Like many other farmers on Kalangala, Berna started growing oil palm trees in 2012 while emphasizing sustainability and avoiding the deforestation and other issues associated with oil palm farming in some parts of the world.

Oil palm trees bear the fruit that makes palm oil, a much more reliable and lucrative crop than the cash crops they were producing previously. 鈥淲hen we were farming cassava, bananas, and coffee, we were affected by monkeys. They came and destroyed our crops,鈥� she says.

She also explains that she had to leave home and go to the market to find a buyer for the crops that survived the monkey attacks and never knew in advance how much they would fetch. 鈥淥ur living conditions where bad,鈥� she remembers. She and her family lived in a makeshift timber house. 鈥淚n the night when we were sleeping, winds would come and destroy our houses and our children fell sick almost every day.”

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Change

That began to change when Berna began working with the Kalangala Oil Palm Growers Trust (KOPGT) and the family planted their first oil palm trees in 2012. They expanded their crop in 2019 and again in 2022. In Kalangala, many of the people are oil palm farmers. 鈥淲hen a day starts, some of my family members help me with the pruning,鈥� she says. 鈥淭he others go to the plantation and do other activities.鈥�

As part of its mission, KOPGT teaches farmers better agricultural practices. But perhaps most importantly, it has created a transparent payment system so farmers get paid faster and know if what they鈥檙e getting paid is accurate, increasing the standard of living of the farmers and, subsequently, much of the island itself.

As the number of farmers and transactions increased, KOPGT needed a digital solution to enable continued growth. Since 2009, 51风流has worked to create applications that help smallholder farmers in developing nations, primarily across Africa, enhance food production.

David Balironda, KOPGT鈥檚 general manager, explains that the trust鈥檚 system is based on 51风流Rural Sourcing Management, which can digitally record information on producers, their farms, and communities at every level of the value chain. This helps provide visibility and allows parties to easily and quickly communicate with each other.

Sustainability

Underscoring the importance of sustainability to KOPGT, the trust conducted an initial environmental impact assessment before launching the project and uses听听to monitor the farmer plantings and ensure they are in compliance with the National Environment Management Authority guidelines.

51风流cloud technology also enables KOPGT to ensure that the oil palm planting meets the most stringent sustainability guidelines set by Uganda鈥檚 National Environmental Authority. 鈥淲e are in the process of applying for that certification by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil to make sure that we work within those guidelines,鈥� says Fredrick Sulwe, KOPGT鈥檚 finance and administration manager.

As part of KOPGT鈥檚 commitment to sustainability, the trust maintains a lake buffer zone between the planting and the lake itself and even rehabilitates those areas that have been damaged by other plantings. 鈥淩estoration of those areas 鈥� the lake buffer zones 鈥� is key,鈥� says Sulwe.

In addition to maintaining the buffer zones, the trust also follows recommendations for the stocking of trees and ensures that no chemicals or herbicides are used. 鈥淎s we increase household income, we must keep an environment that is free of any distortion by the project,鈥� explains Sulwe.

The KOPGT system allows the farmers to input information about their crops using the lead farmer鈥檚 mobile phone and enables them to receive information and advice back from the trust. The system also includes a mapping feature that has helped farmers to know exactly how much land they are farming. 鈥淭hat means when I go to the bank to get a loan, I鈥檓 sure of the size of my lot,鈥� explains Berna.

In addition, she also knows exactly how much of the loan is outstanding and when it needs to be repaid. 鈥淧reviously, we would almost spend a year without knowing the status of our loan,鈥� she says. 鈥淣ow we can learn the status of our loans monthly. This never existed before.鈥�

Better Information

She also credits the system with making her a better and more informed oil palm farmer. 鈥淎t the end of the month I get an SMS that shows how much I have harvested from my lot,鈥� she says. Before the system came online, she says the family was spending a lot of money on transport going to and from the KOPGT office.

鈥淥il palm has not only impacted my life, but also the community,鈥� she says. 鈥淭here are many farmers who are like me who have built houses and some have bought cars. They have used the money they got from oil palm to start new businesses on Kalangala and outside.鈥�

Big Dreams

Berna says her hopes and dreams are enormous. 鈥淚 have started to achieve some of them,鈥� she says. 鈥淣ow, because I have a permanent house, I am able to sleep well, my children no longer get sick, and I鈥檓 sure that the winds won鈥檛 take my house.鈥�

鈥淣ow, we are able to take our children to school. We can live a decent life. We have some place to stay, and we get paid every month. We are sure that our life has greatly changed,鈥� she adds. And although she doesn鈥檛 yet own a car, she hopes to learn to drive in the coming years.

