Enhancing Hung Fook Tong’s Operational Capabilities with Managed Services

By leveraging HKBN JOS’s Managed Services, Hung Fook Tong, one of the top retailers of Chinese herbal products in Hong Kong, has future-proofed its IT infrastructure enhanced IT service level consistency, and kickstarted its digital transformation journey – all without the need to hire further in-house employees.

We know we’re in good hands with HKBN JOS. Their dedicated support and professional advice not only enhanced our entire IT infrastructure, but also enabled us the visibility to develop bigger picture plans.

- Dr. Ricky Szeto, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of Hung Fook Tong

For decades, Hung Fook Tong has been promoting the concept of modern wellness food and beverage in Hong Kong. Their “no additive” (無添加) natural ingredient mantra has won over local consumers, driving Hung Fook Tong to grow its business into a retail success story with over 110 branch stores across Hong Kong.

At a technology crossroads
Operating with a small IT team of about seven employees, Hung Fook Tong had arrived at an important crossroads in its future growth prospects. Facing a decision on how the retailer could leverage additional IT resources to enhance day-to-day operations, as well as transform digitally, the team had two options: either to hire more in-house employees, or partner with a technology solutions provider like HKBN JOS to manage its IT strategy going forward. Hung Fook Tong chose the latter.

In recognising an urgency to expand its business and the need to rapidly strengthen its technology prowess, Hung Fook Tong turned to HKBN JOS for help through HKBN Enterprises Solutions’s Barter & Bundle, a game-changing partnership model that allows customers to exchange their goods and services (to partly offset payment) for ICT solutions.

“In times like these, Barter & Bundle enabled us to flexibly exchange our products for ICT services that can address our immediate IT needs,” said Dr. Ricky Szeto, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of Hung Fook Tong.

Cost-effective HKBN JOS Managed Services
“What HKBN JOS discovered in Hung Fook Tong is typical for most businesses: a smaller scale operation makeing day-to-day IT tasks maintenance a constant challenge, stretching resources and even headcount to their limits. By taking the technology burden off customers, our managed services offered a stress-free and budget-friendly way to strengthen Hung Fook Tong’s IT posture, tailored for growth based on its specific business needs,” said Gary Leung, Co-Owner & Head of JOS Solutions.

In July 2020, HKBN JOS started managing Hung Fook Tong’s entire IT operations, from its infrastructure such as data centre and network, to core business systems management and e-commerce support. To put the scope of necessary enhancements into perspective, HKBN JOS's IT Service Management (ITSM) solution commenced with a complete audit of Hung Fook Tong’s current infrastructure and operation environment to understand what was “under the hood” and seek out inefficiencies in systems and management processes. HKBN JOS consolidated all documents and records so that all parties can easily conduct regular reviews and manage vendor relationships more efficiently. Pre-defined Service Level Agreements (SLAs) were also created to align with Hung Fook Tong’s business objectives and specific requirements.

In the follow-up, HKBN JOS successfully relocated Hung Fook Tong’s entire data centre in just a month, thanks to an all-hands-on-deck approach from the team of skilled IT experts. This migration to a highly secure environment enhances Hung Fook Tong with much more improved scalability and flexibility. HKBN JOS not only offered managed hosting to monitor all IT components’ performance on a 24/7 basis, but it also provided intelligent on-site operational support like regularly changing backup tapes or disks, along with quick action response to remedy emergencies.

Better IT governance
With proper configuration and asset management in place, Hung Fook Tong’s operational capabilities have reached all-new levels. Enhanced consistency and accuracy of documents and records have enabled the retailer to easily keep individual hardware or software licenses up to date and track infrastructure performance as a method to minimise disruption. Alongside that, improved vendor management has led to better IT governance support, helping the company keep a much closer eye on compliance and risk management.

Greater flexibility, lower operational expenses
By outsourcing its hosting service, Hung Fook Tong now enjoys 24/7 monitoring and technical support, staffed and managed by HKBN JOS’s dedicated experts, who each offers a range of specialisations to accommodate for different business needs. This has not only reduced Hung Fook Tong’s reliance on in-house technical staff, but it also frees up the expense of hiring additional people, especially whenever scaling up is necessary from time to time.

“We know we’re in good hands with HKBN JOS. Their dedicated support and professional advice not only enhanced our entire IT infrastructure, but also enabled us the visibility to develop bigger picture plans,” said Dr. Ricky Szeto.

Future plans
The perks of IT outsourcing are more than operational enhancement; it has empowered Hung Fook Tong to hit visionary goals much easier and faster. After completing an overhaul of its IT infrastructure, Hung Fook Tong is ready to embark on their digital transformation journey at full stride. With its vision towards the future, Hung Fook Tong has assigned HKBN JOS to support the company’s overall IT strategy (from planning, management to implementation) for the next five years.

“With our expertise in digital transformation, we’re rolling up our sleeves to provide expert services on maintenance, troubleshooting, upgrades, and interconnections to transform Hung Fook Tong across a broad range of areas such as its point-of-sale systems, inventory management, electronic payment platforms and much more,” concluded Gary.