TechCentral and 麻豆原创听recently hosted a customer roundtable with leading executives to talk about the evolving needs of the South African consumer, including the strategies and initiatives that brands are developing to satisfy and exceed them. This is what transpired.

We live in interesting times. Our post-pandemic economic landscape is strewn with lingering challenges: inflation, constrained supply chains and a long simmering cost-of-living crisis, made worse by inflation, resulting in lowered consumer purchasing power. Amid this unpredictability and turmoil, there is one undeniable fact: the retail experience is rapidly evolving from a transactional process to a model built on deep, enriching relationships at every step of the customer journey.

To unpack how South African retailers and brands are keeping pace with the technological curve while continuing to find ways to improve and enhance the customer experience, TechCentral hosted a roundtable conversation sponsored by 麻豆原创 with some of the country鈥檚 retail leading executives. Attendees discussed the ever-evolving needs of the South African consumer, key trends and challenges affecting the retail sector, including retailers鈥� strategies to drive profitable growth.

The discussion also covered the way retailers are using technology to enhance and support customer engagement, both in-store and online, and how this elevates the retail experience to another level. Attendees agreed that several megatrends have converged to significantly impact consumer behaviour.

These included:

• The increasing digitisation of our surroundings听(driven by the combined effects of the pandemic), and the changing preferences and behaviours of consumers. Delegates were of the view that retailers and brands must establish themselves as an essential part of consumers鈥� everyday lives.
• Customer behaviour:听Retailers must develop a comprehensive understanding of the way consumers lead their lives 鈥� how they eat, shop, work, and play 鈥� and use this knowledge to provide value in the right place, and at the right time.
• Consumer-centric view of the entire value chain:听Retailers and brands are now required to have a consumer-centred view of their entire business, from supply chain and operating model to content and marketing, and a technology ecosystem powered by real-time consumer data.

The South African consumer

The South African consumer continues to evolve, exhibiting tastes, preferences and behaviour that has been accelerated by impacts of the pandemic, as well as the post pandemic economic situation. Consumers are moving online to research and purchase products as never before and are becoming increasingly comfortable traversing channels amid an expanding retail shopping journey.

The overwhelming consensus amongst delegates was that South African consumers have become increasingly price-conscious and seek value from their purchases. While price is an important aspect of purchasing decisions, attendees also agreed that consumers tend to be prepared to pay a premium for quality products if the value of these products is clear. Price-conscious and value-seeking South African consumer tends to be less brand loyal as they shop for specials.

Strategies for driving profitable growth

To address this ever-evolving expectations of consumers, as well as the increasingly challenging operating environment, several critical strategies were cited for driving profitable growth:

• Create value:听Retailers and brands need to create a very clear understanding of the value they offer to their customers and be able to effectively communicate the value of their products and services. Generic messaging that focuses on promising value is not sufficient and retailers must demonstrate actual proven delivery of value. Some ways to do this include providing an aspirational shopping experience, focusing on convenience, offering in-store experiences that extend beyond retail, and using mechanisms like gamification to enhance brand and value perception.
• Contain costs:听It is essential to strike a careful balance between containing costs and maintaining high product and customer experience standards. Strategies to achieve this balance include relooking sourcing strategies to drive value chain efficiencies, developing strong and future-orientated supplier relationships to enhance supply chain reliability and resiliency. It is also important to focus on pricing and margin management, removing peripheral costs, and leveraging data and customer insights to improve personalisation and develop alternative revenue streams.
• Understand customer segmentation:听Gain an understanding of the lifestyle journey of the shopper, including habits and patterns, by utilising analytics to track segment-specific customer sentiments, and by leveraging data and insights to inform segment-appropriate pricing and discount strategies, range, format and stock levels
• Restore loyalty:听Customer loyalty programmes are key. The successful execution of these activations relies on the ability to provide personalised rewards to consumers and to identify meaningful segment-specific touchpoints to engage with consumers.

This article first appeared on .

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1. What are these technology gaps?

Bursts of innovation in the supply chain enabled companies to streamline routine processes, improve system capabilities and boost analytics. These gains were often followed by a lull, and that is why technology gaps occurred.

Advances in supply chain technology have been welcome and valuable, but they have not been transformative. True digital innovation has taken time and it is only more recently that we have seen the results accrue and come together to create transformative new solutions. These are enabling companies to make far greater improvements to the supply chain.

