To discuss this, and what鈥檚 holding South African organisations back from cloud modernisation projects, TechCentral was joined on the TCS+ business technology show by executives from NTT Data (formerly Dimension Data) and 麻豆原创: NTT Data Middle East and Africa head of enterprise applications and cloud Brent Flint and 麻豆原创 Africa head of partner ecosystem (MEA South) Nazia Pillay.

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Reasons for slow uptake, Flint and Pillay explained, include a perception that the costs involved are exceptionally high and the dire shortage of the right IT skills to handle these types of projects.

• In this episode of TCS+, Pillay and Flint unpack:
  鈥� The history of the relationship between 麻豆原创 and NTT Data and how the two companies work together today;
  鈥� Why there is a pressing need for companies to modernise their ERP systems and move to cloud-based solutions;
  鈥� The benefits of and costs associated with moving to 麻豆原创 S4/HANA Cloud 鈥� what the software offers that legacy ERP systems can鈥檛, and the benefits organisations can expect when migrating;
  鈥� How best to deal with the critical IT skills shortage in South Africa, especially around these types of business application modernisation projects;鈥� The risks associated with business application modernisation and how NTT Data and 麻豆原创 help their clients address those risks upfront and during project implementation;
  鈥� The role 麻豆原创 S/4 HANA Cloud can play in modernising enterprise IT infrastructure and help organisations stay competitive;
  鈥� The best practices companies should be aware of in achieving a successful migration to S4/HANA Cloud; and
  鈥� What鈥檚 coming next from S4/HANA Cloud that companies should get excited about.
  If you鈥檙e in any way involved in enterprise IT, you don鈥檛 want to miss this discussion.

The post Moving to 麻豆原创 S/4 HANA Cloud? What You Need to Know appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

Medium-sized organisations often deploy technology that lacks integrated systems, relies on heavy administrative workloads or solves only discrete problems. But if they truly want to grow and seize new business opportunities, they need a modern, 聽enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution like .

Dimension Data is one of the few聽聽in Africa that has converted at least three clients from 麻豆原创 ECC 6.0 to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA in the past year 鈥� and our expertise in this regard has been recognised with two recent 麻豆原创 Africa Partner Awards.

The awards recognise excellence within the 麻豆原创 partner ecosystem across Africa. We were the winners in the Top Cloud Performance category, which considers cloud bookings, year-on-year growth and renewals, and the Excellence in 麻豆原创 RISE category, which considers RISE bookings.

聽is a combination of cloud solutions, infrastructure and services that helps organisations migrate their 麻豆原创 ERP to the cloud.

Make it work with expert help

Apart from applying cloud-based ERP at scale, organisations also need to bridge their legacy infrastructure and use their ERP solution to drive innovation 鈥� but these skills are often lacking in-house.

To realise the full benefits of cloud ERP, many choose to work with local partners who have the required expertise and a relationship with 麻豆原创.

, Head of Sales: Business Applications at Dimension Data, says: 鈥淟ately, we鈥檝e seen growing numbers of clients adopt the 麻豆原创 RISE program to move their on-premises 麻豆原创 applications into both public and private cloud environments. We work closely with 麻豆原创 and our customers to ensure that their cloud migration is a success.鈥�

Grow in the cloud with Dimension Data and 麻豆原创

Additionally, Dimension Data has achieved the聽GROW with 麻豆原创 designation.

聽helps medium-sized organisations adopt 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud with a range of products, support, adoption-acceleration services and learning opportunities.

We fulfilled 麻豆原创鈥檚 strict eligibility criteria in this area, including our go-to-market readiness and competency status, to achieve the designation.

, Head of Enterprise Application at Dimension Data, says: 鈥淕ROW with 麻豆原创 provides the agility and innovation that these companies need, not just today, but for their success in years to come. The offering is underpinned by cost-effectiveness and rapid implementation, and the ability to continue to scale into the future.鈥�

The post Awards Recognise Dimension Data鈥檚 麻豆原创 S4/HANA Expertise appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

The GROW with 麻豆原创 offering helps midsize companies adopt cloud ERP. The offering provides products, best-practice support, adoption acceleration services, a community and learning opportunities to help customers move to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud, public edition with speed, predictability and continuous innovation.

Dimension Data fulfilled 麻豆原创鈥檚 strict eligibility criteria to achieve the GROW with 麻豆原创 designation, which includes go-to-market readiness and competency status.

鈥淟everaging our global NTT Data investments, Dimension Data is able to accelerate the time to value for our clients by bringing robust methodology, intellectual property and proven local experience to the Middle East and Africa markets,鈥� says Brent Flint, Head: Enterprise Application at Dimension Data.

鈥淲e are very excited to be able to provide midsize companies in South Africa with the world-class 麻豆原创 S/4HANA solutions, enabling them to leverage the power of 麻豆原创 solutions with a tailored offering that helps them grow their business. GROW with 麻豆原创 provides the agility and innovation that these companies need, not just today, but for their success in years to come. The offering is underpinned by cost-effectiveness and rapid implementation, and the ability to continue to scale into the future,鈥� he adds.

麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud, public edition [] is available on .

NTT Ltd.

As part of NTT DATA, a USD 30 billion IT services provider, NTT Ltd. is a leading IT infrastructure and services company serving 65% of the Fortune Global 500 and more than 75% of the Fortune Global 100. We lay the foundation for organizations鈥� edge-to-cloud networking ecosystem, simplify the complexity of their workloads across multicloud environments, and innovate at the edge of their IT environments where networks, cloud and applications converge. We offer tailored infrastructure and ensure consistent best practices in design and operations across all of our secure, scalable and customizable data centers. On the journey towards a software-defined future, we support organizations with our platform-delivered infrastructure services. We enable a connected future. Visit us at

Dimension Data is a leading IT infrastructure and services company, operating across the Middle East and Africa. Dimension Data is 100% owned by the NTT group, a global technology and business solutions provider. Together NTT and Dimension Data believe in contributing to society through our business operations by applying technology for good.