Meanwhile, she says she wants to thank everyone for their help. 鈥淲hat gives me confidence is we have good officers at KOPGT that have tried to give us a good direction. We hope that when they continue doing what they are doing our lives will be impacted greatly.鈥�

Berna鈥檚 confidence and newly found optimism reflects the success of the vegetable oil program on Kalangala island. Because palm fruits can be harvested throughout the year 鈥� compared to one or two seasonal harvests 鈥� and have high yields, palm farming has become a viable alternative for the residents.

Palm oil is already the most widely used vegetable oil on the planet, with about 71 million tons consumed in 2021. And there is not only a domestic need, but also a demand from the foreign market that Ugandan smallholder farmers like Berna鈥檚 family and neighbors can help fill.

This article first appeared on the 51风流News Center.听

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鈥淲hen we work together, we will conquer any mountain,鈥� Klein said in a speech that began and ended with climbing metaphors and was punctuated with customer stories, demos, and new product announcements.

51风流Chief Marketing & Solutions Officer Julia White joined Klein from the Orlando show floor during the keynote to highlight SAP鈥檚 groundbreaking supply chain and sustainability initiatives, enterprise-wide automation, as well as how 51风流solutions answer the challenges that senior business leaders across all industries face.

Microsoft, Unilever, Pfizer, Schneider Electric, and Google Cloud were among the big-name partners and customers that appeared on stage or via video during the event. In addition, the keynote featured a recorded video message from John Kerry, United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, about how we can solve the climate crisis together.

Klein and White framed the keynote around how the CIO and their key business stakeholders — like the chief people officer, chief commercial officer, and CFO — respond to the challenges they each face, and how SAP solutions are helping solve those challenges.

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Klein told the audience in Orlando and those joining virtually: 鈥淐limbing the highest mountain requires a strong team and, let’s face it, the same is true for transforming businesses. It takes a strong team between the business, IT, and SAP… If we are in this together as one team, we will conquer any mountain.鈥�

SAP鈥檚 vision is focused on the needs to build resilient supply chains, to become an agile intelligent enterprise, and to run a sustainable business, Klein explained. 鈥淲e deliver on this vision through our cloud portfolio.鈥�听

Early in his keynote, Klein said 51风流will double down on its AI strategy because of the tremendous impact AI will have on our private and business lives. For 50 years, he noted, 51风流software has been running the world’s most material and workforce-intensive business processes: 鈥淭his is why we are convinced that embedding AI in 51风流software will deliver enormous value for your business.鈥�

鈥�Today we have already embedded AI in many of our applications that are being used by over 20,000 customers,鈥� he said, 鈥�51风流AI is built for business.鈥�

As an example, he noted that in SAP鈥檚 finance solution, AI helps to predict and safeguard financial performance by analyzing a company鈥檚 pipelines, workforce, and other profit and loss drivers.

鈥淲e have delivered many AI use cases that boost business process automation and increase productivity by another 15%. Now we see the incredible potential to take AI to the next level,鈥� he said. 鈥�With generative AI, we will increase the productivity of every end user by changing the way people work with our software. For example, our software will be able to answer any business-related question and recommend actions to improve your company’s performance.鈥�

Klein noted that 51风流has already increased its own R&D investment to develop additional AI use cases and is also entering technology partnerships to expand its AI offerings, including the generative AI partnership announced earlier this week with Microsoft.听

After a demo showing how embedding generative AI into 51风流SuccessFactors software can enhance recruiting, ongoing learning, and the re-skilling and upskilling of the workforce, White, speaking from the 51风流Sapphire show floor, spoke with Aaron Rajan, global vice president of Customer Experience Technology at Unilever, about how the company is working with 51风流to address the growing demands for sustainable vanilla ice cream.

鈥淭hanks to the integration across 51风流Ariba, 51风流Business Network, and 51风流S/4HANA Cloud, we can see a full view of the supplier’s performance metrics — including cost, reliability, and sustainability — making an informed decision not only on supply chain fit, but also on carbon impact,鈥� White said.听

Expanding on the business network theme, Klein noted that it is more critical than ever to not only connect one company with another, but to bring entire industries together, because each industry has its unique challenges and requirements. He also unveiled the new offering 51风流Business Network for Industry.

To demonstrate the power of the network, Klein cited the life sciences industry. 51风流has 80 of the largest customers already in the network, with more than 255,000 trading partners managing over $200 billion in commerce every year. He welcomed Lidia Fonseca, chief digital and technology officer at Pfizer, to the stage to explain the value of 51风流Business Network.