2. Where in the supply chain do they exist?

In our experience, far too many South African SMBs continue to be unable to fully leverage the benefits of digital supply chain management because of inadequate access to the internet and digital infrastructure, particularly in rural areas; lack of funding; limited access to effective solutions; or a lack of internal technological expertise. Limited government support for digital innovation and a lack of investment in research and development further exacerbate the technology gap.

Without sufficient visibility across the extended supply network, companies are unable to see their risks. They don鈥檛 have the systems to understand the status of their inventory, to project stock shortage of direct materials and optimise production, or to project stock shortages of finished goods to optimise customer allocation. They also lack the logistics flexibility they need networks to ensure the profitable movement of goods.

Right now, supply chain leaders would be wise to quickly change how they do things if they want to overcome the challenges that arise from lack of visibility, collaboration, and coordination. The need for more automation and information is an opportunity for manufacturers.

3. How are they impacting the implementation of a truly digital supply chain?

By adopting digital tech and accelerating the automation of business processes, companies can gain a vital edge in a tough market. The pandemic showed how many businesses are vulnerable to global shocks through their supply chain relationships. It exposed weaknesses like long lead times, lack of visibility that leads to a higher risk of disruption, and the dangers of lack of diversification that comes from excessive reliance on one location or supplier. Technologies such as 麻豆原创 Business One are available to improve visibility across the end-to-end supply chain and support greater supply chain agility and resilience. By adopting digital tech and accelerating the automation of business processes, companies can gain a vital edge in a tough market.

Digital supply networks like these are being built and designed to anticipate disruptions and reconfigure themselves appropriately to lessen the impact of events. They will enable the digital supply networks of the future, regardless of industry sector.

4. Can these gaps be filled (and by what technology)?

Seidor Africa, which represents 麻豆原创 Business One in South Africa, can enable companies to build a more productive and data-led business.

The technology closes the identified gaps in three key ways:

• Businesses gain access to the real-time, reliable information they require to align components such as stock levels (in-stock and on order) with customer orders (current & back-order) and accurate delivery schedules.
• Businesses move from a reactive, back-capture methodology to continuous manufacturing processes where material consumption, stage updates and quality control data is entered real-time on the production floor to aid accurate stock management, replenishment, and efficient order fulfilment. Continuous manufacturing and electronic tracking are also key to identify any potential inefficiencies in certain production lines or phases of production.
• Providing sales reps with the ability to view pricing, stock availability and place orders in real time from their mobile phone or tablet while in the field or with a customer, through 麻豆原创 B1 Mobile Sales application integrated to 麻豆原创 Business One. Having these orders added to the manufacturing and subsequent delivery cycle automatically, provides an invaluable advantage for businesses in the supply chain industry.

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It鈥檚 also a key member of , a group of technology companies, not-for-profits and impact investment businesses all focused on corporate social responsibility. The group has earned a strong reputation for addressing technology issues head-on for organisations large and small. One of its primary goals is the preservation of at-risk Elephants and Rhinos, through the economic upliftment of People in rural areas adjacent to those threatened species鈥� natural habitat.

Mike Hartman, Managing Director for G3G Africa, talks about the work they do to give back and invest in the society around them and, importantly, how they addressed the 鈥渄igitisation of the employee/company relationship鈥� at G3G, to ensure a sustainable future for all.

Catch-up with their story here:

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Notwithstanding the immense impact of the pandemic on the way we work, live and plan our lives, the world has long been in a state of flux due to the transformative impact of new technologies and increased digitisation.

Today, business is IT and IT is business. Even in the public sector, a state’s ability to harness powerful technologies and digitise its interactions with citizens plays a huge role in how effectively that state can deliver its services.

Collectively we will invest $1.8-trillion in digital transformation initiatives this year alone, and a huge jump from the collective . And with spending to continue at a compound annual growth rate of 16.6% over the next five years, the role of digital transformation has never been greater.

And yet, too often the impact and promise of digital transformation initiatives is undermined by a lack of understanding of the role technology plays.

Led by digital dodos

The truth is, many companies are led by executive teams with a limited understanding of technology. One study found that .

While not every CEO needs to be fluent in Python or be able to articulate the inner workings of quantum computing, a basic understanding of technologies and their function is essential in today’s digitally-led economy.

