In October, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that the city-state will donate $7.9 million in medical supplies to a regional reserve on behalf of ASEAN’s collective effort to lay the groundwork for public health emergencies in the future. The article by The Strait Times also indicated that Singapore co-chairs the Friends of Covax Facility with Switzerland to foster vaccine multilateralism. Supported by the World Health Organization, the program intends to deliver vaccinations to people in low-income countries.

Underscoring the nation’s endeavour to provide access to quality healthcare and improve living conditions for all, Hilleman Labs was established in Singapore as a premier biopharmaceutical company focused on developing vaccines to address unmet health needs in poor countries. Through an equal joint-venture partnership between Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. (MSD) and Wellcome Trust, the company was founded in 2011 and has since been gearing towards tackling preventable diseases that are widespread in low and middle-income nations.

With innovation as one of its core values, Hilleman Labs believes in the importance of leveraging technological advancements to obtain meaningful insights from different data sources, strengthen stakeholder collaboration, and facilitate vaccine development while maintaining industry compliance. Recently, it has chosen SAP’s Business Transformation as a Service (BTaaS) offering RISE with SAP to accelerate digital transformation and help discover opportunities in value creation among strategic IT projects.

Hilleman Labs is one of numerous small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across Southeast Asia that have already embarked on their intelligent enterprise journeys to help streamline business processes, break down data silos, and gain supply chain visibility.

Hilleman Labs Integrates Data and ERP Software on SAP Digital Platform

Detailing more about the latest partnership, Eileen Chua, Managing Director at SAP Singapore, explained:

“By adopting a modern, innovative cloud solution such as RISE with SAP, Hilleman Labs has been able to embark on its mission to holistically transform into an intelligent enterprise and stay ahead of their industry. Their vaccine development efforts are now backed by a strong digital core that aims to offer greater visibility, efficiency, and agility while achieving business outcomes and supporting their mission to improve global health.”

Supported by SAP Partner ABeam Consulting Singapore, the RISE with SAP implementation was completed in less than three months. By breaking down silos and integrating data, intelligent technologies, and ERP software on a single SAP digital platform and data model, the new infrastructure is anticipated to deliver faster time to value and boost savings, speed, and decision-making across the company.

According to Hilleman Labs, the adoption of the BTaas offering aims to:

• Enable the solution to build a flexible digital infrastructure that connects and expands with other applications.
• Embed new technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and advanced analytics capabilities into the system.
• Allow scientists and medical researchers to conduct real-time analysis of process development and analytics, as well as clinical and genomics data from various sources.
• Create patient cohorts and quickly assess the feasibility of clinical trials on a local level.
• Promote collaboration and gain access to SAP Business Network which includes SAP’s asset intelligence, supplier, and logistics networks.

Also commenting on the SAP deployment project, Dr. Raman Rao, Chief Executive Officer at Hilleman Labs, highlighted:

“With the adoption of RISE with SAP, our goal is to become more agile, innovative, and productive as we accelerate our efforts to develop new vaccines and unlock new vaccine development methods that could have significant impact globally.”

The post SAP Digital Platform Backs Hilleman Labs’ Vaccine Development appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

For Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Economy), businesses must explore opportunities for digital transformation in Malaysia, as they are critical to the country’s economic recovery efforts and can help contribute to its long-term economic resilience. The MyDIGITAL plan intends to make Malaysia a technologically advanced and digitally-driven country, as well as a regional leader in the digital economy by 2030, he added.

Additionally, the digital economy is projected to contribute 22.6{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} to Malaysia’s GDP and generate 500,000 new jobs by 2025. Cloud services were also highlighted in the MyDIGITAL program, with a focus on a ‘cloud first’ strategy at both the federal and state levels, which will help facilitate the adoption of cloud technologies in the country.

Earlier this year, SAP Malaysia Managing Director Kok Cheong Hong has already expressed support for the initiative and described it as a major “breakthrough yet realistic” digital vision. Hong believes this approach serves as a motivation for local businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to embrace dynamic consumption, establish resilient infrastructure, and utilise cloud solutions to boost efficiencies and productivity.

“Public-private plural partnerships are also important to help drive SME readiness, which in turn further encourages innovation and flywheel digitalisation effect for all concerned,” Hong remarked.

SAP Malaysia Emphasises the Need for Digitalisation among SMEs

Furthermore, Hong put the spotlight on the significance of the SME sector today as many businesses are still lagging in terms of technology use. According to the 24th Malaysia Economic Monitor: Weathering the Surge report, SMEs in the Southeast Asian nation have been underperforming both in terms of output and productivity levels when compared against peer countries. It has also been found that the COVID-19 pandemic has widened the productivity gap. With this, SAP Malaysia seeks to raise awareness for SMEs before increasing uptake on digital platforms.

