The beta app will continue to offer same-day delivery scheduled within a 60-minute time slot but will boast a much wider range of products.

In addition to groceries, customers will be able to shop for camping and outdoor gear, small appliances, baby products, toys, kitchen and home electronics, gardening supplies, and pool equipment.

The new Sixty60 app is already available to customers who live in certain parts of Cape Town, with Checkers planning a phased national rollout after beta testing.

Shoprite said that this strategy would help ensure a seamless user experience. During the beta testing period, deliveries on the new app will be free.

The supported areas in Cape Town include the following:

• Bellville
• Blouberg
• Brackenfell
• Camps Bay
• Century City
• Durbanville
• Edgemead
• Gardens
• Goodwood
• Kuils River
• Milnerton
• Observatory
• Parklands
• Rondebosch
• Table View
• Sea Point

Shoprite strategy and innovation chief said the company was confident the next iteration of Sixty60 will again disrupt online retail in South Africa.

鈥淥ur precision delivery promise means no more waiting at home all day for your general merchandise order to arrive,鈥� Schreuder said.

鈥淐ustomers can now choose the 60-minute time slot in which they鈥檇 like their Hyper delivery to arrive, with the same to-the-minute driver tracking they鈥檝e become accustomed to on their grocery orders.鈥�

The rollout comes after Shoprite CEO briefly spoke about the platform鈥檚聽聽during an earnings call on the company鈥檚 interim results for the 26 weeks ended 31 December 2023.

鈥淚n terms of further development. Yes, we consistently will continue to develop Sixty60,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e are currently busy rewriting the platform.鈥�

Engelbrecht said 鈥檚 approach to logistics management set it apart from competitors 鈥� including Amazon and Takealot.

He added that it is one of the primary reasons the online delivery service was 鈥渧ery profitable鈥�.

鈥淲e have this very large footprint of stores that we use as micro fulfilment centres as opposed to a very expensive single dark distribution centre,鈥� said Engelbrecht. 鈥淚 know there are people who don鈥檛 believe it, but believe me 鈥� it is very profitable.鈥�

The software behind Checkers Sixty60 鈥� 鈥� also significantly contributes to the service鈥檚 success.

Shoprite previously told MyBroadband that SAP鈥檚 Retail platform provides stock ledger and real-time sales data, which is critical for accurately fulfilling customer orders.

鈥淭he ERP also provides promotional information, prices and article data to Sixty60, which ensures that the prices on Sixty60 are the same as the prices in-store,鈥� Shoprite said.

The post Checkers Begins Testing Revamped Sixty60 App appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

Customers often look to us for insights since we have been privileged to help run the world鈥檚 most critical business processes for almost 50 years 鈥� seamlessly and end-to-end. This is no different in today鈥檚 cloud world. To remain competitive, customers require access to live data to make informed decisions in real time. They benefit most when functions and processes are fully aligned.

According to a recent , 88% of integration leaders were able to increase transparency into their operations and 94% improved their profit margins.

Last year, we embarked on the mission to reimagine integrated end-to-end business processes and experiences along the entire value chain 鈥� including SAP, partner, and third-party solutions. We laid out our cloud integration strategy and road map with delivery timelines covering 2020 and 2021.

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Integration 鈥� along with the value it brings for our customers 鈥� will continue to be one of our key priorities in 2021. In our , we share more details of the business benefits our scenarios will bring.

Integrated Business Processes, Unmatched Customer Value

In 2020, we made great strides in integrating our four core end-to-end processes that touch every business across all industries: Lead to Cash, Design to Operate, Source to Pay, and Recruit to Retire.

Customers like Orica have undergone a significant transformation over the past few years to redefine their business processes. With its 4S program, Orica consolidated its systems on 51风流S/4HANA complemented by other 51风流cloud solutions and extensions. A prerequisite when rethinking the company鈥檚 business processes was to avoid customization of the solutions. This way Orica could benefit from faster innovation delivery and a new level of transparency and efficiency across the enterprise.

In 2020, we delivered close to 350 integrations, representing more than 160% growth year-over-year. This year, we already have over 200 additional integrated business scenarios planned 鈥� and this number is growing as we speak.