When business leaders are out of touch with technology, it can lead to some embarrassing situations. Just think back to an ageing US congressmen asking Google representatives why negative stories appear when they enter their names into Google’s search bar. Or former IBM president Thomas J Watson’s 1940s comment that “there is a world market for about five computers.”

We may have a quiet laugh at the absurdity of such comments, but when they emanate from the mouths of company leadership at a time when sound technological investment can literally mean the difference between success and failure, they lose their comic touch.

Companies are investing more money, resources and manpower in technology and digital transformation than ever before. When the value of that investment is not clear to the executives leading the business, it鈥檚 unlikely that companies will achieve a positive return on investment or solve the challenges they seek to overcome.

More importantly, the lost opportunity cost could set back companies鈥� growth and innovation plans for years, leaving them lagging competitors at a time when competition is at a peak.

Turning tech investment into executive action

A sad but inescapable truth is that those controlling the purse strings – whether they be investors, boards of directors or finance ministers – will not become advocates of IT if they do not understand the value it creates.

Digital transformation projects that fail to realise value or experience severe cost and time overruns, can undermine the trust that decision-makers have in technology. This creates a disconnect between business and IT that hampers future digital transformation initiatives.

However, when executives do understand and see the value, and are clear on the application of technology in their own business to improve the lives of their customers, there is no limit to the innovation and growth they can unlock.

To start, focus on asking the right questions. Instead of wondering about which mix of cloud technologies is best, or what the scope of their IoT deployment needs to be, executives should focus on the business objectives they are trying to achieve.

“How can I remove friction from my customer experience?” or “how best do I respond to a new digital competitor to my business model?” are far better departure points for digital transformation than “which technologies should I acquire to be successful?”.

Once the objective is clear, business and IT need to collaborate to develop an effective implementation and change management plan driven from the top through middle management and across the organisation. A sustained campaign highlighting the value of the digital transformation project and what it means to business users, customers and the broader organisation can greatly assist with driving adoption of new tools and processes.

A CEO or CFO that is actively involved in the execution of the company鈥檚 digital transformation strategy and understands the close alignment between tech and business strategy can act as powerful role models to the rest of the organisation. It鈥檚 no surprise that some of the most successful digital transformation projects have hands-on involvement from the C-suite, who set the pace for how the business collaborates with IT.

Investing in training and skills development ensures every layer of the organisation – from the top floor to the shop floor – understands the value of the new tech-enabled capabilities and can apply the new tools effectively when performing their day-to-day work tasks.

Critically, executives need to establish a culture of continuous improvement and refinement where technologies, tools and processes are constantly fine-tuned to serve the precise needs of the organisation and its customers, partners and suppliers.

Whether you lead a nimble start-up, large enterprise or an entire nation, as a leader you need a well-developed understanding of the role technology can play in improving lives, developing new solutions to present challenges, and driving growth.

Gaining some technological nous is an essential component of successful modern leadership.

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The pandemic and growing relevance of 4IR technologies continues to drive greater digitalisation across industries. According to Gartner, 64% of organisations are accelerating their digital investments in 2022.

Global spending on digital transformation is expected , with the global cloud computing market estimated to reach $474 billion in 2022, an increase of over 16% from $408 billion in 2021.

However, . Among the contributing factors for the high failure rate is a lack of a compelling business event for change within the organisation, unrealistic expectations when it comes to delivery timelines, and insufficient investment in value management, according to McKinsey.

In fact, in another study conducted by McKinsey, where 5400 IT projects were researched, it was found that on average, large IT projects run 45% over budget and 7% over time, while delivering 56% less value than predicted 鈥� the famous 鈥淩OI鈥�.

When digital transformation succeeds, it can revolutionise businesses and entire industries. found that successful digital transformation projects created 66% more value and improved corporate capabilities by 82%. One in every two companies are also expected to generate more than 40% of their revenue from digital products and services in 2022, compared to one in three companies in 2020.

However, when a digital transformation project fails to deliver the requisite business value, it can lead to abandoned digital initiatives, lost opportunities, organisational underperformance and a lack of agility to deal with emerging threats and opportunities, not to mention a despondent workforce that is opposed to change because they do not believe in its value.

Unlocking quantitative, qualitative business transformation outcomes

How can organisations improve the outcomes of their business transformation efforts?

