Google Cloud recently announced an alliance with Nana Direct, a pioneering online grocery shopping, and delivery startup, which offers Saudi households a convenient online grocery shopping experience. Via the alliance, Google Cloud and Nana Direct have been transforming the online grocery shopping experience in the Kingdom, connecting households with local grocery stores and supermarkets, and ensuring the delivery of handpicked and packaged fresh fruits, vegetables, and groceries right to their doorstep within a 15-minute window.
Nana’s online grocery shopping practice available via the App or on the website is entirely powered by Google Cloud. Running the entire IT backend on Google Cloud enables Nana to grow and scale its business as they continue to expand in the Kingdom. It also provides the capabilities necessary to deploy features quickly, all while running on Google Cloud’s highly safe, secure, and reliable global infrastructure.
Industry sources added that operating with the Google Cloud’s unique AI and data warehousing solutions like BigQuery has transformed how the team at Nana analyzes data and makes well-informed business decisions accordingly. Through the use of BigQuery, Nana implemented AI modules that helped enhance business forecasting, understand consumer behavior at a much deeper level and increase efficiency levels to 69% in 2021.
Ziad Jammal, Digital Natives Lead, MENA at Google Cloud stated; “The collaboration with Nana Direct is an exciting opportunity for Google Cloud to bring innovative e-commerce solutions to life in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and share decades worth of expertise in establishing digital natives. Working hand in hand with Nana Direct on their setup from day one, has most definitely helped establish them for success as they became a household name across the country. We are delighted that our work with Nana Direct continues to support in elevating the consumer’s experience for seamless grocery shopping and delivery, as the market continues to demonstrate the rise in demand for such services even as Coronavirus restrictions are being lifted in KSA.”
Sami Al Helwah, Founder and CEO of Nana Direct stated: “From day one at Nana Direct, a strategic decision was made to build our entire back-end from the ground up on Google Cloud. This is due to the innovative technological capabilities that Google Cloud provides, combined with the unique expertise in the digital natives and retail space which was shared with us from the onset. The level of support we received and continue to receive every day from the team is unprecedented, and having this type of support has enabled us to develop a clear digital roadmap for the business, with growth and development at the heart of it.”
Industry sources added that with the on-time delivery being a unique differentiator of Nana, the team relied on Google Cloud’s Fleet Routing tool as the solution to help enhance fleet utilization. The solution also aided in dispatching trucks for deliveries using Google Maps to identify the most efficient routes in the Kingdom, which ended up optimizing fleet utilization with better on-time delivery by 40%.
As Saudi Arabia moves into a post-pandemic world, Nana endures its expansion and growth with the introduction of Nana Express and Nana Hyper, adding pharmacies, supermarket chains, and specialty stores to its portfolio of online services.
With the aiding of Google Cloud’s reliable infrastructure, Nana was able to scale operations at speed and accommodate the surge in orders following a recent 360 marketing campaign that introduced Nana Express and Nana Hyper to the market. As a result, the campaign successfully yielded 50% (month on month) growth in orders for the months of December (2021) and January this year.