At Dimension Data we deliver a secure and connected future that empowers our people, clients and communities. We lay the foundation for organizations鈥� edge-to-cloud networking ecosystem, simplify the complexity of their workloads across multicloud environments, and innovate at the edge of their IT environments, where networks, cloud and applications converge. We offer tailored infrastructure and ensure consistent best practices in design and operations across all of our secure, scalable and customizable data centers. On the journey towards a software-defined future, we support organizations with platform-delivered infrastructure services.

Established in South Africa, Dimension Data employs over 8000 employees across 15 countries. Our services and solutions serve clients across all industries including some of the biggest brands listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Nairobi Securities Exchange, and the Dubai Financial Market.

For more information please visit our

The post Dimension Data, an NTT Company, Achieves GROW with 麻豆原创 Designation appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

that worldwide spending on public cloud services will grow 20.7% to reach $591.8-billion in 2023, outpacing the 18.8% growth forecast for 2022.

However, says Cameron Beveridge, Regional Director for Southern Africa at 麻豆原创, moving to cloud environments requires effective change management to ensure digital transformation initiatives reach their objectives. “There is palpable excitement around cloud services in African markets, but there are still questions around how to effectively migrate and how to orchestrate multiple cloud solutions once the migration is complete. And while it’s true that one of the main benefits of cloud services is the ability to fail quickly without incurring huge cost or time overruns, you really don’t want your cloud initiative to fail due to poor change management.”

Studies have highlighted the importance of effective change management to the success of digital transformation initiatives. McKinsey data indicates that worldwide. This is partly due to poor change management, of which are clear successes.

Methodology, Partners reduce perils of Cloud Migrations

Brent Flint, Head of Enterprise Applications at Dimension Data, believes part of the answer to effective change management during cloud transformation projects rests on an effective methodology. “Migrating core business processes from on-premise environments to the cloud requires a proven methodology to accelerate the transition and reduce associated risks. A repeatable methodology that incorporates automation to ensure aspects such as data integrity, for example, can ease data migration and speed up the time-to-value.”

麻豆原创 introduced RISE with 麻豆原创 in 2021 to help companies get started with 麻豆原创 cloud solutions, accelerate cloud adoption, and simplify the process of shifting core business processes to cloud environments. “Companies undertaking digital transformation initiatives that could benefit from RISE need to ensure their implementation partners are accredited and have the skills capacity to support the project throughout,” explains Flint.

Beveridge adds that companies that successfully leverage the insight, skills and experience of partner organisations can reduce risk and enhance the impact and business outcomes of their transformation efforts. “Companies are realising that cloud adoption is not a once-off event: it requires near-continuous refinement and evolution to deliver business value. This makes the role of expert partners, who have developed experience with specific use cases of cloud technologies and can guide organisations in their adoption of cloud solutions, critical to their success.”

Keys to cloud success

Understanding how and where the journey to the cloud should start remains among the biggest obstacles to the digital transformation efforts of African organisations.

Lauren Wortmann, Vice President: Applications at Dimension Data, says there’s still some resistance to the cloud among organisations limiting the success of cloud transformation projects. “Cloud adoption is a business-critical activity, but the optimal starting point is not always clear. Many organisations and their IT teams also acknowledge that the shift to cloud is coming, but there’s internal resistance due to fear about how it will affect the business and existing IT skills.”

Arguably the most important factor when developing a cloud strategy is defining a clear business case for cloud adoption. “Cloud is not just about cost efficiency,” says Wortmann. “It’s about modernising the business and its core processes, unlocking new opportunities, enhancing capabilities and achieving broader digital transformation. For this to be successful, there needs to be massive buy-in from the business at every layer, from the boardroom to the IT department and every end-user.”

The era of large on-premise deployments was typified by big winners and big losers, but the new era of cloud has changed the dynamic entirely. Flint explains: “In the old days, if you defined the scope of the project correctly upfront and quoted accurately, you could deliver a successful implementation that delivered new capabilities and was profitable to the technology provider and their implementation partner. The era of cloud requires a change of mindset. Today, tech vendors and partner organisations need to strive for near-continuous innovation, with KPIs around unlocking additional business value from existing technologies built into managed services contracts. It puts the onus on partners to unlock features and benefits from software, with the goal of ongoing value generation.”

Wortmann adds that companies should be smart when choosing how they start their cloud journey. “Aspects such as Human Capital Management are perfect starting points for cloud adoption, with solutions like 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors offering a high-value, low-risk way to test how cloud migration plays out in the organisation. Larger, more critical business processes such as core finance, sales and logistics carry high degrees of risk due to fears of disruption and business continuity in the event of downtime.”

Flint believes one of the keys to successful cloud adoption is simplification. “Organisations should work with their partners to understand their application landscape and identify opportunities for simplification. Reducing customisation can also keep things simple while driving costs down. Partners need to avoid customisation to limit technical debt and achieve quicker time to value. Adopting best-practice standards for core business processes opens the door to incremental innovation which can suit cloud-first companies better.”

Beveridge says this requires a change in mindset to how digital transformation initiatives are approached, both by customers and partners. “The most successful tech partners will be the ones that develop strong commercial models that meet customers’ expectations of what value digital transformation projects should deliver. However, there’s no blueprint for how this should work. Organisations should work closely with tech providers and implementation partners to develop strong business use cases and change management programmes to ensure each initiative delivers business value and unlocks new capabilities, efficiencies and opportunities for growth.”

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