Business leaders across the continent have had their hands full, from enabling remote work on a previously unprecedented scale to adapting to disruptions in the global supply chain, enabling e-learning for millions of youth 鈥� not to mention ensuring business continuity in the midst of a once-in-a-generation crisis.

Some changes in behaviour 鈥� such as the growing adoption of online shopping, telemedicine and digital channels for engaging with service providers 鈥� are likely to outlive the pandemic. Other behaviours 鈥� such as in-person teaching and working from the office at least some of the time 鈥� are likely to return once it鈥檚 safe.

Organisations need the flexibility to adapt to these multi-faceted changes while also improving the accuracy of the decisions they make regarding which route to take.

Speed or certainty?

McKinsey believes and will continue to play a leading role in guiding how businesses should adapt to ongoing uncertainty. The argument is that, by prioritising speed, organisations could make rapid decisions, act on emerging opportunities more quickly, and so improve their chances at overcoming the immense challenges created by the twin forces of digital disruption and the global pandemic.

Speed is certainly important, but there is no competitive advantage in making poor decisions quickly. The prevailing disruption and continued volatility requires that business leaders make decisions with certainty.

To make good decisions, business leaders need accurate sources of data, and the tools to turn that data into insights that can guide decision-making in real time. The modern business environment is simply too complex and volatile to rely entirely on so-called intuitive decision-making. Good quality, accurate and complete data integrated to an intelligent suite of business applications gives decision-makers greater scope for decisions that shift the needle of the business.

For example, responding well to changing customer demands is nearly impossible without knowing what those demands are. Having access to customer experience management tools that can track customer expectations in real time and guide how the business responds to those expectations removes much of the trial and error of manual decision-making. Integrating the customer experience management tool with an automation layer further increases both the speed and accuracy of that response.

Hybrid work models raise the stakes

The impact of the pandemic means most organisations are operating on a fragmented basis. Teams are working from home, making in-person methods of employee engagement and performance management almost totally obsolete, at least for the moment.

Without new employee engagement tools that can effectively mobilise and support teams around common business objectives, organisations could see falling productivity and negative effects on aspects such as product development or customer experience.

New management tools can provide measurable insights into the employee experience, which can assist managers and leaders with making better decisions over the types of support they need to provide to their teams.

Advances in data and analytics also bring data-driven insights into the boardroom, with technology solutions that connect the top floor with the shop floor to give C-level executives granular insight into the total performance of the business.

To harness data and technology for greater certainty in decision-making, organisations need to put certain building blocks in place.

Tools to create certainty in decision-making

In order to achieve a single accurate view over the organisation and empower decision-makers with actionable insights, organisations need to build intelligent enterprise capabilities.

In simple terms, this means using the latest technologies to turn insight into action across every aspect of the business, in real time. Integrated business applications – such as enterprise resource planning and human capital management solutions – powered by next-generation technologies such as artificial intelligence help transform end-to-end business processes.

Experience management solutions give insight to the sentiment of customers, partners and employees, while business process intelligence and automation enable organisations to immediately act on insights and opportunities.

At the foundation of the intelligent enterprise is cloud, which gives organisations the ability to simplify and scale their systems landscape without sacrificing performance.

Cloud empowers businesses with the certainty of a quicker time-to-value, without the upfront capital outlays required of on-premise deployments.

With cloud-enabled intelligent enterprise capabilities, organisations can achieve the speed needed to stay ahead of competitors and other disruptors while maintaining the certainty of measured, data-driven decision-making.

And with new tools such as RISE with 麻豆原创, organisations can start building intelligent enterprise capabilities no matter what stage of their digital transformation journeys they find themselves.

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At a virtual graduation ceremony attended by Constantin Zelenty, Deputy Head of Mission German Embassy Angola, Cathy Smith, Managing Director 麻豆原创 Africa, Pedro Guerreiro, Managing Director 麻豆原创 Central Africa as well as 麻豆原创 customer and partner representatives, 25 young talents from Portuguese-speaking African countries officially graduated following a three-months-long program aimed at equipping young talents with key skills based on the latest 麻豆原创 technologies.

