In February last year, SAP Malaysia Managing Director Kok Cheong Hong voiced his support for the MyDIGITAL initiative which is a core component of the National Digital Economy Blueprint. He referred to it as a significant “breakthrough yet realistic” digital vision for transforming the economy of the Southeast Asian economy into a technologically superior one. The SAP MD also believed that this strategy can serve as a form of motivation for local businesses, particularly SMEs, to establish resilient IT infrastructure, and utilize cloud solutions in order to increase efficiency and productivity levels.

To bolster the support given to SMEs in the country, partners of both SAP and Microsoft Malaysia recently offered to work closely with local businesses to handle the entirety of their business transformation process. This would include service-level agreements, operations, and the resolution of any problems that may inevitably arise during migration. According to Hong, SAP’s collaboration with Microsoft for the SAP Business One (SBO) RISE with SAP on Microsoft Azure program is driven by the Malaysian Government’s call for local enterprises to shift to cloud computing.

Moreover, SAP and Microsoft’s joint solution was released after the National Tech Association of Malaysia (PIKOM) encouraged local companies to accelerate their digital transformation efforts in order to maintain a competitive advantage in the Asian region. Malik Murad Ali, the Chairman of the PIKOM CIO Chapter (PCC), stated that digital transformation is essential for building strategies while addressing prospects and difficulties in an environment that has been affected by the global COVID-19 pandemic.

“Local businesses should not be intimidated by digital transformation but view it as an enabler for growth. The SME landscape is especially crucial as many still lag in technology adoption within their business operations,” he added.

SAP and Microsoft Support SMEs Through Joint Offering

SAP Business One aims to help customers fuel profitable growth by gaining greater control over their businesses or subsidiaries, simplifying core processes, and improving decision-making based on real-time data. Additionally, the SME solution can be deployed both on-premise and in the cloud, can be integrated with the SAP HANA platform, and has business intelligence capabilities.

“Local SMEs’ readiness for the Industrial Revolution 4.0 and the transition to intelligent technologies on the cloud is a critical thrust to realize this aspiration. SBO is known for connecting and streamlining processes, serving as a catalyst of growth for numerous SMEs in Malaysia and throughout the world,” the SAP MD shared in a statement.

On the other hand, Azure — Microsoft’s global cloud platform optimized for SAP S/4HANA — allows integration with SAP applications and data with Microsoft Teams and Office to increase employee collaboration and improve the user experience (UX). K Raman, Managing Director at Microsoft Malaysia, said the company hopes to provide SMEs a point of entry into a digital transformation that is both accessible and economical through its partnership with SAP Malaysia and the launch of SBO RISE on Azure.

The SBO RISE on Azure intends to help SMEs reduce costs and complexity, as well as provide a secure cloud framework that would keep them protected against cyberattacks, by leveraging both artificial intelligence (AI) and automation capabilities. SAP MD Hong also added that the arrangement using the company’s Business Transformation as a Service (BTaaS) offering ensures that SMEs have all they need to streamline their transformation journeys without having to make significant upfront investments.

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Global manufacturer and provider of hybrid packaging solutions for beauty brands Quadpack embarked on a digital transformation journey to stay abreast of the company’s rapid growth in terms of size and the impending need to unify various IT systems. The modernisation project dubbed Quadpack Connect is centred on migrating its SAP Business One ERP that is on-premise to SAP S/4HANA Cloud as well as adopting other cloud solutions SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Data Warehouse Cloud.

“The market changes very fast, and we need to change too. We are in a very old version [of SAP Business One], and to move to a current version of that system, the investment in terms of money and time would be the same as moving to a cloud system,” said Jordi Ambros, Quadpack’s Head of Business Intelligence.

Keeping Pace with Company Growth

Headquartered in Barcelona, Spain, Quadpack has offices and production facilities in Europe, the US, and the Asia Pacific region and a global strategic network of manufacturing partners. The company has been expanding its global footprint in recent years through acquisitions and partnerships. Just last week, Quadpack has appointed Korean packaging manufacturer LM as ‘Quadpack Official Partner’, a few months after sealing an agreement with Yuga in China in February– further bolstering Quadpack’s presence in the Asian market.

The company’s acquisition of two premier global beauty-packaging suppliers East Hill Industries and Louvrette in 2018 and 2019, respectively, accelerated the need for Quadpack’s ERP system upgrade to ensure that the company’s IT system can manage the changing business requirements and customer specifications. 

Migrating SAP Business One On-Premise to Cloud

Initiated in early 2019, the project Quadpack Connect designed in a phased rollout officially began in February 2020. The project aims to harmonise Quadpack, Louvrette, and East Hill Industries’ ERP systems and sets of processes and standardise Quadpack’s manufacturing facilities.