Value advisory services provide the strategic tools for tech and business leaders to help drive digital transformation projects to successful outcomes. These services leverage methodologies that align business and IT onto one compelling event for transformation.

Value advisory services quantify the value to be gained through outcomes such as revenue uplift, cost reduction, risk mitigation, and general business performance improvement. It aligns business transformation activities to a clear roadmap that prioritises quick time-to-value and clearly quantifies the net present value (NPV) to be gained from such activities.

Using a set of tools and processes to evaluate important business strategy objectives and their associated processes, value advisors can help assess where and how new technologies can unlock hidden business value. Leveraging value advisory services can help turn business opportunities and challenges into building blocks for successful, sustainable intelligent enterprises.

This can cover the entire business transformation and innovation lifecycle, from strategy to value assessment, enterprise architecture, change management and determining which solutions are best suited to enable the desired business outcomes.

听A blueprint for value advisory success

How best can organisations engage value advisory services to help drive business transformation to successful outcomes?

Firstly, value advisors spend the time understanding the problem statement or compelling event for change in relation to the broader strategic business imperative to be attained, key industry trends to be considered and a competitive analysis of market share in the said industry of the customer.

Value advisors work with customers to map out a collaborative approach that jointly identifies business areas with the greatest potential for digital transformation. The engagement process is documented in a vision-to-value approach that considers which areas of the business holds the most promise for value generation, and provides guidance on the quickest way to unlock that value bearing in mind aspects such as cost analyses, benefits, and risks associated with business transformation.

Industry Value Advisors can also help co-design the IT strategy and define the associated governance requirements to ensure adequate adoption throughout the organisation. In line with best practice, a Customer Centre of Excellence is usually developed during this phase to ensure IT service excellence throughout the transformation project. With this in place, advisory services help secure the success of the business transformation project through strategic guidance, program management and quality reviews.

Finally, with any business transformation initiative, change management is essential. And yet ; half are outright failures. Value advisory as a discipline can bring about vital insights to the change management processes to help lower employee resistance to change, and accelerate the adoption of the new business capabilities to be unlocked during the business transformation process.

In closing, organisations can future-proof their operations through systematic, structured innovation that continuously explores the potential value of new technologies on the organisation’s business model.

The outcome of this project is digitalisation that delivers to the business鈥� needs, empowers employees with new tools and capabilities, standardises key business processes in line with global or industry best practices, and helps sustain the benefits of digital transformation while moving the organisations closer to the ideal of an intelligent enterprise.

And in light of ongoing budgetary pressures, business and IT leaders across Africa will also be encouraged to know that value advisory services are offered free of charge to any customer wishing to do business with 麻豆原创.

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Countries across East Africa are breathing a sigh of relief as pandemic-related challenges finally ease and the prospect of some form of normalcy emerges.

While the region avoided the worst of the health-related impacts of the pandemic,听, and听.

The impact of the pandemic has prompted renewed calls for a transformation of East African economies to better suit the challenges and opportunities in the global economy.

However, the latest听听by the Brookings Institute points out that a lack of investment in science and technology has hampered Africa鈥檚 economic transformation at a structural and sectoral level, and stifled innovation.

But following a two-year period of disruption, the region has an opportunity to rebuild in a way that not only aids its economic recovery but also establishes a powerful foundation for the region鈥檚 growth over the coming decades.

Three vital sectors could hold the key to how well the region recovers over the coming years, namely manufacturing, tourism, and pharmaceutical.

Considering the important economic role that manufacturing plays in East Africa, investments into technologies that can foster greater global competitiveness in the region鈥檚 manufacturing sector could unlock much of this potential to the benefit of East African economies.

The focus should be on building Industry 4.0 capabilities that bring together next-generation technologies 鈥� such as artificial intelligence, robotic process automation, Industrial Internet-of-Things and predictive analytics 鈥� integrated to an intelligent core that can bring unprecedented control, predictability and efficiency to manufacturing operations.

Aspects such as quality control, plant consumption and energy management, smart warehousing, factory asset intelligence and overall performance management can be transformed with Industry 4.0 capabilities. Integrating manufacturing facilities with digital supply chains could further help alleviate some of the present challenges with the global supply chain and bring greater stability to manufacturing operations.

In a recent global study, 21% of manufacturers said they听, while 19% cited productivity improvements of more than 10%.