Constantin Zelenty, Deputy Head of Mission, German Embassy Angola says: 鈥淚n order for Angolan companies to grow and succeed in our modern age, they need to harness the transformative power of digital technologies along with rightly skilled talent. We hope this may be the first of many groups of graduates who can apply their expertise in service of Angola鈥檚 ambitions for the modern digital economy.鈥�

The Young Professionals Program is an initiative offered under the umbrella of 麻豆原创 Skills for Africa, and has trained more than 1460 youths across the continent since its launch in 2012. Recently, the Young Professionals Program has significantly expanded its footprint. In 2021 alone, talents from Senegal, Ivory Coast, Algeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and, with the latest cohort, Angola and Mozambique, have graduated.

The two- to three-month program uses a unique enablement plan that includes functional and technical knowledge of 麻豆原创 software, with a focus on 麻豆原创鈥檚 latest innovations. A soft skills component is included to ensure graduates can operate successfully within the organisations where they are placed and make an immediate positive impact. Candidates are typically unemployed or underemployed university graduates selected from the country where the program is offered, and graduate as 麻豆原创 Associate Consultants. This gives them a competitive edge in the job market, and ensures organisations using 麻豆原创 technologies have a steady stream of young talent to help drive their digital transformation efforts.

Pedro Guerreiro, Managing Director for Central Africa at 麻豆原创, says the graduates will play an invaluable role in supporting 麻豆原创 customers and partners as they implement their digital transformation strategies. 鈥淭he past 18 months has highlighted the importance of digital technologies to how well organisations can adapt to disruption and run successfully. As African organisations continue their efforts at building intelligent enterprise capabilities, they need access to expert digital skills. We congratulate the first-ever graduates from Lusophone Africa and look forward to seeing the impact they will have at our customer and partner businesses.鈥�

The cohort is part of of a collaboration between 麻豆原创 and the Deutsche Gesellschaft f眉r Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH with the aim to jointly create 450 jobs for highly-qualified personnel in the IT sector in ten African countries over the course of three years. The cooperation project is part of the Special Initiative on Training and Job Creation and the develoPPP program that GIZ implements on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Registration for the next 麻豆原创 Young Professionals Program for candidates from Nigeria and Ivory Coast are open with plans to host further cohorts throughout 2021. For more information and application links, please visit聽

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The objective: end-to-end business transformation, with a focus on enabling all staff to operate effectively wherever they are, and improving internal efficiencies and visibility over the total performance of the business.

Oilserv, a leading provider of integrated engineering, procurement, construction, installation and commissioning (EPCIC) services in the oil and gas sector, chose聽聽for a step change in productivity and accelerated business performance.

The ICT Manager at Oilserv, Iheanyi Achereke, says: 鈥淲e wanted to move our IT workload to the cloud, with multi-region fail-overs and a disaster recovery strategy to ensure business continuity at all times. Core to this was our upgrade to 麻豆原创鈥檚 market-leading S4/HANA enterprise resource planning platform, which gave us full access to 麻豆原创鈥檚 powerful embedded analytics.鈥�

Oilserv provides a number of complementary solutions across the asset and program lifecycle within the onshore, offshore and subsea market segments of the oil and gas sector. The company was incorporated in 1992 and commenced operations in 1995.

Achereke says the business also needed a commercial project management tool that would help the business manage all customer projects in a single system. 鈥淲e were facing several challenges with our existing system, including an inability to manage all project activities, consolidate project dates and report revenue. In addition, we needed to better measure and manage risk, and improve our change management activities.鈥�

Oilserv worked with its implementation partners C2G Consulting to migrate the existing 麻豆原创 system to S/4HANA with hosting on Microsoft Azure.

In addition, 麻豆原创 Commercial Project Management was implemented to enhance the capabilities of project management teams.