According to Ambros, the company selected SAP S/4HANA Cloud to provide Quadpack the foundation and agility to manage the company’s accelerated growth and rapidly changing business conditions. The intelligent ERP system SAP S/4HANA Cloud has built-in intelligent technologies, including AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics. The solution has the capabilities to support new business models, manage business change at speed, orchestrate internal and external resources, and use the predictive power of AI.

The project also focused on finding an analytics system to help Quadpack manage data and enable better data analytics such as migrating historical data and managing clean data from each acquired company’s data management system. The global manufacturer selected SAP Data Warehouse Cloud for data management and SAP Analytics Cloud on the reporting side to replace Microsoft’s SQL Server Integration Services for data warehousing and Microsoft Power BI for data analytics. The new system’s capability to automatically replicate data and synchronize access to data is expected to enhance internal and external customer experiences.

Explaining the objective of consolidating data from different facilities and companies into SAP Data Warehouse, Ambros said:

“We want to harmonise the metadata and our KPIs. Because it’s very important for us that, for example, sales processes will have to be the same sales processes for every company. If a manufacturing facility is specialised in wood and another in plastic, it has to be the same process.”

The SAP Data Warehouse Cloud and SAP Analytics Cloud implementations are scheduled this summer while the consolidated SAP S/4HANA system will be rolled out to Quadpack’s various locations by the end of 2022.

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SMEs are one of the largest and the most important sectors of Pakistan’s economy, according to Dr. Syed Akhtar Hussain Shah, Member of Private Sector Development & Competitiveness, Planning Commission of Pakistan. By enhancing the standard of living of vulnerable segments of society, SMEs also play a critical role in influencing national growth policies, job creation, and social cohesion.

The contribution of the SME sector to the world’s leading and rising economies demonstrates its importance today. Although SAP serves large businesses with over 90{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of the Fortune 500 companies being its customers, around 80{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of its customer base are SMEs.

As for Pakistan, the global software technology giant offers different solution categories in the market. In a recent online roundtable session hosted by SAP, Saquib Ahmad, Country Managing Director at SAP Pakistan, shared:

“The challenges brought about by the pandemic have shown that digital is the way to go even for small and mid-sized businesses. With SMEs accounting for about 80{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of its customer base, SAP understands their need to optimise and simplify IT processes.”

Agile solutions from SAP, along with its ERP tools designed to respond to the individual demands of enterprises working in different industries, are dedicated to driving long-term digital transformation. 

From accounting and financials to reporting and analytics, SAP solutions — including SAP S/4HANA, RISE with SAP Cloud, SAP Business One, and SAP Business ByDesign — enable SMEs to navigate a sustainable digital transformation journey without straining their costs and resources.

“As a single, affordable solution to manage entire small enterprises, businesses can benefit from up-to-date information and can enable themselves to react promptly while growing profitably,” Ahmad stated.

SAP ERP Products Cater to Specific Needs of Pakistan’s SMEs

Furthermore, the virtual conference also joined by SkyElectric PVT Ltd IT Manager Waseem Khan, Kashmir Cooking Oil & Banaspati CIO Farhan Tufail, and By The Way (BTW) by Din Industries Director Irfan Muneer highlighted how their companies have embarked on their digital transformation journey through SAP’s business management software and ERP solutions.

Solar energy solution provider Sky Electric PVT Ltd. has implemented SAP’s solution to help it achieve its goal of making renewable energy more accessible by constructing a distributed and intelligent energy storage system that can be administered via the internet. SkyElectric’s Waseem Khan stated:

“The implementation of SAP allowed us to upgrade the automation of all these critical functions and move further ahead than ever before in a very short time.”

On the other hand, Kashmir Cooking Oil & Banaspati, a brand of United Industries Limited (UIL), is set to go live with SAP’s customised ERP tool in a bid to ensure food safety and comply with strict industry standards. Kashmir Cooking Oil & Banaspati’s Farhan Tufail said that the company places a strong emphasis on understanding and fulfilling consumer demands. He stressed:

“With SAP solution, our ability to keep up these standards have further increased as it streamlines the entire business process under one platform, making things easier than they ever can be.”

Meanwhile, fashion brand By The Way (BTW) by Din Industries has increased its order handling capacity while utilising the same number of resources by also deploying SAP’s ERP solution to streamline inventory and sales processes for its stores across Pakistan. BTW’s Irfan Muneer explained:

“While affordability is one of the main obstacles in the digitisation of SMEs, it is this very aspect and scalability of SAP that has enabled us to adopt this tool without straining our resources.”

In an interview with BR Research in November, SAP MD Saquib Ahmad further emphasised:

“We, at SAP, provide that flexibility. We are interoperable with other ERPs. And this is our competitive advantage in this market. We work with all kinds of software.”