“Businesses that are adopting a ‘wait and see’ attitude towards digitalisation could be left behind – and may even become irrelevant. Many solutions that were once the exclusive domain of large corporates have been scaled in capacity – and price – and are now within reach of local SMEs,” Hong stressed.

The likes of glove maker Aspen Glove Sdn Bhd and renowned spice manufacturer Baba Products Malaysia Sdn Bhd have already embarked on their digital transformation journeys towards becoming intelligent enterprises through SAP upgrade projects centered on automation and innovation to enhance productivity and cost-efficiency.

Aspen Glove’s ​​industry used to be labour-intensive but after implementing SAP solutions, it has now automated the processes end-to-end. It has selected SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Private Edition for its latest glove manufacturing plant that operates 96 production lines. On the other hand, Baba Products had migrated from its previous all-manual, paper-based operations to the SAP S/4HANA platform, which was supported by Direct Store Delivery with CRM, SAP Payroll, and SAP SuccessFactors.

“Hence, Aspen Glove is able to revolutionise the quality, customisation and speed of delivery to meet the customer demands of today,” Hong noted.

The SAP Malaysia MD further explained that businesses can become intelligent enterprises by first digitising processes where they can “do more with less”, create best-in-class customer experiences, establish sustainable supply chains, and innovate new business models and revenue streams.

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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.”

The post How SAP Business Process Solutions Help Transform ASEAN SMEs appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

During the SAPPHIRE NOW 2021 online conference, SAP Chief Executive Officer Christian Klein touted SAP’s Ariba Network as the heart of a new global engine for driving sustainable economic growth. As part of the SAP Business Network, Ariba Network now takes part in a strategy to unify existing networks into one collaborative and intelligent business network. This aims to help organisations efficiently manage sales cycles, enhance cash flows, and grow their respective businesses. Together with SAP Logistics Business Network and SAP Asset Intelligence Network, over 5.5 million organisations will benefit from being members of the global B2B social network, according to the German software giant.

In a recent announcement, SAP has welcomed Proxtera, an open connector for B2B marketplaces and business providers that service small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Asia, to the Ariba Network in an effort to make its client base of Asian SMEs expand its global reach. Furthermore, Proxtera will now have access to new demand channels to help grow its business in an increasingly digital and networked economy, thanks to the initiatives of SAP’s Ariba Network.

Proxtera Chairman Lim Kang Song shared in the press release statement:

“Proxtera’s mission is to enable SMEs around the world to thrive in the new normal of the digital economy and access new trade opportunities previously thought out of reach. Proxtera aims to help SMEs as they recover from the impact of the pandemic and to bring us one step closer to an open, more collaborative future where businesses of all sizes, including SMEs, have great trade opportunities afforded to them as traditional corporate ecosystems.”

Proxtera Becomes Part of SAP’s Ariba Network to Empower SMEs Around the World

Officially launched last March, Proxtera has support from Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA)’s Business sans Borders (BSB) initiative and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Its mission is to connect more than 350,000 SMEs with new trading partners in a growing list of Asian nations such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and India, as well as Africa’s Rwanda and Kenya.

Moreover, Proxtera intends to provide a suite of integrated digital tools and services to enable marketplaces, platforms, and SMEs to evaluate and act on business prospects more swiftly with each trade. Commenting on the latest announcement, Paul Marriott, President at SAP Asia Pacific Japan (APJ), said:

“It is clear that no business does business alone. This is part of our broader vision to reimagine how businesses, including SMEs, can collaborate with a network of global trading partners across supply chains, economies and industries, and empower companies to move faster and smarter than ever before.”

Meanwhile, Proxtera is also currently developing Proxtera Plus for its network of businesses and SMEs to help ensure that purchases are compliant with internal corporate regulations and allowing for faster digital approvals. Additionally, it is designed to deliver a smooth transaction experience for large buying organisations with a deep and diverse variety of buyers and sellers from wholesale e-Commerce platforms across Asia through Proxtera’s trade network of marketplaces.

By becoming a part of SAP’s Ariba Network, Proxtera will add significant value to SMEs with a sourcing discovery platform that allows businesses to maintain compliance in their sourcing process.

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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.”

The post SMEs in Pakistan Drive Profitable Growth with SAP ERP Products appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.