Case Study:
TF Value-Mart Sdn Bhd
TF Value-Mart Sdn. Bhd. is a Malaysian value and discount retailer operating in the supermarket and hypermarket industry, with roots tracing back to 1957 and a multi-store network of over 50 outlets across Peninsular Malaysia. Built on a no-frills, low-cost model designed to deliver unbeatable value, the company offers groceries, fresh produce, and general merchandise across the Northern, Central, Southern, and East Coast regions, primarily serving value-conscious households in suburban and semi-urban communities. As an SMB-to-mid-market retailer running business-critical operations across every outlet, continuous and reliable store performance is central to the brand promise.
The Challenge
As a long-established and growing retailer, TF Value-Mart wanted to ensure its in-store experience kept pace with rising customer demand and an expanding store network. During the busiest periods of the retail calendar, such as Chinese New Year and Hari Raya, higher shopper volumes placed greater demand on the systems supporting its stores, and the company was keen to keep promotions updating smoothly at the shelf and checkouts moving quickly for customers.
TF Value-Mart also wanted to strengthen the resilience behind its operations, ensuring sales, inventory, and membership data across its 50+ outlets remained protected and that stores could continue trading without interruption. As the network expanded, the team sought a more proactive, continuously managed approach to its infrastructure, so every outlet could deliver a consistent shopping experience through peak periods and future growth.
Why Choose Amazon Web Services?
TF Value-Mart chose AWS for its ability to scale on-demand through peak retail periods, its enterprise-grade security to protect customer and business data, and a pay-as-you-go model that removed the need for heavy upfront infrastructure investment. AWS provided the scalable, secure, and reliable foundation needed to keep business-critical retail systems available across every outlet, while eliminating the capital-heavy hardware refresh cycles of the past.
Why G-AsiaPacific?
Equally important to TF Value-Mart was the decision to run the environment as a managed service. Partnering with G-AsiaPacific (GAP), an AWS Premier Partner, as its AWS Managed Service Provider gave TF Value-Mart 24/7 proactive operations, local support, and continuous optimization, which without needing to build that capability in-house. GAP established a flexible and resilient AWS platform as the foundation of the retailer’s IT, and continuously monitors, manages, and optimizes the environment, proactively provisioning and adjusting capacity ahead of peak demand so that ERP, inventory, point-of-sale, and membership systems stay stable, secure, and reliable across all 50+ locations.
The Services Provided
GAP architected a secure and resilient AWS environment as the foundation of TF Value-Mart’s retail IT. Key AWS services supporting operations include:
Amazon EC2
Runs TF Value-Mart's core business applications on scalable, reliable compute sized for daily and seasonal retail workloads.
Amazon EBS
Provides reliable, persistent storage backing the core applications and their data.
Amazon VPC
Secures the environment with network isolation and controlled access.
Amazon CloudWatch
Delivers continuous monitoring of infrastructure health and performance, with proactive alarms across CPU, memory, disk, and EC2 status checks.
AWS Systems Manager
Centrally manages the production fleet, automating patching and maintaining compliance and secure operations across all instances.
AWS Data Transfer
Enables secure movement of data across the store network and cloud environment.
Quantifiable Improvements
Since engaging GAP’s managed services on AWS, TF Value-Mart has achieved measurable improvements across cost, reliability, and operational readiness, with infrastructure performance formally measured over a continuous two-month production observation period:
- Cost efficiency: infrastructure costs reduced by approximately 30–40%, removing frequent hardware refresh cycles and freeing capital for business expansion.
- Infrastructure availability: maintained the ≥99% production availability target across headquarters and stores, with zero infrastructure or instance health failures recorded throughout the observation period (Amazon EC2 StatusCheckFailed remained at 0).
- Operational headroom for peak trade: average CPU utilization stayed below 60% — comfortably under the 70% target — confirming sufficient capacity to absorb daily retail workloads and seasonal fluctuations without strain.
- Fleet health and compliance: 100% of production instances (8 of 8) remained operational, centrally managed, and compliant, with zero non-compliant resources throughout, via AWS Systems Manager.
- Proactive issue prevention: CloudWatch alarms across CPU, memory, disk, and EC2 status checks enabled early detection and response before any impact reached store operations.
The Outcome
Migrating to a managed AWS platform delivered measurable gains across TF Value-Mart’s four priority areas — core retail operations, business continuity, operational resilience, and infrastructure optimization.
Agility & Performance
The flexibility to scale resources ahead of festive and promotional peaks eliminated the slowdowns that previously disrupted store operations, delivering consistent uptime and a smoother experience for staff and customers.
Business Continuity
Sales, inventory, and membership data across all 50+ outlets stayed protected, with stores able to continue trading without interruption throughout the growth journey.
Operational Resilience
Centralized monitoring and operational visibility — previously absent — now give the team early warning and proactive control over the environment.
Cost Optimization
Shifting from capital-heavy on-premise hardware to a pay-as-you-go model let the company optimize IT spend and redirect capital toward growth.
Security & Compliance
Enhanced AWS security controls strengthened protection of customer and operational data and improved the company's overall compliance posture.
How did AWS Enhance your business?
AWS has been a direct enabler of TF Value-Mart’s growth and operational scalability. The cloud architecture has scaled seamlessly to support rapid store expansion with no downtime throughout the growth journey, underpinning critical retail systems including ERP, CRM, the online storefront, and the Retail Management System for consistent performance across every outlet.
With GAP managing and optimizing the platform, TF Value-Mart continues to execute its plan to open new stores each year, backed by the scalability and security needed to expand with confidence. Looking ahead, the flexibility of AWS positions the company to adopt more advanced capabilities such as data analytics, AI-driven insights, and enhanced digital customer engagement, further strengthening its mission to deliver unbeatable value across Malaysia.
Testimonial
"The G-AsiaPacific and AWS team were proactive and approached us to offer their support in improving the technology running our business. We was pleasantly surprised by the level of service offered. With AWS, we have a reliable cloud infrastructure that provides regular updates on our stores' performance. We needed a robust cloud provider to expand with us in terms of scalability and security, which we found in AWS."
TF Value-Mart Sdn Bhd
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