Asahi Group: Expanding global reach with a high-performing API-first strategy driven by Apigee
About Asahi Group
Asahi Group Holdings Ltd. engages in the manufacture and sale of food and beverages. It operates through the following segments: alcoholic beverages, soft drinks, food, overseas, and others (including logistics and other businesses). The company was founded on September 1, 1949, and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
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Contact usAsahi Group implements an API-first strategy to support rapid innovation and global collaboration.
Google Cloud results
- Real-time computer system update with seamless data processing from laborious multi-day process previously
- BigQuery’s speed, ease of use, and affordability made an impact to the IT team
Took over 70% of the company’s data integration jobs with significant results
Since its origins in 1889, Asahi Group has combined commitment to tradition and innovative spirit to develop Japan's popular, homegrown beer brand and spread its wings around the world. Today, Asahi Group runs a beverages empire that spans from Australia to Indonesia, Romania, the United States, and beyond.
While Asahi Group's global vision and spirit of continuous transformation open vast opportunities, they also create challenges almost equal in scope. Global units, often born of acquisitions, need to collaborate seamlessly and in real time. And Asahi Group's sprawling global business can't afford to skip a beat even in the midst of an ambitious multi-year cloud modernization program: a comprehensive overhaul of its legacy on-premises infrastructure to a modernized cloud architecture by 2027.
"We're on a mission to modernize our architecture by 2027, but our global business needs won't wait until 2027. That's why we need an API-first strategy to allow legacy systems to support rapid innovation and global collaboration, while we invest these years and funds in moving our architecture to the public cloud."
—Hiroshi Shimizu, IT Strategy Chief, Asahi GroupFor Hiroshi Shimizu, Asahi Group's IT strategy chief, there could be only one way forward: turn Asahi Group into an API-first organization. APIs enable seamless data sharing and cooperation across platforms, offering transformative agility, scaling power, and rock-solid security. They mean global partners, customers, and employees can collaborate safely and in real time, whether based on-premises, on the public cloud, or in a hybrid- or multicloud environment.
To make the vision work, Asahi Group turned to Apigee amid a broader Google Cloud adoption, and found the API-management platform it needed to enable its global modernization vision to take flight. The decision opened a future of unlimited potential from smart factory transformation to advanced global consumer and market analytics.
"We're on a mission to modernize our architecture by 2027, but our global business needs won't wait until 2027. That's why we need an API-first strategy to allow legacy systems to support rapid innovation and global collaboration, while we invest these years and funds in moving our architecture to the public cloud," Shimizu explains. "Apigee has been the essential bridge for more than just our global operations. It's been the bridge between the Asahi Group of today and the Asahi Group of 2027, which will be driven by advanced technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT)."
"By adopting an API-first strategy managed by Apigee, we were able to keep all stakeholders in our business ecosystem working together like clockwork."
—Hiroshi Shimizu, IT Strategy Chief, Asahi GroupGateway to a transformative API-driven cloud architecture with Apigee integration
Before embarking on architecture modernization in 2017, Asahi Group operated in a 90% on-premises environment in which some of the software was decades old. It made for bottlenecks even for routine tasks such as onboarding new employees, as data needed to be funneled through a centralized hub server.
The turning point came when Shimizu and his colleagues attended a Google Cloud Next event and discovered a new vision of digital transformation, based on real-time data analytics and nimble containerized applications.
In particular, says Shimizu, BigQuery had a major impact in persuading the Asahi Group team to move to a public cloud architecture, due to what he calls the data warehousing solution's "ease-of-use, speed, affordability, and limitless real-time data-crunching power."
Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) was another eye-opener, he says, demonstrating more agile and dynamic scaling, via container-based microservices, than the on-premises virtual machines at the core of Asahi Group's legacy system.
"Visiting Google Cloud Next and discovering the power of BigQuery and GKE was the beginning of our journey with Google Cloud," Shimizu says. "More than that, it really was the trigger for our decision to embark on a 'modernize-and-shift' strategy to cloud architecture by 2027, with Google Cloud at the center."
The discovery of BigQuery and GKE led naturally to Apigee. The API management solution became the bridge that enabled Asahi Group to carry out a comprehensive infrastructure overhaul, while continuing to evolve its global business mission. It was a complex challenge involving seamless integration between legacy on-premises VMs and multiple cloud platforms (since some units and partners were hosted on different cloud providers).
Apigee allowed Asahi Group to build APIs on top of its legacy systems to APIs and thereby integrate with systems that had migrated to the public cloud. In this way, Apigee kept a sprawling multinational group's operations growing seamlessly, while Shimizu's team modernized the architecture in parallel. "By adopting an API-first strategy managed by Apigee," says Shimizu, "we were able to keep all stakeholders in our business ecosystem working together like clockwork."
Shimizu says Apigee has already taken over 70% of Asahi Group's data integration jobs hitherto handled by a central on-premises hub server. The results even for routine use cases, such as onboarding staff, have been significant.
By enabling seamless processing of new employee data, Asahi Group's computer systems are updated in real time. That means all new staffer credentials, including Identity and Access Management (IAM), are set up from day one, compared to a laborious multi-day process in the past that required daily entry and access badges.
For Asahi Group, the real excitement lies ahead, as it deploys Apigee to enable advanced digital growth strategies.
"It’s not good enough to offer a superior beverage product and expect to succeed any more, we need to share data safely across the global operations in order to carry out consumer and market analysis in real time, and only Apigee allows us to do that. Our goal is to win new fans around the world. Apigee enables us to reach them."
—Hiroshi Shimizu, IT Strategy Chief, Asahi GroupEnabling future plans from smart factories to data-driven global expansion strategy
Shimizu says Asahi Group is only at the beginning of a cloud journey enabled by Apigee. The beverage group plans to rapidly adopt the Internet of Things (IoT) for everything from automated beer servers to smart breweries, as well as intelligent logistics with Asahi Group's global distribution partners.
Shimizu says Apigee opens the door to adoption of IoT technology for smart factories and data-optimized product distribution by enabling seamless, real-time data exchange. "The real power of Apigee for a company like ours is the way it enables secure and agile data sharing internally and with outside partners," says Shimizu. "This opens up a world of opportunity for us to reimagine the way we develop, manufacture, and deliver our products."
Complementing IoT manufacturing plans, Apigee will help Asahi Group's global expansion strategies. By pooling consumer and market data securely among worldwide units and outside partners, Asahi Group will be able to deploy BigQuery to develop finely tuned marketing and customer relations initiatives, driving more global business.
"We realized it's not good enough to offer a superior beverage product and expect to succeed any more," says Shimizu. "We need to share data safely across the global operations in order to carry out consumer and market analysis in real time, and only Apigee allows us to do that. Our goal is to win new fans around the world. Apigee enables us to reach them."
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
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About Asahi Group
Asahi Group Holdings Ltd. engages in the manufacture and sale of food and beverages. It operates through the following segments: alcoholic beverages, soft drinks, food, overseas, and others (including logistics and other businesses). The company was founded on September 1, 1949, and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.