Serving customers how they want, where they want, and more importantly when they want, while keeping deliveries cost-effective, has proven challenging for retailers.
That’s where Bringg comes in. Its software-as-a-service delivery orchestration platform goes the extra mile to enable companies to streamline logistical operations and create the perfect delivery experience for their customers. Bringg’s clients include household names across a number of industries, such as Arcos Dorados, Walmart, and Coca-Cola. “We provide companies with visibility into their operations and the ability to manage them and respond in real time,” says Lior Sion, CTO of Bringg.
Launched in 2013, Bringg’s platform was designed to be open and companies could adapt it to their own systems and build on top of it, depending on their needs. One company might use the platform to manage the day-to-day operations of its own transport fleet, while another might use it to connect to an external fleet. However, in 2016, a number of its most important retail customers expressed reservations about Bringg’s cloud provider, who some saw as a commercial rival. Moving to a more independent cloud provider would ease the concerns of its customers, but Bringg also saw the opportunity to work with a new partner to revitalize its infrastructure. For Bringg, the natural choice was Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
“The Google Cloud reputation for reliability was a big draw. Our clients are household names across the world, we can’t afford to have the platform go down,” says Lior. “At the same time, we felt that Google Cloud Platform would allow us to develop and grow in the way that we wanted.”
Given the size of its clients and the complexity of its platform, Bringg knew that scalability and development speed were key to its success. The company built its infrastructure around Kubernetes, a Google Cloud-designed open source container orchestration system running on a leading cloud provider.
The company also incorporated Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CICD) practices into its workflow, making constant adjustments to the platform. When it came time to look for a new cloud solution, Bringg chose Google Cloud for its stability and its approach to Kubernetes. “We felt that the best environment for Kubernetes was GCP,” says Lior. “We’re a code-first company, automating as much as possible and the Google Cloud approach to Kubernetes was much the same as ours.”
Bringg teamed up with Google Cloud Premier Partner DoiT International to help with the migration, after an earlier collaboration incorporating Google Maps into the logistics platform. “We worked very closely together. It was really like a three-way partnership between us, DoiT, and the team at Google Cloud Israel,” explains Lior. DoiT helped Bringg migrate to GCP without disrupting its service. After an initial proof of concept with staging accounts, DoiT and Bringg seamlessly moved its existing clients over to GCP. “DoiT made the transition very simple for us,” says Lior. “It felt like all I had to do was click a button.”
Google Kubernetes Engine for stability, scalability, and flexibility
The heart of the new platform was Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), which allowed Bringg to automate even more of its infrastructure with managed services. At the same time, Bringg never felt locked in to any one particular set of tools or way of doing things, which suited its CICD philosophy. Bringg’s platform comes with a unique set of challenges which has led to some unique solutions. With GKE, Bringg could benefit from the speed and simplicity of a managed infrastructure, without having to give up its proprietary tools. Meanwhile, Bringg also used Cloud SQL for its database solution and Cloud Load Balancing to help ensure a consistently smooth service for clients across the world.
“Google Cloud Platform gave us the flexibility to create our own solutions,” says Lior. “Rather than forcing a short term fix on us, it allowed us to focus on quality, which helped us to become faster in the long run.”
Automated infrastructure management, organic growth
With GCP, Bringg built an infrastructure that satisfied its customers’ requirements while allowing the company to evolve and adapt its platform in the way it wanted to. For Lior, the most important part of the migration to GCP was working with a like-minded partner. “The features, the cost, and the performance are all great, but with Google Cloud we also found someone who thinks like us,” he says. “The team we worked with at Google Cloud has the same focus on quality, reliability, and growth that we do, and it means we work better together.”
The emphasis on infrastructure-as-code and the automation within GKE kept Bringg’s management overhead low. Engineers were free to concentrate on adding new features and products, such as delivery from retail stores as well as depots or the ability to seamlessly connect to external fleets for same-day deliveries. Another upside was the reduced infrastructure costs, even as Bringg expanded dramatically.
“Over the course of 2018, we tripled our business, which was a technological triumph as much as a financial one,” says Lior. “With Google Cloud Platform we have great business results, happy customers, and reduced costs. What more could you want?”
Bringg has satisfied customers with a 30% increase in efficiency, thanks to its use of machine learning capabilities, and raised a C Round, the third round of financing for additional expansion, with a leading investor. But the company hasn’t stopped evolving and is in constant contact with Google Cloud product managers about forthcoming features.
As the company expands and amasses more data, it has started to explore BigQuery as a data analytics solution. Meanwhile, Google Cloud Machine Learning Products might point the way to new products within its platform, such as automatically predicting the amount of time trucks will be idle when they deliver to certain areas. For Bringg, the partnership with Google Cloud doesn’t look like it’s stopping any time soon.
“We’re changing all the time,” says Lior. “If we have a new task to perform or problem to solve we look to Google Cloud services first because we know they are reliable. We can move forward quickly because we’re on solid ground.”
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