In the recently concluded SAPPHIRE NOW 2021, SAP leaders discussed how SAP business process solutions are leveraged by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across Southeast Asia in a post-COVID economy.
The Southeast Asian economy has been underpinned by SMEs as the segment stimulates domestic demand, innovation, job creation, and competition, according to the Asia Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise Monitor (ASM) 2020 by the Asian Development Bank. The report also indicated that digital technology is a major contributor to the growth of SMEs in the region as it delivers the tools needed to support innovative businesses.
Additionally, in a survey conducted by SAP and Oxford Economics last April, 56{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of ASEAN enterprises that participated believe that automation and digital technologies help organisations meet business objectives such as boosting process efficiency and reducing costs, risks, and errors. The unprecedented challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic have demonstrated that, even for SMEs, digital transformation is the way to go. SAP understands the need for SMEs to simplify business processes as the sector makes up over 80{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of its client base.
During SAPPHIRE NOW 2021, Scott Russell, Executive Board Member, Customer Success at SAP, emphasised that digital solutions enable middle-market companies to attract customers, retain employees, optimise their processes and supply chains in order to drive economic advantage in the future. He added:
“In some ways, small and medium enterprises have elevated and are able to compete on a global scale without the need of high-cost infrastructure that their bigger counterparts have. And that’s where our technology at SAP really helps their businesses run best.”
Leveraging SAP Business Process Solutions
Meanwhile, Pannie Sia, Vice President and Head of Midmarket at SAP SEA, said that resilience is even more important now for SMEs across Southeast Asia amid the COVID-19 situation. She stressed:
“The pandemic further amplifies and accelerates the need to find new ways of doing things in the new normal. And technology underpins the way that SMEs compete in the digital economy.”
Expounding on how SAP business process solutions help SMEs recover and thrive in the post-pandemic era, Sia discussed the SAP S/4HANA implementation of JUMBO Group of Restaurants. Jumbo Group Ltd. runs a chain of restaurants in Singapore and China, as well as franchises in Asia. The company made a crucial decision of moving away from its old ERP system which had been causing problems for the last seven years.
According to Sia, Jumbo Group embarked on a digital transformation journey leveraging SAP S/4HANA as the unified platform to help them digitise their business processes in a more agile manner. By implementing SAP business process solutions, the company was able to:
- Achieve broader business objectives such as cost savings and optimisation of supplier base
- Improve the efficiency of inventory management and production
- Gain access to valuable and important data for operation and business decisions
In a statement, Ang Kiam Meng, CEO of Jumbo Group, said:
“I am confident that in the next couple of months, it will enable us to become much more efficient in our business. This project makes us a poster success story for SAP systems, and we hope to work more closely with SAP in future.”
Empowering SMEs across Southeast Asia
Also highlighted during the discussion is the early adoption of RISE with SAP by Hilleman Laboratories, a public-private organisation that deals with vaccine research. Sia stated that after going live with SAP S/4HANA with just two and a half months of implementation, the company streamlined its business processes, broke down data silos, and gained visibility in its end-to-end supply chain.
Explaining why the organisation selected SAP’s business transformation as a service offering, Serene Tan, CFO at Hilleman Laboratories, further shared in a separate SAPPHIRE NOW session:
“RISE with SAP made sense to us as it offers simplicity, concierge services, and accelerator outcomes. We can remove complexity by dealing with one company for all issues, and choose the infrastructure that fits our business without getting locked into one infrastructure as a service.”
Moreover, Tan also mentioned that having full support from SAP Services during the whole process is also very reassuring. She concluded:
“What this has meant for us is the ability to truly transform all aspects of Hilleman Laboratories’ business with faster time to value and without high upfront investments.”
