The company has announced the completion of a private cloud data centre in Durban, as well as a Gauteng-based colocation facility in partnership with mobile operator Vodacom.

The announcement comes after Transnet last week听听its enterprise resource planning system from ECC 6.0 to 麻豆原创 S4/HANA.

Transnet plays a central role in the country鈥檚 economy by managing key infrastructure that supports trade and industrial growth.

Despite facing operational and financial challenges in recent years, it remains a strategic asset tasked with modernising South Africa鈥檚 logistics network, improving efficiencies and positioning the country as a competitive hub for global trade.

According to Transnet, the completion of the facilities will modernise its data centre and hosting capabilities.

It says this move will allow it to navigate the increasingly complex digital landscapes, ensuring the foundational operations are resilient, secure and capable of supporting next-generation business applications.

This initiative is one of the four strategic pillars of Transnet鈥檚 ICT digital modernisation strategy, says the state-owned company (SOC).

It explains that the private cloud data centre in Durban is designed to serve as a secure and scalable hub for business-critical systems. The colocation environment provides geographic redundancy and resilience, while extending reach into one of the country鈥檚 primary ICT corridors.

Supported by a public cloud on Microsoft Azure through its strategic听partners听鈭� Microsoft and Liquid Intelligence Technologies 鈭� these facilities provide the necessary capacity, flexibility and operational resilience to migrate core business applications and decades of data into a hybrid cloud architecture, says the SOC.

Critical to this transformation has been the collaboration with Altron, with its original equipment manufacturer, Huawei, the technology听partner听responsible for configuring and preparing the two private cloud environments, it states.

Transnet notes their expertise in data centre and cloud solutions accelerated readiness, ensuring the environments are optimised for migration and future integration into the broader hybrid cloud strategy.

By partnering with Vodacom for colocation services in Gauteng, Transnet has also ensured strong network integration and high availability within South Africa鈥檚 ICT ecosystem, it adds.

鈥淭he journey towards digital transformation is ongoing but achieving readiness at the data centre and hosting level marks an essential milestone,鈥� says Transnet group chief information officer Pandelani Munyai.

鈥淏y investing in private and public cloud facilities, leveraging colocation partnerships and collaborating with trusted technology partners, the organisation has built a robust foundation for the future where ICT is a key driver of growth, efficiency and resilience.鈥�

Munyai notes that with the data centre and infrastructure foundation in place, the organisation is now well-positioned to migrate core business applications and vast repositories of historical data into its new hybrid cloud environment.

He points out that this will not only modernise ICT operations, but will also unlock opportunities for advanced analytics, digital platforms and innovation across the business.

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According to Jade Michael, Head of Public Cloud at听, the impact of the pandemic has left many SMEs operating under constrained conditions. 鈥淭he ripple effects of the pandemic and the global economic slowdown have disrupted SMEs鈥� growth plans, with many now seeking new tools and technologies to drive innovation and ensure continued growth.鈥�

础听听found that technology-related change was the second-most important priority for CEOs, behind only growth.

鈥淲hat many SMEs are realising is that achieving growth in an ever-evolving business environment is impossible without innovation, and in today鈥檚 market, innovation requires an optimal technology mix,鈥� explains Michael. 鈥淐ompanies that strive to maintain their position will simply be overtaken by those who can unlock the advantages of technology and innovation, beating them in product development, customer acquisition and growth.鈥�

A platform for innovation, growth

Cloud has been identified as the platform for innovation for millions of businesses around the world.听听predicts that cloud adoption could drive more than $1-trillion in new value by the end of the decade, with business innovation and optimisation the key enablers.

鈥淭here is a clear advantage to moving quickly and for SMEs to get ahead of competitors by accelerating their cloud adoption,鈥� says Michael. 鈥淓arly adopters will realise greater value and returns than their less nimble peers, capturing a disproportionate share of the total value from cloud adoption. Much like compound interest in an investment portfolio, early cloud adoption can drive exponentially greater lifetime value and deliver far greater returns to the business.鈥�

For SMEs, the public cloud offers the quickest route to adoption and can help realise returns faster, as the cloud vendor provides everything needed to build systems and processes in the cloud without SMEs having to invest in the hardware, software and skills needed to build their own cloud platforms.

