Alfamart added 200 stores during the global pandemic, trained more than 1,000 new workers remotely, and supported remote Philippine communities during lockdowns with Google Workspace.
Alfamart Trading Philippines is a minimart chain that serves residential communities. With more than 1,300 stores across Luzon, it offers families basic household goods, frozen meat, fish, poultry and vegetables, prepared food-to-go products, and OTC medicines. It also provides services such as ATM, bills payment, and prepaid phone loading. On a social mission to empower underserved communities, it has been recognized with multiple awards, including Asia Leaders Award Company of the Year (2021) and Golden Globe Annual Awards for Business Excellence (2018).
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Philippines
https://www.alfamart.com.ph/
Alfamart added 200 stores during the global pandemic, trained more than 1,000 new workers remotely, and supported remote Philippine communities during lockdowns with Google Workspace.
Google Workspace Results
20% annual expansion rate during pandemic
• Supports ambitious store expansion strategy by enabling remote training of more than 1,000 new workers
• Frees up time to develop store location strategies through 25% boost to operational efficiencies
• Enables continuous store improvements with real-time exchange of company updates through 1,300 Meet sessions per month
• Enables superior cloud-based operational performance with zero additional IT headcount
"Google Workspace was one of the reasons why we were able to achieve continuous store growth in difficult pandemic circumstances. We were empowered not only to keep serving communities, but reach new underserved areas." – Lerry C. Sangalang, AVP - Information Technology, Alfamart
Minimart chain
That mission faced a challenge when Covid-19 erupted, forcing many Philippine retailers to close as lockdowns and mobility restrictions prevented customers from reaching stores. Yet instead of slowing down, pandemic difficulties caused Alfamart to invest in more stores, accelerate its goal of providing essential services to far-flung Philippine areas in a time of need.
Alfamart embarked on rapid expansion to serve even more communities, at a time where Covid-induced economic problems caused
According to Lerry C. Sangalang, AVP - Information Technology at Alfamart, the company laid the foundations for this growth strategy well before the pandemic. By adopting
The problems disappeared virtually overnight with a seamless and "intuitive" transition to Google Workspace, thanks largely to proactive user and technical training from partner
"Google Workspace was one of the reasons why we were able to achieve continuous store growth in difficult pandemic circumstances," says Sangalang. "We were empowered not only to keep serving communities, but reach new underserved areas."
Reaching far-flung communities with Google Workspace remote training and collaboration
"During the pandemic, we couldn’t bring new workers to our office for training. But Google Classroom enabled us to easily bring them into the Alfamart family." – Lerry C. Sangalang, AVP - Information Technology, Alfamart
Growing at a pace of 200 stores per year, in a period marked by lockdowns and mobility restrictions, would be daunting under any circumstances. For Alfamart, whose minimarts are scattered across a sprawling nation of more than 110 million, the challenges were even more substantial.
Thousands of new workers in remote areas needed to be trained and onboarded, even as the entire network was kept up to date with the latest company information and official pandemic-related notifications.
Sangalang says
"During the pandemic, we couldn’t bring new workers to our office for training," says Sangalang. "But Google Classroom enabled us to easily bring them into the Alfamart family."
At Alfamart, training is an open-ended process, as the company continuously improves its services and product range. After formal training with Classroom, Alfamart finds Google Meet to be an ideal forum for dozens of workers to join sessions on their mobile phones, keeping abreast of the latest developments from headquarters.
Alfamart now carries out roughly 1,300 Meet sessions per month across the Alfamart network, even more efficiently than physical meetings. Meanwhile, the Alfamart team uses
"Our locations are primarily residential areas, not in busy metropolitan office areas where people can gather more easily," says Elinor Bonsol, Senior Marketing Manager, Alfamart. "So we really need mobile-friendly remote communication tools such as Meet to keep operations moving smoothly."
Enabling real-time strategic decision making in a fast-moving retail environment
"The ability to continuously work on presentation materials such as Sheets and Slides right up to the beginning of a meeting makes us a lot more streamlined and collaborative, especially in pressure-cooker situations." – Lerry C. Sangalang, AVP - Information Technology, Alfamart
Alfamart is deploying a full range of Google Workspace productivity and collaboration tools, including
In the past, for example, company presentations needed to be finalized a night in advance. Today, Alfamart staffers regularly update Slides up to minutes before a meeting. That real-time capacity becomes critical in fluid logistical and supply chain conditions, which need to be coordinated remotely under pandemic pressures.
"The ability to continuously work on presentation materials such as Sheets and Slides right up to the beginning of a meeting makes us a lot more streamlined and collaborative, especially in pressure-cooker situations," says Sangalang.
These efficiencies have yielded concrete results that enable Alfamart's drive to reach more remote Philippine communities. Sangalang estimates a 25% boost to operational efficiency since adopting Google Workspace productivity tools, freeing up time to develop strategies for adding new store locations.
Meanwhile, Google Workspace has enabled Alfamart to pursue its rapid pace of expansion with zero additions to IT headcount, thanks to the full automation and scalability of Google Workspace tools. That liberates funds to invest in new stores and value-added services, such as home delivery.
Ultimately, Google Workspace has improved the company’s overall productivity, creativity and operational efficiencies amid pandemic challenges. "Our workflows have actually become more fluid during the COVID crisis," says Sangalang. "That's because Google Workspace makes it possible for us to work together and make decisions more seamlessly than meeting in person."
Opening new paths to expansion with AppSheet and Google Maps
With the success it has achieved with Google Workspace, Alfamart is turning to the next steps of its Philippine expansion strategy by developing data-driven tools to optimize new store locations, using a combination of
The team plans to use AppSheet to design apps with no need for coding, ingesting location data from Google Maps APIs for powerful retail insight. By creating apps in an easy no-code environment, Alfamart will gain the ability to place new stores based on granular population density, traffic flows, competitor sites, and other factors.
"With a rich variety of Google services available, from AppSheet to Google Maps, there's no end to the improvements we can make to drive our expansion," says Sangalang. "We feel we're just at the beginning of our journey to empower residential Philippine communities, thanks to the way Google Workspace supports our creative mission."
*Google Workspace was formerly known as G Suite prior to Oct. 6, 2020.
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