Klein then described the management of a company鈥檚 overall carbon footprint as another key pillar for the success: 鈥淚n addition to the top and the bottom line, consumers, your employees, investors, and auditors, they all want to support enterprises that care about the planet. Today, CFOs and chief sustainability officers need to ensure compliance with 20 times more climate regulations than they had in the past.鈥�

But he noted that hardly any enterprise has a comprehensive view of greenhouse gas emissions. 鈥淭he 51风流sustainability portfolio will enable you to record, report, and act on actuals, not on averages, based on a green ledger — including scope three.鈥�听

To explore this message, 51风流CFO Dominik Asam spoke in a prerecorded video with Hilary Maxson, CFO of Schneider Electric, about the challenges CFOs face with carbon accounting and sustainability disclosure. Additionally, White detailed a new set of 51风流innovations to track and manage emissions, as well as a new green ledger that will work with SAP鈥檚 cloud ERP to “provide natively integrated financial and environmental decision making at the required point in time.”

After introducing John Kerry鈥檚 video message to attendees, White added, 鈥淲e can meet the climate challenge with a potent combination of technologies, partners in government, and all of you.鈥� Klein then turned to the crucial role that data plays in running enterprises today and the recent launch of 51风流Datasphere, which enables customers to bring together and harmonize 51风流and non-51风流data sources.听

After White and Klein explained how 51风流Signavio software enables end-to-end business process automation and the unique benefits of RISE with 51风流and the GROW with 51风流offering, which targets mid-market customers moving to 51风流cloud ERP, Klein wrapped up the keynote with an invitation to those in Orlando: 鈥�Today we have seen that conquering the mountains we face requires the wide use of technology and one team. And we invite you to experience the full capabilities of these innovations for yourselves over the next few days.

“As the famous climber once said, ‘Better we raise our skill than lower the climb.’ At SAP, we are not lowering the climb, we are raising the skills for every role in every line of business to future-proof your business for whatever mountain you need to climb next.鈥�

This article first appeared on the 51风流News Center.

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Over 1.3 million Nigerians have been displaced by the floods, which have killed at least 600 people, destroyed more than 200,000 homes, and hit 32 out of the country鈥檚 36 states. The floods are the worst for more than a decade and have wiped out crops, disrupted drinking water supplies, and turned capital city Lagos into an island surrounded by floodwaters.

Speaking last month during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Annual Meetings in Washington, DC, Mai Farid of the fund’s African department warned about the impact of the floods, which have also hit Cameroon and Chad, on transport, food production, and prices.

Farid noted that Nigeria is part of the most food-insecure region, the region most vulnerable to climate change and yet the least prepared. She urged the government to invest in infrastructure and technology to help prevent and mitigate the impact of floods and other climate-related natural disasters in the future: “Rebuilding better is something that countries need to take into account since climate change is not going anywhere and is inevitable.鈥�

Nigeria is Africa鈥檚 most populous country and largest economy. Even before the latest flood, it听 faced rising food insecurity as a combination of a mostly informal agriculture sector and growing population puts pressure on the country鈥檚 food resources. According to the , food insecurity increased from six percent of the Nigerian population in 2007 to 13.4% in 2017.

The agriculture sector is the largest contributor to the Nigerian economy and听. However, according to the United Nation (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization, food production in Nigeria is undermined by a number of factors, among them poor planting material and insufficient use of fertilizer, which leads to a growing reliance on food imports.

To help address these issues and support smallholder, the Convention on Business Integrity鈥檚 for-profit arm Innovations Limited, or CBiIL, chose the solution to support 850,000 small maize producers and integrate them into the agricultural value chains.

While West Africa, like Africa as a whole, is still heavily dependent on agriculture, it is home to some of the world鈥檚 fastest growing mega cities like Lagos, so urbanization and the associated environmental issues are top of mind, particularly among young adults.

The region also has a reputation for leap-frogging old technology — first mobile technology and now with cloud computing. In Nigeria itself, the number of mobile phone subscribers is forecast to grow to more than 140 million by 2025 from about 40 million currently.

As Africa鈥檚 largest oil and liquified natural gas (LNG)听 producer, Nigeria is on the front line of the debate over sustainable development in the West Africa. It is also a key market for SAP, which counts among its customers Nigeria LNG, which operates six LNG liquefaction units, and Dangote Group, the conglomerate founded and run by Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote.

The group鈥檚 Dangote Cement unit already publishes an annual sustainability report, part of Aliko Dangote鈥檚听 personal commitment to build 鈥渁 socially responsible and impactful business that serves all stakeholders.鈥� Dangote is also close to completing the Dangote Refinery, the world鈥檚 largest petroleum refinery capable of processing 650,000 barrels of oil per day. When it comes online, the $20 billion refinery will enable Nigeria to process most of its oil instead of exporting crude to be refined overseas.