But it鈥檚 not only about the number of integrations. We are particularly proud of the specific value these integrations deliver to our customers. Let鈥檚 look at some concrete examples of business outcomes. Already, customers today can:

• Handle multiple product types from physical products to services to subscription through the integration of and .
• Reduce time-to-hire by proactively collaborating on talent decisions thanks to the integration of , 51风流S/4HANA Cloud, and .
• Embed experience management at every step of the design phase to create products that customers love by integrating and Qualtrics.
• Conduct strategic sourcing by using contract management capabilities in and centralized contracts in 51风流S/4HANA to identify opportunities and improve the efficiency of negotiating their contracts.

We are also making great progress with delivering on the underlying suite qualities that serve as a strong foundation for all our integration efforts. They include elements such as:

• End-to-end process blueprints to reduce the planning effort for implementation projects and support architecture decisions
• Harmonization of domain models via to simplify the exchange of business objects and improve data consistency across applications
• Embedded analytics with 51风流Analytics Cloud, as well as customer-managed cross-product analytics using to make quick and confident decisions by relying on comprehensive analytical insights

With (51风流BTP) as the foundation for our intelligent suite applications and industry cloud, SAP has the unique ability to integrate core processes end to end. At the same time, customers can choose the integration strategy that best fits their landscape, including cloud-to-cloud and hybrid integration options. The 51风流Integration Suite offers more than to third-party cloud applications.

Intelligent Enterprise: It鈥檚 Integration and Innovation

We will continue our journey to seamlessly integrate all our solutions based on 51风流BTP; to deliver on our promise of making the Intelligent Enterprise a reality. We want to meet our customers where they are. Our customers set the pace for their own transformation.

We have heard the requests for more hybrid scenarios from customers and user groups loud and clear. We will therefore extend our efforts to hybrid integration scenarios, including existing and new developments. Quite a big portion has been delivered already — for example in — and there is much more to come in 2021.

Not only do we focus on integration as such, but also on delivering highly integrated and innovative best-in-class cloud solutions to our customers. Based on the innovation delivered over the past years, we plan to even accelerate our innovation efforts in helping customers analyze and redesign business processes and make those more intelligent. This will include process innovations around artificial intelligence (AI) using machine learning and robotic process automation to improve data-to-value.

Customers no longer need to decide between integration and innovation. With SAP, it鈥檚 not one or the other. It鈥檚 both.

Juergen Mueller is chief technology officer and member of the Executive Board of 51风流SE.
Thomas Saueressig is a member of the Executive Board of 51风流SE, Product Engineering.

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

The post Integration: Delivering on Our Promise appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

Without question, demand for 鈥渒eeping the lights on鈥� remains strong. But at the same time, many IT leaders are concerned that they are neglecting investments in innovation that could help their business seize opportunities and mitigate risk quickly and effectively.

One prime example is the debate over legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP). Organizational executives may regard modernizing this trusted software as an unnecessary budget line item when business systems work well for the user. But from the CIO鈥檚 perspective, it is a critical must-have to unify the processes and data every employee needs to make the best decisions and act in real time, enterprise wide. Most importantly, the effort can reduce the cost of long-term system maintenance and enhance operational efficiency, the customer experience, and compliance.

The value of such IT innovation ultimately depends on how every person in the enterprise 鈥� across all roles and levels 鈥� embrace it. Based on the experience of our advisory services experts working with 51风流customers worldwide, our research has identified four use cases to illustrate IT organizational best practices. These use cases may look different from each other, but they all have the same goal: to deliver on rising expectations for intelligent innovation and strengthen IT performance continuity.

Use Case 1: Structuring Toward Technology

Some 51风流customers choose to take a technology-oriented approach to their innovation processes. Consider the structure adopted by a global software company shown in figure 1 below. At first glance, the structure seems very traditional. However, if you look further down in the chart, you鈥檒l see that must-have characteristics of a modern IT landscape are supported, such as a digital core, rock-solid and intelligent operations, smart connected cloud, and innovative business models.

A dedicated team is set up to support a continuous process for enterprise architecture and innovation creation. The agile and DevOps center of expertise (COE) provides the capabilities, methodologies, and training needed to help any regional, central, and line-of-business team participate in innovation programs.

The formal organization chart shown in figure 1 was first created eight years ago and continues to guide our customer鈥檚 agile transformation today. More than 80 product teams are in place with nearly 100 defined products, and each group contains six to 10 experts who are developed and reskilled on demand. More importantly, the innovation delivered enables the company鈥檚 1,500 employees 鈥� from the front office to the back office 鈥搕o adopt more agile ways of working and making decisions.

