Jollibee Group Reduces Costs by 30% Using AWS Marketplace

Jollibee Group is a global restaurant company that operates 18 brands and more than 6,500 stores worldwide. Based in the Philippines, it has restaurant locations in 34 countries. The company’s well-known brands include Jollibee, Smashburger, and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Jollibee Group is dedicated to creating an excellent dining experience for customers around the globe. To drive customer satisfaction, it embraces innovative technologies that enhance its operations and drive business growth.

The company was one of the earliest adopters of AWS in the Philippines and has been an AWS Marketplace customer since 2013. Originally, the internal Jollibee Group team members spun up resources themselves, but after 3 years, cost and efficiency considerations led it to look for a managed services provider in 2016.

Jollibee Group has worked with several partners throughout its journey. Its relationship with ECV began in 2020 as a 2-year contract that has now expanded into more multiyear agreements. The ECV team aligns closely with the Jollibee Group team to understand business challenges, explore solutions, discuss opportunities for optimization, and recommend possibilities for transformation.

“When we meet a customer, our goal is to understand who the customer is, the nature of their business, and what pain points they have,” says Jonathan Que, regional director at ECV. “By doing this, we are better equipped to truly help them. Although this sounds straightforward, a lot of companies don’t do this. To achieve a meaningful long-term relationship, we need to understand and care about the customer’s business. One of the most impactful affirmations we receive from our customers is that they don’t see ECV as a vendor, but as a partner. The relationship is elevated from a traditional customer-vendor relationship to where we become an extension of their company. That is a genuine partnership built for success.”

The partnership between ECV and Jollibee Group offers greater flexibility and scalability. “We embraced cloud technology early on,” says Yoly Chua, vice president of global business technology at Jollibee Group. “But our initial foray into the cloud was far from optimal. We didn’t fully harness the myriad offerings it provided. However, a significant transformation occurred when we joined forces with ECV. They adeptly harnessed the power of the marketplace, adding substantial value to our business operations.” The close relationship between the two companies makes it possible for Jollibee Group to find and deploy solutions quickly.

ECV is an AWS Marketplace Skilled Channel Partner (MSCP). The MSCP designation recognizes Channel Partners that have a proven track record of using AWS Marketplace to deliver solutions to customers. ECV uses Channel Partner Private Offers (CPPOs) to resell third-party software and services in AWS Marketplace. With CPPOs, ECV can offer custom pricing, duration, end-user license terms, and additional services to customers. When Jollibee Group began purchasing third-party software through ECV in AWS Marketplace, it saw a sharp decrease in expenses. Not only does it get more access to AWS services and third-party software at a lower price, but the continued support from ECV also adds value while reducing operational costs. Overall, the company reports a total cost of ownership savings of 30 percent as a result of its partnership with ECV. “As we expand globally, we’re slowly migrating most of our managed services to ECV,” says Carlo Lasala, director of global infrastructure and security at Jollibee Group. “Our working relationship is such that we have continually migrated workloads, systems, and modernization over to ECV.”

In addition, the partnership provides the Jollibee Group team extra assistance with the technological ins and outs of digital transformation. “The actual legwork falls heavily on the partner,” says Lasala. “We make sure the work is aligned with our goals and strategies, but the heavy lifting is done by ECV. That’s important to us because we have a very small cloud team.”

Together, Jollibee Group and ECV have completed several successful nationwide infrastructure projects in the Philippines. Most notably, in 2022, the team deployed a security solution to more than 7,000 end points. Then, it implemented a backup solution to another 5,000 end points across the Philippines in the first quarter of 2023. Infrastructure projects like these are especially difficult in a country like the Philippines, with locations spread across many islands, cities, and towns. Nevertheless, the team successfully deployed the security solution to the 3,000 end points in the head offices in 3 months.

“When working with an AWS Partner like ECV, we get the benefit of its expertise and relationship with AWS,” says Ella Salonga, senior manager for business technology at Jollibee Group. “It’s not only about doing things for us—the AWS Partner also empowers us to understand what’s happening in our environment.”