Partner support was invaluable to the success of the project. According to Achereke, 95% of the migration and subsequent implementation was done remotely. 鈥淲e used the 麻豆原创 Activate methodology and collaborated closely with C2G Consulting and the 麻豆原创 team to ensure a seamless deployment. Daily stand-up sessions, regular town hall meetings and a focus on change management contributed to the overall success of the project.鈥�

Since the migration and implementation, Oilserv has enjoyed an improved multi-channel user experience enabled by the Fiori user interface. 鈥淎ccess to the embedded analytics in S/4HANA is empowering our executives with real-time reports and visibility over the total performance of the business,鈥� says Achereke. 鈥淪ince implementation, we have also enjoyed faster system response times and improved visibility over our business partners, including vendors and customers.鈥�

The enhanced project management capabilities enabled by聽聽Commercial Project Management (CPM) has further improved Oilserv鈥檚 issue and risk tracking, standardised its project structures, and empowered internal teams with real-time access to project data. 鈥淲e now use CPM at our weekly project management meetings at an executive level,鈥� adds Achereke.

Pedro Guerreiro, Regional Director for Central Africa at 麻豆原创, says Oilserv has taken bold steps toward becoming an intelligent enterprise with its migration to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA. 鈥淚n today鈥檚 data-driven economy, organisations need full visibility over the total performance of the business in real time to empower decision-makers. With its landmark migration to S/4HANA, Oilserv has transformed its ability to turn data into insight that can drive business performance while establishing a strong foundation for future innovation and growth.鈥�

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The continent features . Its population is the most youthful, with . And the world鈥檚 largest free trade area in terms of participating countries, the African Continental Free Trade Area, is now active and .

With Africa鈥檚 fortunes continuing to improve, one region stands out as a possible example to the rest of the continent. As the world starts its slow recovery from a year of constant disruption and immense challenges, a closer look at the continued economic success story of the East African region could hold inspiration for how the rest of the continent drives economic growth.

One of the world鈥檚 fastest-growing regions

in the world are in East Africa: Ethiopa (2) and Rwanda (4). According to the Brookings Institute, East Africa鈥檚 share of the continent鈥檚 economic growth rose from less than 20% in 2018 .

In contrast, GDP growth in Southern Africa actually declined, thanks mostly to the decline in growth in South Africa. The impact of 2020鈥檚 events are predicted to worsen the situation, with an estimated 7.2% contraction in GDP expected in South Africa – the worst in nearly 90 years.

Despite the disruptive events of 2020, the African Development Bank found that East Africa is holding its ground as the continent鈥檚 fastest-growing region. This at a time when many countries – emerging and developed economies alike – face record declines in economic growth.

What are the region’s keys to success? Its attempts at building a vibrant services sector, its coordinated state-supported industrial growth efforts, and a renewed focus on education reform with an emphasis on fostering digital skills all hold valuable lessons for the rest of the continent.

Building a vibrant services sector

According to data by the African Development Bank, agriculture鈥檚 contribution to East Africa鈥檚 gross domestic product declined from 33.4% in the early 2000s to only 28.3% in 2018. Rising in its place is a vibrant and fast-growing services sector that contributes more than half (53.8%) of the region鈥檚 GDP.

This economic shift is creating new employment opportunities. Based on data by the International Labour Organisation, the number of employment opportunities in the region鈥檚 services sector is set to more than double between 2000 and 2020, while opportunities in the agriculture sector will grow at a slower pace.

Digital transformation is one of the main drivers of growth in the services sector. In fact, the World Bank estimates that connecting every African business, individual and government to digital technologies by 2030 .

Concerted industrial revival

In 2012, the East African Community (EAC), which covers Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, launched its 2012-2032 Industrialisation Policy. The strategy aims to create a market-driven, competitive and balanced industrial sector that draws on the advantages of the EAC region.

The aim is to grow the contribution of manufacturing to the region’s GDP from an estimated 8.9% currently to 25% by 2032.