Use Case 2: Focusing on a Specific Business Domain

Other 51风流customers prefer a business domain-oriented IT organization. In this model, the IT organization mirrors the business structure, and DevOps teams emerge and retire it on demand and as expected to deliver a well defined outcome.

For instance, a customer in the automotive industry has created stable core DevOps teams staffed by function and IT experts (see figure 2). While function experts are permanently appointed, IT experts are temporarily assigned from their home-base organization. Plus, an agile COE can be used by any team or line of business.

Use Case 3: Expanding COE Capabilities

When our customers primarily use 51风流solutions for various functions, they often structure IT by business domains and expand them with the support of COE capabilities. 51风流application and solution experts are assigned to the business area, whereas cross functions are organized in the COE structure. For one of our customers from the research and development industry, this setup enabled it to facilitate business and IT integration, as illustrated in figure 3.

51风流solutions experts with process knowledge are assigned to each business team and embedded into the support chain as second-level support. Additionally, the solution experts are responsible for customizing, making standard changes, and evaluating requirements in close cooperation with cross-functional experts in the COE.

The customer鈥檚 COE must protect the productive 51风流landscape by performing design authority for new IT demands, centralized release management, and an operation control center.

Use Case 4: Directing Product and Service Innovation

Last is the product-oriented structure. With this use case, one of our customers from the financial services industry adopted this approach to distinguish between market products, enabling products, and corporate products (see figure 4).

A significant portion of our customer鈥檚 enabling and corporate products are supported by 51风流software and technology, and IT experts from 51风流were well integrated into its business activities. Meanwhile, the company鈥檚 product areas, such as market products and specific corporate products, relied on third-party software and technologies maintained by the second larger COE within company鈥檚 IT organization. Since every product area drives agility, and innovation was a critical responsibility.

In this case, our customer鈥檚 COE is the home base for 51风流innovation and DevOps capabilities. Plus, a scaled, agile framework (SAFE) is the chose innovation methodology.

Building IT鈥檚 Future as an Innovation Best Practice Organization

Across all four of these use cases, 51风流S/4HANA is the chosen intelligent ERP that serves as the core of all data, applications, and processes. However, no one-size-fits-all strategy for implementing, using, and benefiting from the solution exists. Each company must identify an approach that best fits their structure, meets their needs, and brings the desired success.

Today鈥檚 competitive landscape is pushing companies to become more agile and renew themselves. In response, the three dimensions of innovation 鈥� technologies, capabilities, and structures 鈥� need to be rethought and reconciled. Only then will businesses emerge stronger through meaningful transformation and take advantage of the opportunities that arise in the future with confidence and ambition.

Torsten Scheffler is a business transformation consultant at SAP.

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

The post Four Ways to Turn Innovation into the Best Part of Working in an IT Organization appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

A simple Google search on this subject yields more than 400 million results, with benefits ranging from improved productivity and efficiency to increased resilience and adaptability.

But what does it really mean? Where does one start?

These are pertinent questions, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which, compared to their larger corporate siblings, have limited financial resources and skills needed to implement these solutions.

The digital transformation journey can be both daunting and complex. In a climate where聽many SMEs are trying to navigate a constrained and聽challenging post-pandemic business environment, the benefits of digital transformation offer some much needed respite.

What is the difference between digitization, digitalization and digital transformation?

It is important to distinguish between these concepts as they are often used interchangeably and can be confusing.

Let鈥檚 use the example of a security company that records footage of people entering a shopping mall and stores the video in VHS format. Digitization is converting the VHS video into digital format and storing it on a hard drive. Digitalization is uploading the digital video onto a video streaming service that allows multiple security guards to view the footage simultaneously. And digital transformation is using facial recognition to analyse the people that entered the shopping mall to solve a crime that occurred at the mall. The security company could also sell this footage to other law enforcement agencies or insurance companies, converting what would have been cold data into a new source of revenue.

While digitization is part of digital transformation, it is important to note that digital transformation is about a fundamental shift that results in value creation. It is about leveraging technology in all aspects of the business鈥� operations to fundamentally change the way it operates and delivers value to its customers. It is about rethinking and re-imagining business processes, business cultures and customer experiences to respond to changing business and market conditions.

