Homegrown fast-food chain giant Jollibee has opted to take a cloud computing solution, also known as on-demand or hosted application, to manage its global operations instead of deploying an Oracle software which its main office in Manila is currently using.

This is according to a statement issued by the local office of Net Suite, the tech firm which won the contract to supply its NetSuite OneWorld solution to the Filipino-owned fast-food operator.

NetSuite, a vendor for hosted online business software that includes accounting, customer relationship management (CRM), and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, did not reveal the amount of the contract.

The statement said Jollibee’s corporate headquarters is using Oracle for financial management and reporting, but the company decided that expanding Oracle to Jollibee’s international operations would be too costly and resource-intensive.

The statement said Jollibee turned to NetSuite to integrate its “patchwork of legacy systems” and consolidate its “opaque processes” that were “restricting Jollibee from acting as a truly coordinated international entity.”

The company deployed NetSuite OneWorld first in Vietnam, where its mettle was tested in terms of accommodating Jollibee’s rapid international expansion.

The cloud computing solution’s built-in support for multiple currencies, multiple regions, subsidiary relationships, and rapid deployment responded well to the fast-food firm’s demands, the statement said.

Since NetSuite OneWorld has the ability to integrate with Oracle, Jollibee’s Manila headquarters was able to access real-time visibility into the core aspects of its Vietnamese operation, including granular performance analysis, online supply ordering, consolidated reporting and a complete audit trail, the statement added.

“NetSuite delivered these benefits significantly faster and at a much lower cost than if Jollibee had rolled out the Oracle platform in Vietnam,” the software firm said.

The implementation went live within two months in Jollibee’s five subsidiaries in Vietnam, the company added.

Jollibee said it plans to roll out NetSuite OneWorld across its Chinese operation before the end of the year, followed by Taiwan, the United States and other Asian markets.

Jollibee has enjoyed dramatic growth since starting out as an ice cream parlor back in 1975. It now has over 1,800 restaurants worldwide with nearly 200 new stores opening each year.

The company also operates 300 international outlets across Asia and the United States. Geographic expansion, as well as the acquisition of high-profile brands such as Greenwich Pizza and ChowKing, has given rise to siloed processes and data, fueling the need for a truly international business operating platform.

“NetSuite OneWorld gives us a way to deliver a standard platform across the organization in a timeframe and at a cost that supports our continued growth and development,” Jollibee CFO Ysmael Baysa said in the statement.