鈥淎 public cloud solution can be the quickest route to access greater elasticity, cost-effectiveness and the latest technologies,鈥� explains Michael. 鈥淎 public cloud platform is also one of the key pillars of a broader business technology platform that includes strong integration and extension capabilities, easing the introduction of new services and innovations to SMEs鈥� technology mix.鈥�

Unlocking four key cloud benefits

Michael adds that SMEs facing widespread disruption and uncertainty are turning to technology to help bring greater transparency over business operations and drive process efficiency.

鈥淓nterprise resource planning solutions have become increasingly available to SMEs over the past few years, after decades of driving process efficiency and innovation in the enterprise space. SMEs are leveraging the power of cloud ERP to create new business models, transform existing business operations, and achieve greater efficiency across all spheres of the business.鈥�

According to Michael, SMEs that are moving to take advantage of the cloud and听听ERP are enjoying four key benefits, namely:

1 Greater agility听鈥� 鈥淭he pandemic and ongoing global crises have created a sense of urgency for a cloud platform that is accessible anytime, anywhere. This helps SMEs address the dramatic changes needed in their business, while also boosting operational efficiency and helping the business achieve a sense of normalcy more quickly.鈥�

2 Access to new technologies听鈥� 鈥淭o improve planning and drive greater operational efficiency, SMEs increasingly need access to automation and analytics tools. Automation and artificial intelligence can take over repetitive or low-value tasks to free up precious internal resources, while advanced analytics bring data to the fingertips of SME decision-makers. Cloud ERP solutions enable SMEs to implement new technologies more quickly and scale technologies depending on the business needs.鈥�

3 Better integration with networks, partners听鈥� 鈥淪MEs lack the resources and access to networks of their enterprise peers. This makes it vital for SMEs to ensure they can integrate with partner ecosystems, developer networks and other specialists, as these networks and ecosystems can greatly improve their scale and reach. Using a cloud-based ERP can directly connect SMEs with an ecosystem of likeminded partners and suppliers, providing access to additional skills and capabilities.鈥�

4 Customisation and standardisation听鈥� 鈥淥ne of the greatest costs that SMEs incur during digital transformation efforts is in customising solutions to perfectly suit the SME鈥檚 needs. The growing adoption of cloud solutions has given rise to a multitude of templates that cover various business processes and applications across all industries. By using cloud services, SMEs can access these templates to drive down costs while still improving operational efficiencies and growing the business. For those that need specific solutions not covered by templates, an agile ERP with modular applications can help SMEs design and implement process improvements to quickly respond to changes in the market.鈥�

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Dimension Data felt it necessary to implement public cloud in their own environment to obtain valuable experience in the field and at the same time benefit from a fully integrated, real-time solution for their business.

Vision

Why Dimension Data strived to implement S/4 HANA Public Cloud for themselves

Dimension Data felt it necessary to implement public cloud in their own environment in order to obtain valuable experience in the field and at the same time benefit from a fully integrated, real-time solution for their business. Implementing S/4 HANA in their own environment, they aimed to become a trusted partner in the field of 麻豆原创 S/4 HANA Cloud by implementing the solution in its own environment. They strived to standardise and streamline processes across its business units to ensure adherence.

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The 麻豆原创 Innovation Awards celebrate the achievements of forward-thinking companies and individuals from around the world who are using 麻豆原创 solutions to transform their business, drive innovation, and shape their intelligent enterprises. The event was held virtually this year.

The award went to the Deloitte Africa MOJA program, which was launched in 2017 to transform the Deloitte Africa business. The business is a combination of practices across 17 countries in Africa that historically operated independently within the Deloitte network.

The MOJA program resulted in the successful standardisation, digital transformation, and automation of end-to-end business processes, unlocking the power of data to provide intelligence and insight to the executive, improving user experiences, optimising costs, and eliminating manual intervention in consolidation and reporting.

This was achieved by implementing a common IT platform for Deloitte鈥檚 Africa business utilising an integrated suite of cloud solutions with 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud, 麻豆原创 Cloud Platform, the 麻豆原创 BW/4HANA, 麻豆原创 Analytics Cloud, 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Employee Central and 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Onboarding , Concur Expense solution, and 麻豆原创 Fiori apps to support its intelligent enterprise.

Deloitte Africa鈥檚 chief financial officer, Jen McDonald, and its CIO, Antionette Wager, say that in being the undisputed leader in professional services in Africa, Deloitte needed to underpin its business with a common IT platform and digitally transform its business processes.