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Many businesses, both global enterprises and SMEs, have been caught off-guard with the unprecedented impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in their operations. Organisations are compelled to rethink their business strategies in congruence with consistently evolving government protocols surrounding the crisis. In Malaysia, Movement Control Order (MCO), the country’s preventive measure to COVID-19 enforcing non-essential businesses to close, has been in effect since March.

 For small and medium enterprises (SMEs), SAP Malaysia Sdn Bhd Managing Director Kok Cheong Hong has found technology as its silver lining at these challenging times. Specifically, the MD highlighted the opportunity for SMEs to leverage SAP Business One software for business continuity amidst the pandemic and after MCO is lifted.

“The MCO has demonstrated how technology continues to play an ever-increasing important role in supporting business continuity while increasing the accuracy and accessibility of data, information management, and reporting analysis,” Hong said in a recent statement.

“The MCO also demonstrated the importance of digitisation and moving away from human-managed interfaces and toward machine learning and automated processes,” he added.

The MD stressed that the need for technology advancement will be of high importance even post-MCO. He clarified though that, above all, human connection and expertise play a significant role in the decision-making and communications process to protect and enhance the brand, operations, customers, and various stakeholders.

SMEs’ Silver Lining

Though some SMEs are technology-ready to seamlessly continue business operations in the COVID-19 environment, there are still some that haven’t explored the opportunities of digitalisation. Hong explained and encouraged SMEs to consider technology as an investment more than a cost to be able to, first, thrive, and then eventually sustain growth in these uncertain times. Many software solutions are now made available, scalable, and competitively priced for SMEs to take advantage of.

SAP Malaysia Managing Director explained:

“Technology serves as a business enabler that paves the way for greater productivity, operational efficiencies, and cost-savings.”

“This is a crucial point of a digital transformation journey which SMEs should recognise to overcome the fear that such a process might incur unexpectedly high cost,” he further said.

According to Hong, ‘SAP is for everyone’. SMEs can also evolve into an intelligent enterprise with the right technology. He highlighted SAP Business One (SAP B1) as one of the German company’s ERP software solutions designed for SMEs. Hong said:

“What SAP B1 does is automate key business functions in financials, operations, and human resources so that SMEs can derive greater efficiencies within their operations.”

“SAP is at the forefront of 25 various industries, and we can help SMEs learn from larger enterprises such as making their supply chain process shorter and more effective,” he stressed.

Designed for small and midsize businesses, SAP Business One offers an affordable way to several key business areas. It is a single, integrated solution that captures all critical business information for immediate access and company-wide use. The SAP ERP solution boasts of its modularity and flexibility having more than 500 add-on solutions, custom-made to industries, or special functions.

Hong said that intelligent enterprises leverage technology-enabled capabilities to collect and connect data that was previously unrecognized in resolving challenges. In a changing market, technology enables organisations to respond accordingly in no time. 

Encouraging SMEs to become intelligent enterprises, the SAP Malaysia Head further explained: 

“What’s more, intelligent enterprises are able to better collect insights from customers, employees, products, and brands at every touch point, use powerful technology to sense opportunities, risks, and trends and turn this intelligence into action across every part of the business.”

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Seidor, an SAP consulting partner and systems integrator, has been named to be the technology partner of BASF, a German chemical company and one of the leading global chemical producers, for the corporate-restructuring project of its construction chemicals business unit.

BASF has decided to push through with its restructuring project after SAP’s announcement that the support for SAP R/3 will only be until 2025. The global chemical company has been running SAP R/3 COBALT for the past 12 years and the deployment project is its means of futureproofing the system. BASF will separate the unit’s technology systems to prepare it to run independently, as a stand-alone entity. 

Specifically, Seidor MENA, Seidor’s Dubai-based entity, was selected by BASF stakeholders to be its partner not only for its outstanding technology credentials but also for its global reach. Seidor MENA is a leading multinational Spanish company and an SAP Platinum Partner providing services across 30 countries with over 35 years of industry experience in SAP services.

The deployment project covers 22 countries across the Asia Pacific, the Middle East and South America affecting 280 users and is anticipated to be completed within a tight time frame. 

Jose Vizoso Capiali, Regional IT Manager Middle East, West Asia, CIS, Africa at BASF shared the rationale behind choosing Seidor:

“It was vital for us to move our small and medium-sized operations within the construction chemicals division to a robust system that offers high flexibility.”

“The fact that Seidor MENA was also able to offer us technology advices and fast deployment, with the added benefit of having a global presence, were key deciding factors. We were very keen to adopt a solution that was easy to maintain. In the digital age, IT decision-makers are always looking for ways to reduce in-house workload, so the AWS cloud model suggested by Seidor MENA was a great match. And Seidor MENA’s own expertise in the domain of ERP in general, and SAP in particular, will also be invaluable to us throughout the business transformation project,” he added.