As the region reboots a manufacturing sector vital to its economic prospects, smart investment into Industry 4.0 technologies could help the sector accelerate its growth and boost its global competitiveness.

Special attention, however, must be paid to developing innovative supply chain solutions, especially considering the global supply chain crunch that has seen shortages of goods in markets around the world.

Any efforts at digitising the manufacturing value chain through Industry 4.0 technologies must include interventions and innovations that bring greater transparency and predictability to the supply chain.

Pharmaceutical sector: closing the R&D gap

Research and development initiatives hold the potential of unlocking tremendous economic advantages and stimulating foreign direct investment.

However, Africa lags far behind the more developed nations in their R&D spending, with the result that the majority of product and service innovations driving African economies stem from outside the continent.

This R&D gap and lack of local capacity was on full display during the early stages of the pandemic when Africa鈥檚 lack of local pharmaceutical production and manufacturing capacity left most of the continent without access to life-saving vaccines.

Policymakers and industry leaders should look at the opportunities for greater regional investment into R&D and draw on international best practices. For example, 18 of the world鈥檚 20 largest vaccine producers run their production facilities using 麻豆原创 technologies, so local production facilities could draw on learnings from their global peers to avoid costly mistakes and fast-track success.

As with the manufacturing sector, pharmaceutical companies should support investment into digital transformation with efforts at gaining greater visibility over their supply chain.

While it is unlikely the pandemic will disrupt the global supply chain as it has over the past two years, other disruptive events are bound to emerge. Investing in tools that bring predictability to the supply chain will enable pharmaceutical companies to more easily adapt to further disruptions.

Tourism sector: safely opening the doors to international visitors

Prior to the pandemic, the tourism sector was a key economic driver for East African countries and听.

However, travel restrictions implemented to help curb the spread of COVID-19 in the region resulted in losses of 92% of tourism revenues, with arrivals dropping sharply from seven million in 2019 to little over two million in 2020. Further global travel restrictions as a result of the Omicron variant have only compounded the losses.

With Western countries now lifting many of their travel bans 鈥� and in some cases removing all mandated restrictions 鈥� East Africa needs to urgently work to re-establish the region as a prime tourist destination.

The introduction of the听, which integrates the testing and vaccination data of regional countries could help ease movement across East Africa and stimulate greater tourism industry revenues.

Using digital technologies to remove some of the friction inherent in post-lockdown international travel could further encourage international arrivals, while innovation in tourism experiences built on technological innovation could turn the region into a test case for how countries attract tourists in the year ahead.

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As the only region in Africa to avoid a recession in 2020, East Africa is poised for strong growth despite ongoing disruption from the pandemic.

While the exact level of threat posed by the newly-discovered Omicron variant of COVID-19 remains to be seen, the reaction from the global community – travel restrictions, potential lockdowns – could have a severe impact on the region’s economic fortunes.

For organisations and business leaders in the region, the emergence of new unknowns and potential disruptions should not distract from the urgent task of recovery following an immensely difficult near-two year period.

In particular, four key priorities could enable businesses to accelerate their recovery and achieve greater resilience against future disruptions:

Priority One: Digitise with haste

The past two years have marked a radical shift in consumer behaviour. In Kenya, for example, mobile money transfers grew by nearly 63% in 2020 . Service such as banking has seen accelerated digitisation, ecommerce adoption is growing, and hybrid work models mean most organisations have had to implement new tools to support employees working from home.

For smaller businesses, the impact of the pandemic has been disastrous. A survey undertaken between June and August 2020 found that . Ninety percent had experienced a fall in sales, and one in five workers in the sector had lost their jobs.

In Kenya, however, SMEs increased their use of digital technology to work around pandemic restrictions. Nearly half of SMEs in the country increased their use of digital platforms, while 13% are investing in digital technologies.

In its most recent East Africa Economic Outlook, the African Development Bank advises that the region should, among other measures, ‘‘.

Effective utilisation of cloud technologies, for example, could enable small and larger enterprises to test new digital channels and business processes that can then be quickly scaled to serve existing customers or reach new ones.

Priority Two: Build back better (and more sustainably)

In the early days of 2020, when countries implemented strict lockdowns and economic activity tapered off, global emissions dropped and, for a moment at least, it seemed as if the pandemic would be a catalyst for sustainability.

However, data indicates that . The recently concluded COP26 failed to inspire hope that major greenhouse gas emitters would suddenly change course and adopt more sustainable practices.

