's effective bandwidth by >10 times, and digitizing mobile app fault workflows.
As a result, CTF was able to streamline their network management and control all their network traffic through an easily accessible centralized management platform that not only facilitated effective communications by providing seamless connections, but also enhanced the visibility of network usage across different locations
It also gave CTF efficient cloud access to optimize the performance of each application, while at the same time providing multiple connectivity options and distributed gates to reduce network traffic. CTF also enjoys low latency network services in a cost-effective manner as network costs are reduced by leveraging cost-effective internet use for non-critical applications.
The convergence of online and offline retailing
The stable and efficient network infrastructure, local expertise and service capacity covering in Mainland China that was provided by HKT, helped to accelerate CTF's digital transformation. So the brand can now access its smart retail applications easily in all its shops wherever they are.
CTF aims to create a distinctive and seamless customer experience, striking the ideal balance between hi-tech enhancements and a personal touch to bridge online and offline experiences. CTF installed self-service Cloud Kiosk at more than 2,000 store locations giving customers the ability to order products online then collect them in person. CTF noticed that social networking is a major new driver of e-shopping and launched CloudSales 365, a mini-program built upon the WeChat Work platform, to connect eShop and customers, and allow their staff to communicate and assist customers at anytime, anywhere.
CTF increased its tech-enhanced services even further to launch a digital jewellery customization platform - D-ONE, using a consumer to manufactory (C2M) platform for personalized products and the application of automated equipment that lets customers understand the entire production process of a jewellery piece and enables interaction with shoppers. CTF was also the first to leverage big data to drive long-term business growth, by using RFID-enabled Smart Tray to gain timely insights on customer behavior in order to formulate better business decisions and strategies based on systematic and scientific analysis.
Continuous cloud journey with managed services
HKT also provided on-going Managed Services for CTF's optimization and enhancement in the Cloud. These included extensive resource monitoring with customized alerts and 24x7 support from their ISO-certified operations team and a clear escalation path for CTF. With the regular cloud architecture and security reviews, together with cost optimization reports and resource tagging, CTF can quickly monitor and understand the cost of each of their applications.
Patrick Tsang, General Manager of the Information and Communication Centre, at the Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group said, “HKT played a key advisory role in our transformation project. With the expertise of their professional team, and a committed Service Level Agreement (SLA) to provide prompt service for our group's business growth, the services were deployed swiftly over 4,800 locations which even extended to tier six cities in China. This enabled us to greatly enhance our customer services and satisfaction levels. Our network performance has also improved enormously after adopting HKT's managed SD-WAN services.”
With these changes, CTF has evolved into an industry-leading omni-channel jewellery retailer that seamlessly combines online and offline services. With digital innovations applied to every aspect of their supply chain and customer experience, CTF has not only proved that it is able to keep up with the changing times and growing customer expectations, but also that it is a pioneer of change in the jewellery industry. By partnering with HKT, CTF will continue to embrace technology and thrive in its ongoing retail digital transformation.
Over the years, CTF has grown its retail network rapidly across greater China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia and the United States. Currently, CTF has over 4,800 points of sale global.
To continue growing in today's changing marketplace, CTF has been developing its e-commerce businesses and integrating smart retail technologies and omni-channel retailing into the jewellery shopping experience. CTF has also enhanced its virtual presence to allow customers to shop online and collect their items in person at a store, and to link online orders at physical stores to their e-commerce platform.
Seamless connection across boundaries
To address the surging demand for O2O (Offline to Online) integration, CTF need to improve its network infrastructure in a cost-effective way to simplify access at different locations. To achieve this, CTF also needed a stable and high-quality bandwidth connection to accommodate the skyrocketing network traffic brought about by their cloud-based retail applications.
After studying CTF's existing network structure and business growth requirements, HKT designed a managed SD-WAN service to speed up CTF's network deployment, improve their agility, and reduce the cost of their interconnected and distributed networks. During the project, the CTF and HKT project teams achieved some remarkable records, including installing over 100 shops in one day, completing an urgent shop activation within 12 hours, increasing a shop's effective bandwidth by >10 times, and digitizing mobile app fault workflows.
As a result, CTF was able to streamline their network management and control all their network traffic through an easily accessible centralized management platform that not only facilitated effective communications by providing seamless connections, but also enhanced the visibility of network usage across different locations
It also gave CTF efficient cloud access to optimize the performance of each application, while at the same time providing multiple connectivity options and distributed gates to reduce network traffic. CTF also enjoys low latency network services in a cost-effective manner as network costs are reduced by leveraging cost-effective internet use for non-critical applications.
The convergence of online and offline retailing
The stable and efficient network infrastructure, local expertise and service capacity covering in Mainland China that was provided by HKT, helped to accelerate CTF's digital transformation. So the brand can now access its smart retail applications easily in all its shops wherever they are.
CTF aims to create a distinctive and seamless customer experience, striking the ideal balance between hi-tech enhancements and a personal touch to bridge online and offline experiences. CTF installed self-service Cloud Kiosk at more than 2,000 store locations giving customers the ability to order products online then collect them in person. CTF noticed that social networking is a major new driver of e-shopping and launched CloudSales 365, a mini-program built upon the WeChat Work platform, to connect eShop and customers, and allow their staff to communicate and assist customers at anytime, anywhere.
CTF increased its tech-enhanced services even further to launch a digital jewellery customization platform - D-ONE, using a consumer to manufactory (C2M) platform for personalized products and the application of automated equipment that lets customers understand the entire production process of a jewellery piece and enables interaction with shoppers. CTF was also the first to leverage big data to drive long-term business growth, by using RFID-enabled Smart Tray to gain timely insights on customer behavior in order to formulate better business decisions and strategies based on systematic and scientific analysis.
Continuous cloud journey with managed services
HKT also provided on-going Managed Services for CTF's optimization and enhancement in the Cloud. These included extensive resource monitoring with customized alerts and 24x7 support from their ISO-certified operations team and a clear escalation path for CTF. With the regular cloud architecture and security reviews, together with cost optimization reports and resource tagging, CTF can quickly monitor and understand the cost of each of their applications.
Patrick Tsang, General Manager of the Information and Communication Centre, at the Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group said, “HKT played a key advisory role in our transformation project. With the expertise of their professional team, and a committed Service Level Agreement (SLA) to provide prompt service for our group's business growth, the services were deployed swiftly over 4,800 locations which even extended to tier six cities in China. This enabled us to greatly enhance our customer services and satisfaction levels. Our network performance has also improved enormously after adopting HKT's managed SD-WAN services.”
With these changes, CTF has evolved into an industry-leading omni-channel jewellery retailer that seamlessly combines online and offline services. With digital innovations applied to every aspect of their supply chain and customer experience, CTF has not only proved that it is able to keep up with the changing times and growing customer expectations, but also that it is a pioneer of change in the jewellery industry. By partnering with HKT, CTF will continue to embrace technology and thrive in its ongoing retail digital transformation.
