'Global Businesses Lose $650bn Yearly to Lack of Effective Collaboration'

Emma Okonji

Global businesses, including Nigerian businesses lose as much as $650 billion (N198.2 trillion) yearly, due to the lack of effective collaboration within the business operations, based on weak software application to effectively coordinate all business processes under a single Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software platform.

Global market leader in enterprise application software, SAP, who made the disclosure at a press conference in Lagos recently, advised organisations to adopt cloud solutions in their businesses, as well as the right ERP software that will boost operational efficiency and cost reduction.

SAP also stressed the need for cloud adoption among organisations to address the mountains of inefficiencies and missed opportunities in organisations’ operations, which it said, would redirect the mindset of chief executive officers in understanding digital transformation, unleash its powers while finding a balance between maintaining a healthy business and current infrastructure, and innovating without disruption.

Managing Director, SAP West Africa, Mr. Pedro Guerreiro, explained that most organisations invest a great deal to maintain and customise their IT landscapes to meet their unique business needs. He however said that today, nearly every organisation has some level of cloud presence, typically for customer relationship management, and human capital management, or procurement.

“Moving to the cloud does not mean breaking off some parts of the business in a piecemeal fashion or taking a rip-and-replace approach. Cloud is one of the key drivers of digital transformation. Cloud has disrupted the traditional IT model by drastically reducing time to market and for innovative solutions. With its ease of use and ubiquitous access, cloud has democratised the decisions about software purchasing, access, and usage,” Guerreiro said.

“Cloud computing offers immense opportunity for companies to improve their business operations, regardless of sector. Modern cloud offerings reduce IT infrastructure complexity and free up resources that can be better applied to driving innovation. And with security topping the list of concerns among business and IT leaders, cloud providers today invest talent and energy into ensuring their offerings are able to meet even the most stringent security requirements,” Guerreiro added.

ERP Group Manager, TGI Group of Companies, Manikan dan Velrajan, said the use of SAP ERP software in all their group operations, have hoped the group to save huge cost.

“We are into multiple businesses that cut across various sectors of economies and we needed a wide-based ERP solution that is built around cloud computing and we found that in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, which is an intelligent, NextGen cloud ERP that takes enterprises into the digital age,” Velrajan said.

Speaking on the SAP HANA Cloud, Guerreiro said it was developed to provide companies with an agile, low-cost and scalable solution that helps optimise finance processes, cash flow management, supply chain management, real-time insights, and an end-to-end view of the performance of the entire enterprise. “That is why SAP is the fastest growing enterprise cloud company at scale, with more than 110 million users trading more than $820 billion,” Guerreiro said.