Deloitte Africa selected a suite of cloud solutions from 麻豆原创, walked the co-innovation journey with 麻豆原创, and utilised its own Deloitte Consulting implementation team to 鈥渆nsure success in a major digital transformation initiative鈥�.

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A study by data analytics firm IDC found that spending on public cloud services will nearly triple over the next five years, from R4,29-billion in 2017 to R 11,53-billion in 2022.

We are seeing a phenomenal uptake of public cloud across a spectrum of businesses; from micro organisations that want to back up their data to the cloud in a cost-effective way, to the most complex ones such as financial services organisations that are using Microsoft Azure as the foundation to drive new levels of productivity, create intelligent data-driven experiences and deepen business trust.

Businesses need to be agile, move quickly and respond to market demand. The power of the cloud allows them to drive agility and speed, but it also enables them to be flexible, which is important in these challenging and uncertain times.

Organisations that are scaling back or ramping up their products and services can leverage the power of the cloud and an opex model to respond accordingly.

Those businesses that run an on-premise IT environment are struggling to put in place plans that will allow their employees to work remotely coupled with the necessary business continuity and disaster recovery plans.

However, the reality is that many businesses are going to be in a hybrid state for some time as their IT environments are evolving and becoming increasingly complex.

听Managing a hybrid state and the edge

Applications are running on different hardware across on-premise datacentres, multiple clouds and the edge.

Exxaro Resources, one of South Africa鈥檚 largest heavy minerals mining companies, moved its headquarters to a new green building and migrated its on-premise datacentre to Azure, effectively reducing the entire company鈥檚 energy footprint while increasing both its data security and operational agility.

All mining sites located in dispersed rural locations, where connectivity is an issue, are now connected directly to Azure. This move cuts out a bespoke model where the sites were connected to the corporate building in the past, with the aim of creating a digital mining company.

Managing disparate environments at scale, ensuring uncompromised security and enabling developer agility and innovation are critical to success. Hybrid cloud capabilities must therefore evolve to enable innovation anywhere, while providing a seamless development, deployment and ongoing management experience.

We have introduced Azure Arc for businesses that want to simplify complex and distributed environments. It includes a set of platforms and tools that allow companies to manage their multi-cloud environment, from on-premise applications to those running in Azure or even on the edge.

More importantly, it allows them to manage other hyperscale cloud environments and helps them deal with the administration burden of running a multi-cloud environment.

听Driving innovation

The increased utilisation of public cloud services and the additional investments into private and hybrid cloud solutions will continue to enable South African organisations to focus on innovation and building digital businesses at scale.

We are seeing significant growth for 麻豆原创 on Azure. We offer on-premise 麻豆原创 customers the ability to take their workloads into Azure as part of the Project Embrace initiative between Microsoft and 麻豆原创 announced last year. It is centred around the customer journey to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA and 麻豆原创 Cloud Platform on Microsoft Azure.

One such customer is Standard Bank South Africa that is making the move to significantly improve the experience customers have with the bank, while enabling it to introduce new solutions to market more efficiently.

The work that we are doing with Standard Bank is the first local demonstration of this partnership and 麻豆原创 on Azure is one of the fastest growing services that we run locally in Azure.

Additionally, several organisations have decided to move their developer environments into Azure. The acquisition of GitHub and the massive global community that comes with it, sets our customers up for success in terms of driving their developer environments in the cloud.

The presence of local听cloud听technology means more opportunity for economic growth and innovation. Some of the innovation we鈥檙e driving are cognitive services and the Internet of Things (IoT), which accelerates customers鈥� digital transformation and opens the door to build interesting applications.

An example is AB InBev South Africa that is improving its cooler management and gaining new insights with IoT.

听Enabling innovation through partners

Our partners remain key to our strategy and are at the forefront of building solutions that will enable business innovation and digital transformation.

We believe that local service providers will continue to find ways to drive their value.听Managed service providers are showcasing innovation in how they鈥檙e levering the power of the public cloud to extend their services and value proposition to customers.

They see the presence of hyperscale platforms as positive for the market because it enables them to provide customers with cloud solutions that might not otherwise be available.

Whether organisations are adopting a pure or hybrid cloud solution, this move will enable the foundation to drive digital transformation, reduce costs, gain insights and achieve business innovation.听

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