The changing climate will have a dire impact on East Africa. Recent data indicates that . More heatwaves and cyclones are expected to impact agricultural activities, while potentially driving vast locust swarms to the region, where they cause untold devastation to farmers.

Considering the importance of agriculture to the region鈥檚 economic prospects, it is essential that all efforts at economic recovery take into account the potential impact on the climate.

As another of the region鈥檚 most important industries, the manufacturing sector 鈥� 鈥� presents a golden opportunity for the region鈥檚 innovators to design more sustainable processes.

By ensuring sustainability is embedded in every manufacturing process, East Africa could achieve economic growth while limiting the severity of the climate impact on future generations.

Priority Three: Eliminate uncertainty

Even before the emergence of COVID-19, the world faced unprecedented uncertainty. The continued disruption caused by new digital technologies, the accelerating pace of modern life and a rapidly shifting global political landscape combined to create an environment where change was truly the only constant.

This situation is likely to continue and even become exacerbated by the pandemic, but organisations and decision-makers are not powerless. Organisations that can use data and analytics to gain a real-time, granular view over every aspect of the business can eliminate some uncertainty and improve the accuracy and quality of their decisions.

As the nerve centre of the modern intelligent enterprise, ERP solutions bring a level of clarity and control to decision-makers that is essential to effective leadership.

Integrating emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning unlocks further benefits, especially in terms of optimising business processes. Worryingly, , with Kenya ranked highest in a recent global study at 105 out of 158 countries.

As organisations design their post-pandemic business strategies, all efforts must be made to leverage technology as a tool to reduce uncertainty while unlocking opportunities for new gains in efficiency, accuracy and identifying entirely new business models.

Priority Four: Collaborate & innovate

Africa is no stranger to innovation. found that 13% of all new or modified technology that has been developed in response to the pandemic originated in Africa.

Driving innovation through the effective use of new technologies holds the promise of improving service delivery and boosting productivity. As countries and industries across the region rebuild, understanding the role technology plays in driving innovation is essential.

The region’s outstanding track record in the mobile payments space should serve as inspiration.

Millions of East Africans that were previously excluded from formal banking or credit services today use mobile money services to secure lending opportunities, repay loans and build transaction histories that can unlock access to other formal financial services. Entire ecosystems of products and services have emerged to deliver additional value to mobile money users.

Today, the region is in mobile peer-to-peer finance.

Other areas of innovation include the region’s use of technology to improve agricultural outcomes, for example through the use of 麻豆原创’s Rural Sourcing Manager, which gives smallholder farmers weather and market data, improved selling opportunities, and access to new markets.

Using the levers of regional and intra-African cooperation 鈥� through the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, or East Africa Community 鈥� could further accelerate the pace at which new innovations spread from one country or region to the rest of the continent.

Through ongoing collaboration among African nations, the region and continent could improve the speed at which it rebuilds its economy while unlocking a wealth of new opportunity.

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One recent study found that .

For one of South Africa’s largest and most innovative banks, a rapidly growing customer base hungry for its banking services led to an ambitious and award-winning digital transformation project built on 麻豆原创’s powerful S/4HANA platform.

“As a business we believe in the power of technology to make banking interactions easier and simpler for our customers. That includes the back-office functions that supports the banking interactions,” says Werner Carstens, 麻豆原创 Architect at Capitec. “However, our existing systems and processes could not keep pace with our rapid growth, creating several operational challenges. We chose to introduce new capabilities in our internal support services organisation and to deploy 麻豆原创 S/4HANA to support the execution. The establishment of these capabilities were aligned with the 麻豆原创 process design initiatives during the 19-month implementation process.”

Capitec is a leading banking services provider in South Africa that was founded in 2001. Today, Capitec provides a range of simple, affordable, and accessible banking and financial services to its 16 million clients.

Prior to the implementation, Capitec had to contend with increased people overhead due to a reliance on manual data capturing, which reduced its capacity for information analysis and business optimisation. A duplication of effort across applications and departments, with disparate master data and a lack of end-to-end process oversight added further challenges.

In the four years leading up to the project, Capitec experienced average client growth of 94 000 per month, but that grew to 160 000 clients per month during the implementation, growth that has been sustained post the project.