However, the contribution of the industrial sector to regional GDP growth has stalled in all EAC countries with the exception of Tanzania. In , the East Africa Development Bank (EADB) noted insufficient investment in industrial transformation as a main reason for the decreasing contribution of industry to GDP growth.

According to the EADB, other countries wishing to drive greater industrialisation should improve regional infrastructure (such as roads, rail networks, energy and communications), establish special economic zones with compelling incentives, and greater investment in human capital development to ensure ready access to key skills.

Education reform for 21^st century skills

Since 2000, , with a vanishing gender gap that now sees nearly as many girls attend school as boys.

Human capital development is a core component of accelerating the development efforts of emerging economies. Data shows that significant and ongoing investment in human capital development has direct benefits to GDP growth, with the Gates Foundation finding that .

Kenya and Tanzania are notable for their efforts to drive education reform and expand access to schooling for more children. In Kenya, the number of people with primary education is , with the number of people who have completed secondary or tertiary education growing by 60% over the next decade.

In Tanzania, it is estimated that six out of seven people will have completed some form of education by 2030. However, there is much work still to be done: by 2030, .

Here, the private sector has an important role to play in supporting human capital development. Initiatives such as supplement government curricula by providing easy access to digital training and education tools and resources, driving greater awareness of 21st century skills among students and teachers alike. In addition, 麻豆原创 Skills for Africa provides tailored training to talented graduates to develop work-ready technical and soft skills that can immediately make an impact in the workplace.

I am a firm believer in Africa鈥檚 potential as a world-leading region for economic growth and innovation. Already, there are several pockets of excellence that the rest of the continent can learn from. It is our task to build on these successes and ensure we realise the dream of an African Century.

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SMEs in the East African region are using digital transformation initiatives to increase their competitiveness and ensure they are set for growth despite challenging trading conditions.

According to Pedro Guerreiro, Managing Director: Central Africa at 麻豆原创, investments into new technologies will greatly assist SMEs in the region as they adapt to a very different operating environment. 鈥淎s one of the most important drivers for job creation and economic growth, the SME sector is vital to the region鈥檚 economic recovery. Technology will continue to play a determining role in how well the sector recovers from this year鈥檚 events, while also digitally-tooling organisations to out-perform their competitors in this new economy and enabling them to execute the business, operate, and thrive in the market.鈥�

In 2017, SMEs accounted for 98% of all businesses in Kenya and created 30% of all jobs annually. According to the International Trade Centre,聽. However, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic should not be underestimated:聽聽found a 50% reduction in household and business spending, with direct consequences for the country鈥檚 SME sector.

鈥淪MEs will need to reduce inefficiencies and improve decision-making to ensure they continue to survive 鈥� and thrive 鈥� despite our current challenges,鈥� says Guerreiro. 鈥淚n an encouraging sign, a growing number of East African SMEs are leveraging technology to improve business decision-making and drive greater efficiency across their operations.鈥�

Gaining insight into total business performance

Guerreiro says gaining granular insight into the financial and overall performance of the business is essential to the growth and survival of SMEs. 鈥淏usiness leaders can no longer make educated guesses about the performance of the business. You need certainty over the total performance of the business at all times, not weeks or months after the fact.鈥�

For Kenyan candy manufacturer Mzuri Sweets, an over-reliance on spreadsheets and manual processing for reporting hampered the company鈥檚 growth efforts. The company employs 800 people and provides a range of confectionary goods to the Kenyan market.

After choosing 麻豆原创 Business One and working with 麻豆原创 implementation partner ACEteK, Mzuri Sweets now have a fully automated system that is accessible from web and mobile, enabling directors to make approvals from any location.

Ashika Modasia, Senior Accountant at Mzuri Sweets Ltd, says: 鈥溌槎乖� Business One has united our company into one platform, bringing visibility to our management and allowing us to focus on growth.鈥�

Stationery manufacturer Safari Stationers faced a similar issue. Its previous accounting system could not support the growth of a low margin, high volume business. Company management knew it needed a new system that could provide accurate monitoring and synchronise its operations.

