SAP.iO Venture Studio, a group committed to encouraging employee-driven innovation, continues to explore new products and build teams from the ground up to address some of the most pressing issues today. In 2019, GreenToken by SAP — a start-up focused on creating solutions for supply chain transparency and traceability — was added to the SAP network of employee-led ventures. The solution intends to provide organisations new levels of transparency through accurate, blockchain-based data and assist them in increasing visibility into the origins of their raw materials, as well as in building products with knowledge about how the resources were produced, particularly in dynamic, non-batch supply chain environments.

Sharing more about the initiative, GreenToken by SAP Co-Founder Nitin Jain shared:

“With GreenToken, we want to bring the same traceability and supply chain transparency to bulk raw materials that you get from scanning a bar or QR code on any consumer product. Our solution allows companies to tell what percentage of palm oil products they purchased from a sustainable origin and track it to the end consumer product.”

GreenToken by SAP: A Promising SAP.iO Venture

Last November 2021, GreenToken by SAP Co-Founder James Veale described the audience’s response to the solution as an “instantaneous hit” at the 4th China International Import Expo (CIIE) which was held at the National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai. The group’s local team promoted it to experts and leaders who came from different sectors, including industrial machinery and components, consumer products, and energy and natural resources.

During that same year, GreenToken by SAP became a finalist in the Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award. Considering that SAP systems manage more than 77{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of all manufactured goods worldwide, GreenToken by SAP is receiving more and more attention from SAP customers who are experiencing growing pressure to demonstrate to regulators as well as to their own customer base, that their supply chain processes concerning raw materials sourcing are at par with current industry standards.

Leveraging SAP Blockchain Technology

Furthermore, GreenToken by SAP is currently engaged in several pilot initiatives with companies involved in the chemical and palm oil industries. For instance, Unilever conducted a proof of concept in Indonesia to source over 188,000 tons of palm oil fruit, which resulted in a successful pilot. Golden Agri-Resources Chief Sustainability and Communications Officer Anita Neville stated that technology has contributed immensely in their efforts to improve supply chain visibility and transparency.

“Our participation in the GreenToken by SAP solution pilot with SAP and Unilever provided useful insights in how to successfully pass information between different actors in the supply chain,” Neville remarked.

Leveraging SAP blockchain technology, Unilever’s suppliers including Golden Agri-Resources were able to develop tokens that accurately reflect the movement of palm oil along the supply chain while also capturing the distinctive features associated with the material’s origin. According to Unilever, its industry-leading endeavours to achieve complete visibility of its supply chain were supported by GreenToken by SAP by tracking, verifying, and reporting data in near real-time.

Moreover, Unilever Chief Procurement Officer Dave Ingram explained that blockchain technology has the potential to help firms trace their supply chains and guarantee that the commodities they obtain respect the environment. Noting that the company has pledged to a deforestation-free supply chain by 2023, he added:

“We are encouraged by the promising results of our pilot with GreenToken by SAP, the latest building block in our tech-enabled approach to ensure a more traceable and transparent supply chain.”

The post SAP Blockchain Technology Used by Unilever to Accelerate Sustainability appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

RPA has been a key enabler in driving productivity and efficiency in many businesses even before the COVID-19 pandemic caused disruptions to major industries. Developed to automate time-consuming tasks that require significant manpower, RPA provides an opportunity for the workforce to focus on more complex problems that require human judgment. With recent enhancements to SAP Intelligent RPA solution, the German software giant strengthens its commitment to helping companies empower employees of all skill levels to speed up automation — allowing them to scale delivery while lowering costs.

New features in the solution enable citizen developers to create bots based on insights gathered through the new SAP Process Insights offering, which will be available in the third quarter of 2021 as part of the SAP Business Process Intelligence Portfolio. Furthermore, SAP is enhancing the citizen developer experience with these latest updates, allowing customers to grow the number of people who can assist their organisations in achieving higher productivity, agility, and resilience.

In a SAPPHIRE NOW 2021 session titled Zuellig Pharma: Transforming Healthcare with Best-in-Class Technology, Daniel Laverick, Head of SAP and IT Solutions at Zuellig Pharma, expounded on how digital assistance and intelligent automation across its operations drove operational efficiency for the organisation. He shared:

“Even before the pandemic, we saw the importance of driving efficiencies so that we could grow, operate and support larger scale and more complex healthcare supply chains. With this in mind, we embarked on a digital transformation journey with SAP and were able to quickly activate our technologies to address the spike in customer orders from countries like Thailand when the pandemic hit.”

Successful Implementation of SAP iRPA Across the Enterprise

As one of the largest healthcare service providers in Asia, Zuellig Pharma chose to implement SAP Intelligent RPA and SAP Conversational AI services to limit the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the company, it was able to fulfill customer orders significantly faster by utilising SAP’s solutions. Laverick further explained:

“This agility and speed of our sales order processing accounted for an increase of approximately 100,000 sales orders processed daily which helped us to continue our mission of making healthcare more accessible.”

Through its successful implementation of SAP iRPA, Zuellig Pharma was able to achieve the following value-driven results:

• Digitalisation and automation of error-prone and time-consuming manual tasks of receiving orders.
• Continuous order processing without lag and disruption.
• Enablement of employees to execute more value-added activities across its operations.
• Utilisation of a dependable, preapproved, and repeatable ordering process to support compliance with industry regulations.
• Increased trust in the company’s products and assisted in the fight against the distribution of counterfeit drugs in the region.
• Clearing out a backlog of over 10,000 IT-related cases that needed auditing — a task that would have taken three full-time staff to complete.

Zuellig Pharma Recognised for Innovation Using SAP Technology

In the recently concluded SAP Best Run Awards 2021 for Southeast Asia (SEA), Zuellig Pharma won the Most Promising Next Generation Leaders – The Trailblazer (Individual) Award for its use of SAP Intelligent RPA across the enterprise. Deploying more than 60 automations across various business units and countries, the inaugural event recognises Zuellig Pharma’s successful adoption of SAP technology to enhance its most critical processes.

Last March, the pharmaceutical giant also unveiled eZVax, an end-to-end vaccine management solution that provides governments and health authorities with a holistic view of their vaccine rollouts, from manufacturing to distribution and administration.

Moreover, the solution features Zuellig Pharma’s eZTracker platform, which leverages SAP Blockchain Technology, to address concerns on the distribution of counterfeit drugs around the region. Through the application, consumers’ mobile devices become a verification tool that can trace barcodes on medication to its manufacturer and country of origin instantly.

The post SAP iRPA Drives Efficiency Across Zuellig Pharma’s Operations appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.