“Our back-office process management challenges had a negative impact on the ability of our support services to reach their service level agreements with customer-facing delivery teams. We identified our general ledger, procurement, project systems, asset management and real estate processes as key priority areas for the project.”

Carstens adds that the rapid growth across the business during the project impacted the support service organisation鈥檚 target operating model, process design, functional specification, and change management initiatives, as well as the availability of key team members. 鈥淗owever, following the implementation we have gained a truly best-of-breed ERP solution that integrates with our existing budget and planning solution, and is scalable enough to support us into 2025 and beyond.”

The implementation was recently recognised at the 麻豆原创 Quality Awards, where it won in the Business Transformation category. Carstens says the buy-in and support from executives and the establishment of a dedicated project team across business and IT contributed to the overall success of the project.

“Our team established KPIs and interventions to monitor the progress of transactional processing against expected volumes for the month post go-live and tracked actuals on a weekly basis to identify deviances. This enabled us to identify process bottlenecks and implement appropriate interventions. Following the implementation, we continued to enhance and adapt the implementation to support our aim of building high-performance support services capabilities.鈥�

Cameron Beveridge, Regional Director for Southern Africa at 麻豆原创, says Capitec has leapt ahead in its ability to serve its growing customer base with this highly successful digital transformation project. 鈥淭he way customers interact with their bank has changed irrevocably over the past eighteen months, requiring banks to transform their back-office operations to improve customer-facing processes. With this ambitious and highly successful technology implementation, Capitec has transformed its ability to meet modern customer demands while also gaining greater efficiency, accuracy and intelligence across its operations.鈥�

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For CVL, one of Rwanda鈥檚 leading investment groups, a reliance on manual processes by several of its group companies left it lacking the automation benefits, efficiency, and agility to speed up its growth strategy.

“Our operational efficiency was undermined by reliance on manual processes in many of our business practices,” says Arnaud Muhizi, Project Manager at Crystal Ventures Limited. “Overheads were initially captured separately from the cost of production, which made accurate profitability planning challenging, and our project management practice was operating at a sub-optimal level due to the lack of real-time reporting tools. In addition, production, HR, quality and plant maintenance processes were all manual, hence lacking.”

Crystal Ventures Limited is an investment company established in Rwanda in 1995 with the aim of meeting the challenges of economic recovery and taking advantage of growth opportunities in the region.

Since its founding Crystal Ventures Limited (CVL) has grown into the biggest investment company in Rwanda, employing 12 000 people with operations spanning the manufacturing, hospitality, security services and construction sectors.

Crystal Ventures approached several technology vendors and, following a rigorous evaluation process, chose 麻豆原创 as the best fit for its requirements. “We chose 麻豆原创 S/4HANA as our enterprise nerve centre, and deployed integrated solutions that would cover our end-to-end business processes.”

With nine subsidiary companies forming part of the rollout scope, Crystal Ventures worked with implementation partner ISS Middle East to digitise all manual processes and implement a broad range of integrated 麻豆原创 solutions.

Processes covered by the implementation include human capital management, document management, project management, quality management, materials management, plant maintenance, production planning, finance and cost control, and sales.

The entire project took place over eight and a half months, with 3000 users onboarded to 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors and 450 users onboarded to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA.

“Since our go-live, senior management has gained real-time visibility over the performance of project managers, which has contributed to greater efficiency and revenue growth across our construction and manufacturing companies,” says Arnaud Muhizi. “In addition, our costing model allows affected companies to run profitability analyses, and inventory ageing reports are now available to aid decision-making and planning.”

End-users were guided through the changes in processes by regular awareness sessions and extensive training to ensure ready adoption. 鈥淲e also reorganised department functions to mirror best practice and standard processes, and provided the 麻豆原创 Learning Hub to the core team. We had regular engagement with the Customer Success Office to ensure the implementation ran smoothly and affected users could easily use new tools and processes.鈥�

Hardeep Sound, Regional Sales Director for East Africa at 麻豆原创, says the sheer scope of the implementation and breadth of process coverage has entirely transformed Crystal Ventures and its group companies. 鈥淔ollowing this landmark implementation, Crystal Ventures has leapt into the future by laying an unshakable foundation for building intelligent enterprise capabilities. By automating outdated manual processes and improving visibility into key business performance areas, Crystal Ventures is able to more effectively steer its group companies through the complexity of the modern business environment.鈥�

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