A Peek at the Project

As an initial step, Seidor MENA helped BASF classify countries by the size of operations. Then, Seidor MENA as an SAP partner advised the IT team of BASF on the best business application fit for the company’s transformation needs. The regional systems integrator also gave recommendations on the best implementation approach in transitioning from the legacy R/3 system that they’ve been using for over a decade. Consequently, BASF has selected to deploy a mixture of SAP S/4HANA and SAP Business One ERP running on Amazon Web Services. 

Seidor MENA will manage the entire implementation for the 22 countries from its Dubai offices. Planned in phased rollouts throughout the year, the first implementation was last February. The consultancy firm will also support BASF in the change-management process. Seidor MENA is expected to help BASF’s new business unit transition from an enterprise system with a high degree of automation to a leaner solution built for small and medium enterprises.

Seidor MENA has designed a global template for the consolidation of business processes to be utilised by the BASF project team. To lower the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for BASF, a standardised implementation for subsequent waves will be made after findings from the initial rollouts are released. This template will be updated as needed over the course of three years.

To ensure successful implementation and boost users’ confidence in the new solution, Seidor MENA will engage heavily with end-users in the pilot countries the entire three years duration of the project. BASF’s partnership with Seidor MENA acting also as its consultant in business-process standardisation extends from supporting the ERP deployment up to exploring options in the procurement of other business applications and cloud services.

Ignacio Ruiz de Eguilaz, Managing Director at Seidor MENA stated that successful digital transformation is not just about technology migration. He stressed:

“At Seidor, we recognise that business transformation requires organisations to evolve and make changes to company culture. Our global reach and technology expertise now complement a deep, nuanced knowledge of business-process standardisation. BASF faced a daunting transformation challenge with their construction chemicals division, but recognised that Seidor was their ideal partner because we take a business-first approach to everything we do.”

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Malaysia is particularly interested in improving its efficiency and productivity; however, the lack of talents to fill the pipeline is still a problem. And data analytics programs are playing an important role in filling the lack of data talents.

SAP and Academia have been collaborating in raising the quality and quantity of data analytics talents in Southeast Asia. One of its initiatives includes the ASEAN Data Science Explorers (ASEANDSE) 2019 competition. 

The ASEANDSE aims to enhance the digital literacy skills of youths in the region by collaborating with industry leaders and initiating data analytics programs. It will also promote the importance of civic participation.

The ASEAN Foundation and SAP held the Malaysia leg of the competition on 19 September 2019 at the Monash University.

This year’s theme was Today’s Youth for Tomorrow’s World. It focused on finding the capacity of data analytics in potentially finding solutions to the problems that impact the people and the environment.

More than 270 students from all over Malaysia received training on SAP Analytics Cloud, which helped them fast-track their projects. After the training, they were tasked to pick a social issue impacting the Southeast Asian region and used the software to obtain relevant insights.

The social issue of their choice needs to be aligned with one of six United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: decent work and economic growth, gender equality, good health, industry, innovation and infrastructure, quality education, and sustainable cities and communities.

The judges for the competition consisted of representatives from the ASEAN Foundation, Impact Hub, Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), National Council of Women’s Organisation, SAP, and United Nations Development Programme.

Ten teams from seven participating universities presented their initiatives in the finals. Leong Zhuan Kee and Peh Wei Li, the winning team, presented data for their food sustainability project. They shared during an interview with Computer Weekly that the success of the presentation should be credited to the user-friendly industry solution provided by SAP.

MDEC’s share in boosting the data analytics talent pipeline

IDC shared the numbers of potential global revenues for big data and business analytics. According to the global market intelligence firm, the two technologies will surpass $210 billion in 2020 despite the 20,000-fold increase in data volumes between the year 2000 and year 2020.

MDEC’s data economy director, Karl Ng, also shared that big data is expected to boost Malaysia’s efficiency and productivity.

MDEC envisions a high-income and knowledge-based society by 2020. It has spearheaded ICT initiatives that focus on the data economy in hopes that it will become the foundation for artificial-intelligence initiatives. They have also been promoting the importance of continuous learning as an essential aspect of the digital culture of Malaysia.

IDC applauded initiatives such as the ASEAN Data Analytics Exchange (Adax), in its 2018 report. Adax is a regional platform that collaborates development models and talents and showcases the latest analytics technologies.

Adax has a proven track record of training 1,800 people from 298 companies across 19 industries since its establishment in 2017. These individuals learned skills to become data leaders, data managers, and data practitioners.

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