Following the implementation of 麻豆原创 Business One, Safari Stationers can monitor credit more easily, set up sales parameters to ensure only the correct number of orders are taken, while accessing richly detailed reports that have improved decision-making across the business. General Manager Deepti Vara says: 鈥淚t鈥檚 been a smart and efficient journey with 麻豆原创 Business One, and we are excited for the future.鈥�

Automation pays off for Mauritian engineering firm

Guerreiro adds: 鈥淗aving systems and processes in place that automate back-office operations can also free up valuable internal resources, which can be deployed to high-value areas to support the SME鈥檚 growth.鈥�

This was certainly the case for Mauritian engineering services firm Sotramon Limit茅e. With access to only basic accounting information and relying on manual processes, the company could not rely on its existing systems to support adequate stock taking, analysis or up to date information about the business.

ACEteK supported the company鈥檚 digital transformation with an 麻豆原创 Business One implementation that sought to replace manual operations with automated processes that enabled easy access to up-to-date reports. Sotramon Chief Executive Officer Barbara Ah-Sue says: 鈥溌槎乖� Business One has changed my life. It has given my business independence, accessibility and versatility.鈥�

Guerreiro believes there is great potential for further investment into new technologies that could help SMEs unlock new market opportunities. 鈥淯ltimately SMEs should strive to become Intelligent Enterprises that apply advanced technologies within integrated, agile business processes to turn insight into action. As the sector expands its capabilities, SMEs will be better placed to sense opportunities, risks and trends, and take advantage of market opportunities.鈥�

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Mukwano Industries is one of the great success stories of the Ugandan business world. From humble beginnings as a general dealer in Kampala in the 1980s, the company has grown into one of the leading FMCG conglomerates in East Africa, with interests that include manufacturing, agriculture and property development. Its products, ranging from petroleum jelly and detergents to cooking oil and soap; from drinking water to household and commercial plastics; can be found in every home across Uganda.

The major challenge for the company was that its technology infrastructure had not kept pace with its growth. It had implemented 麻豆原创 ECC 6.0 back in 2008, and the now dated platform was creating a host of issues: numerous custom developments, plant maintenance and operations not implemented, and an enduring dependency on paper-based systems and Excel spreadsheets.

鈥淲e had data everywhere, but information nowhere,鈥� says Mukwano CEO Tony Gadhoke. 鈥淭his meant we had low cost insights and a growing need for operational efficiencies. Something had to give. So we decided to shed our legacy systems and move our core business processes to the Cloud using the 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Public Cloud platform. In doing so, we aimed to leverage Cloud capabilities to improve technical and operational agility, enhance real-time visibility across the business, harmonise data, improve reporting, and enable future growth and innovation.鈥�

There was just one catch: the business insisted on a rapid implementation strategy to reduce the amount of time and resources needed, by around 35%, to implement the project. In effect, this meant replacing Mukwano鈥檚 core systems and training the necessary people to be able to go live, within five and a half months.

There were a couple of factors working in Mukwano鈥檚 favour: the company wanted a 鈥渂est practices鈥� 麻豆原创 system, which meant minimal customisation time. And partner iMark Technologies鈥� 鈥榸ero fat鈥� approach to getting projects done, combined with Mukwano鈥檚 highly structured project management approach, ensured the implementation never deviated from its time scale for a moment.

鈥淎part from the incredibly tight timeframe for the implementation, our biggest challenge was that we were changing the organizational structure completely to align to the 麻豆原创 system. This meant we had to ensure the right people were in the right positions. To ensure immediate buy-in and adoption of the new system by its users, we ran extensive training sessions every day, with ongoing monitoring of skill absorption, to ensure as high a level of ownership as possible,鈥� said Gadhoke.