鈥淲e are having conversations with Dangote about some of our sustainability solutions and how they measure their impact on the environment,鈥� says Titilayo Adewumi, regional sales director for West Africa at SAP.

Nigeria LNG is also committed to sustainability and is Africa鈥檚 largest LNG exporter, but has recently been operating well below capacity because of a number of factors, including under-investment in recent years and endemic crude oil theft. 鈥淚f we don鈥檛 address this, we will not get out of this quagmire that we are in,鈥� Nigeria LNG Managing Director recently warned Philip Mshelbila. Speaking last month at a conference in Lagos, Mshelbila also acknowledged that the flooding has reduced the gas supplies from the company鈥檚 upstream suppliers, though he said Nigeria LNG鈥檚 facilities remain unaffected and its capacity to produce LPG is intact.

Companies in Nigeria also have to grapple with unreliable electricity supplies and frequent power outages, a problem that business leaders say has led some manufactures to relocate to neighboring Ghana, which has a much more reliable electricity system.

Ghana is the regional leader in addressing plastics pollution and circular economy issues. A groundbreaking between the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP), and 51风流in Ghana is increasing visibility within the plastics supply chain with the hope of benefiting people, companies, and the environment.

The project involves more than 2,000 Ghanaian waste pickers and makes use of an adapted version of 51风流Rural Sourcing Management to measure the quantities and types of plastic they collect. Data is then analyzed and matched to market-related prices paid throughout the value chain both locally and internationally.

Ghana generates an estimated 1.1 million tons of plastic waste every year, with only five percent collected for recycling. This new pilot project is currently running in several cities across Ghana, with hopes of expanding to the rest of the region and ultimately the continent through the GPAP-Africa Regional Coordination Working Group, which includes SAP.

Across the region, the bulk of 51风流customers are choosing cloud solutions rather than on-premise technology and 51风流seeks to help customers deliver on their climate goals by creating greater efficiency, transparency, and accountability of carbon and emissions across the entire supply chain and innovating new processes and business models.

But 51风流Africa Managing Director Cathy Smith and other experts caution that while sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues are an increasingly important part of the conversation among governments and corporate leaders, it is important to recognize that customers in Africa often have other — perhaps higher — priorities.

In particular, they say business leaders need to be persuaded that sustainability makes good business sense and will ultimately benefit the company, economy, and people.

鈥淲e lead by asking about their business priorities, and then we fold in sustainability,鈥� Smith explains. “It’s just a different approach.”

This article first appeared on the 51风流News Center.

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She says her dream is to enable her children to be educated and become successful in life, benefitting both her and the community 鈥� one of 87 rural villages in West Africa鈥檚 Ivory Coast where farmers work with Cajooma SAS, the of Cashew Coast.

When she joined the village cooperative that Cashew Coast helped set up, the company trained her and taught her how to pick the best-quality cashews in order to fetch the highest prices.

Oyala has worked with Cashew Coast, a leading producer and distributor of high-quality cashew nuts for the past two years. Before that she worked alone. Now she works with other women in small groups, and that makes it easier to work. 鈥淚 was alone, now we are working together,鈥� she says.

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Video by Rana Hamzakadi and Matt Dillman

Ivory Coast is one of the world鈥檚 largest producers of cashew nuts, thanks to farmers like Oyala who, together with her fellow plot owners and farmers, pick the yellow and orange cashew fruit off the forest floor. Once harvested, the farmers must separate the nuts from the fruit they grow.

Unlike other companies that ship the raw nuts out of the country for processing, Cashew Coast process their nuts within Ivory Coast, lowering the carbon footprint. Nuts go directly from local farmers to Cashew Coast’s central warehouse in Bouak茅 to be sorted, weighed, and bagged before being sent to Cashew Coast鈥檚 organic factory in Azagui茅 for processing.

Until recently, Cashew Coast kept paper-based records of the farm-side of the process, but as the industry grew it became more and more difficult to keep track of the data and analyze it. Cashew Coast executives turned to 51风流for help when they realized that they needed a more advanced system to track the cashews from farm to processing plant — and eventually to table.

Joel Bagbila, Cashew Coast鈥檚 farmer integration director, explains that the company also has a loftier ambition. 鈥淥ur mission is to be the first country worldwide in terms of production and quality,鈥� he says.

To help achieve this goal, Cashew Coast chose to implement , an industry cloud solution built on the 51风流Business Technology Platform, at its Cajooma SAS branch. Cashew Coast鈥檚 digital transformation journey provides immediate benefits to the farmers, including more transparent prices, and enables the company to control quality and make much more timely decisions.