This meant cancelling all leave for the duration of the project 鈥� including over Christmas and New Year 鈥� to ensure every individual was onboard and the project didn鈥檛 deviate from the timeline. 鈥淚t was tough, but we had no choice. There was no room for a redo, and we had to make sure we got it right first time,鈥� said Gadhoke.

Ultimately, the effort was worth it, with the results of the implementation exceeding Mukwano鈥檚 already high expectations. In a first for Uganda, the business put its core business systems into the Cloud by the agreed deadline, with minimal disruption to the business. The company has already seen significant gains in productivity and faster time to market. It has greater visibility into its operations than ever before, through an intuitive, unified platform from which it can oversee its business operations from end-to-end. It has also seen a 鈥榟uge鈥� reduction in capex on its server infrastructure and IT resources.

Gadhoke said partner iMark Technologies鈥� experience in the digital transformation of organisations in the East African region was critical to the success of the project. S Iyer, the managing director of iMark, said: 鈥淚t has been very exciting for us to see how organisations like Mukwano are realising the promise of digital transformation by leveraging 麻豆原创 technologies and solutions to effect transformational change.

Mukwano has already been able to achieve significant progress in its operational excellence with S/4 HANA, thanks to the incredible analytics functionality that has been unlocked. 鈥淭he next steps in our journey will be to focus on people performance and excellence. But we鈥檙e confident that we have the right platform in place to take the business to the next level,鈥� said Gadhoke.

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With two of the continent鈥檚 most ambitious industrial projects underway, Nigeria鈥檚 Dangote Group has achieved the seemingly-impossible with an 麻豆原创-led digital transformation that was completed in record time.

鈥淲e want our Refinery to be not just the largest single train Refinery in the world but also the most modern and smart Refinery with the latest state-of-the-art technologies like 麻豆原创 S/4HANA 1909,鈥� says Mr.Devakumar Edwin, Group Executive Director,Dangote Group.

According to Ramakrishna Potluri, Head 鈥� IT & Business Applications (Refinery), the Dangote Refinery and Fertiliser strategic business units upgraded their 麻豆原创 landscape to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA 1909 in mere six days. 鈥淭he upgrade affected all three systems landscapes 鈥� development, quality assurance and production environments 鈥� and required excellent collaboration between the Dangote internal 麻豆原创 Centre of Excellence team and the 麻豆原创 HANA Enterprise Cloud teams. Despite being spread across four continents and three time zones, the project teams managed to work round the clock to achieve a full upgrade within six business days. The upgrade is important for our Oil & Gas businesses to enable with 麻豆原创鈥檚 latest IS-Oil industry solution鈥�.

The Dangote Group is currently constructing the World鈥檚 largest single train Oil Refinery in the Lekki Free Zone near Lagos. The refinery will process up to 650,000 barrels of oil per day to produce 10.4 million tons of gasoline, 4.6 million tons of diesel and four million tons of jet fuel per year.

Commissioning of the Dangote Fertilizer plant is currently in its final stages in Lagos at the same location as the refinery. Once completed, it will be the largest in the world, with capacity for three million tons of fertiliser a year, enough to meet all domestic demand.

鈥淭his project required exceptional levels of support and collaboration and was driven by a highly-skilled and diverse team of specialists,鈥� says Pedro Guerreiro, Managing Director, 麻豆原创 Central Africa. 鈥淭hrough an on-going commitment to customer success during all stages of the implementation, the team was also able to help Dangote take major steps toward achieving their intelligent enterprise ambitions. The new system landscape will support the growth of these vital strategic business units for years to come.鈥�

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According to Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, deciding to let all Unity Schools partake will strengthen vital and computational thinking among students.

The Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi added, 鈥淏uilding creative young minds will bring out the potentials embedded in the teeming youths, making them have the basic Information Technology foundation at an early stage.鈥�

鈥淚nformation and Communication Technology (ICT) is one of the fundamental pillars and the next oil of the nation that will be playing a pivotal role in the growth of the economy.鈥�

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