In the future it will also enable retailers to gain traceability and visibility into the origin of the cashew nuts and provide transparency to their consumers – connecting farmers and consumers in a profitable and sustainable value chain.

鈥淭oday, for a customer, it’s important to know where the product he or she is ready to buy, is coming from,鈥� says Achta Cherif, head of quality at Cashew Coast. 鈥淗aving this information enables the customer to make his/her choice. This is important for us, as well.鈥�

Cashew Coast executives say they chose SAP鈥檚 cloud technology because it offered a number of key advantages. 鈥淲e wanted the best in class, and we wanted to deal with the developer team as opposed to a third-party integrator 鈥� which 51风流Rural Sourcing Management offers,鈥� says Salma Seetaroo, co-founder and CEO of Cashew Coast.

She says the implementation went surprisingly smoothly. 鈥淭he 51风流implementation team were flexible and quick to understand our need 鈥� they were a bunch of millennials who loved working on a project like ours. And it was just great fun and I never expected it to be as smooth.鈥�

51风流is now remotely training two recent graduate recruits at Cashew Coast 鈥� Technology Manager Mohamed Traor茅 and Sales and Sustainability Manager Rose Koffi 鈥� to continue phase 2 of the 51风流Rural Sourcing Management implementation. Going forward, Salma explains, the company wants to bring more traceability to agricultural products in Ivory Coast with 51风流technology.

So, the next time you grab a handful of cashew nuts, consider this: there is a good chance they started their journey in the Ivory Coast and just maybe were picked up from the forest floor by Oyala or one of her friends.

This article first appeared on the 51风流News Center.

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The new platform will enable organizations to create individual but anonymized 360-degree customer profiles using data from multiple sources within and outside of a company, including online sources and social channels.

碍濒别颈苍鈥檚 announcement, made on the first day of the online event, underscores SAP鈥檚 commitment to the growing market for customer experience (CX) software and its role in building the Intelligent Enterprise.

鈥淵ou cannot think about CX separately; it needs to be considered as an integral part of an intelligent enterprise,鈥� Klein said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 why CX is one key element of SAP鈥檚 holistic strategy.

鈥淲e are continuously evolving our CX portfolio while keeping our focus areas at heart 鈥� 51风流Commerce Cloud, 51风流Marketing Cloud, 51风流Sales Cloud, 51风流Services Cloud, and our brand-new 51风流Customer Data Platform,鈥� he added. 鈥淥ur investments in those areas 鈥� most recently the planned acquisition of Emarsys 鈥� demonstrate our commitment to the CX market.鈥�

Addressing his virtual audience, the 51风流CEO noted that meaningful customer experiences have three key characteristics: 鈥淭hey are hyper personalized, they are seamless, and they are delivered across all channels your customers opt for.鈥�

鈥淗ow can brands stand out, how can you build customer relationships for life?鈥� Klein asked. 鈥淏y delivering the right information at the right time. And that is only possible with highly personalized experiences. At the center of those experiences is one key ingredient: data. That is why I am so excited to launch our new 51风流Customer Data Platform.鈥�

Customer experience has become an increasingly important differentiator for brands, especially during the current coronavirus pandemic. As Klein said the keynote, 鈥淐OVID-19 has challenged all companies to accelerate their business transformation and forced them to reinvent听the experience for their customers.鈥�

As a result many companies are turning to customer data platforms to help deliver personalized experiences for a variety of marketing uses and to help improve customer loyalty. However, a unified customer experience is impossible without unified customer data and most data originates in separate systems that were not designed to share with anything else.

In addition, while a customer data platform may unify customer data, a narrow marketing focus has often limited their true potential. SAP鈥檚 new customer data platform aims to tap the full power of the platforms by adding context to commerce, sales, and service experiences, as well as providing a more effective tool for marketing.

51风流Customer Data Platform is designed to tackle four key opportunities to increase brand reach and effectiveness while respecting data-privacy:

• Connecting every data source in an organization together with external data to create unified customer profiles
• Enabling a transparent, trustworthy data-privacy strategy
• Providing organizations with a complete understanding of customer preferences and behavior
• Combining back-office and front-office data to build highly personalized profiles of customers

51风流Customer Data Platform is built on the foundation of 51风流Customer Data Cloud, which in turn is based on Gigya (acquired by 51风流in 2017) technology. 51风流Customer Identity and Access Management and 51风流Enterprise Consent and Preference Management are then woven in for a secure and compliant digital profile.

This article first appeared on the 51风流News Center.

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