There are two main aspects of digital transformation: it can be externally focused and aimed at improving customer interactions and outcomes, or it can be internally focused on making work easier, more engaging and more efficient for employees.

SMEs need to act quickly to future proof their businesses and make them more resilient

In the context of a tough post-pandemic business environment and in a sector where liquidity and cash flow are perennial challenges, the ability to quickly adapt to this new normal can be the difference between survival and absolute disaster.

Beyond navigating financial and operational pressures, SMEs also face substantive challenges such as business continuity and weak demand for their products and services.

The crisis is forcing SMEs to fundamentally rethink their business models, in particular how they manage remote work and interact with suppliers and customers while managing widespread uncertainty.

Technology can empower SMEs to make credible decisions and better adapt to a dynamic and unpredictable business environment. In times of heightened uncertainty, such as what we are currently experiencing, one standout technology for SMEs is Enterprise Resource Planning, commonly referred to as ERP.

Technology enabling resilience to disruption

The common misconception that technology is only accessible to large companies with big budgets is misplaced. SMEs聽can also leverage technology to drive better efficiencies, innovation and growth. In fact, compared to larger companies, SMEs are well placed to take advantage of technology. Because of their size, SMEs are more agile and are able to make decisions faster and respond to changing market conditions quicker.

In the context of SMEs, digital transformation is often misunderstood, and its benefits shrouded in mystery, despite the endless applications of technology that can deliver direct business value. In particular, the cloud removes many of the barriers to digital transformation by enabling SMEs to pay for services as they consume them and to easily integrate new services as and when they need them. This reduces the total cost of ownership and removes the need for costly upfront investments.

Connect the Dots

The purpose of implementing an ERP solution is to provide an end-to-end information management system that connects the right information, to the right people, at the right time. It helps companies manage the countless processes that make the business function effectively, such as finance, human resources, supply chain, procurement, and customer relationship management to name a few.

An ERP solution enables the smooth flow of information across the business and gives decision-makers a real-time view of the overall health of the business, with potential risks and weak spots more easily identified.

Unfortunately, some still see聽ERP solutions as聽costly, difficult to implement and with high entry barriers for SMEs. Sadly, this ignores the enormous progress made by technology providers to level the playing field by developing enterprise-grade ERP solutions for the SME market. These solutions that are born in the cloud, and take advantage the faster time-to-value that the cloud makes possible, reducing implementation times from months to weeks.

Here are five benefits that SMEs can expect from implementing an ERP solution:

An integrated business management approach

An ERP system streamlines, automates and integrates multiple sources of disparate information and business processes. This supports planning efforts by, for example, matching raw material purchases to accurate sales forecasts to minimize wastage in the supply chain.

Greater transparency, efficiency and cost-savings

ERP solutions enable SMEs to store information once and without duplication. This removes inefficiencies and enables the entire organisation to work off a single source of truth. Without an ERP system, valuable insights, such as production information used to calculate profitability may be stored in multiple silos leading to inefficiencies and potential wastage.

Decisions powered by predictive analytics and business insights

Many technology pundits have dubbed data as 鈥渢he new oil鈥�. The notion is predicated on the fact that raw oil isn鈥檛 as valuable as the final products that are produced once its processed. In the same way, data isn鈥檛 as valuable as the insights that are generated once it is analysed. ERP enables SMEs to analyse data and extract valuable insights that inform decision-making, enabling them to quickly adapt to changing market conditions.

Improved compliance, governance and data security

If data is indeed the new oil, then organisations need to take reasonable steps to safeguard it, both from a security and governance perspective. SMEs striving to comply with the POPI Act or Europe鈥檚 GDPR, for example, can leverage their ERP solution to ensure sound governance by maintaining the correct levels of access to data for various stakeholders within the business.

Accessibility of business-critical information

Cloud-based ERP systems enable business leaders to access business critical information from anywhere and at any time. In our current state of disruption, having the ability to tap into a real-time view of the total health of the business is invaluable to decision-making. The ability to securely access information about the company鈥檚 operations from any device, anywhere and at any time is also an important component of 聽business continuity.

Dumisani Moyo is Head of Mid-Market SA for 51风流Africa

The post How Enterprise Resource Planning can Help SMEs Scale appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

Several market leaders recently gathered online to share their procurement transformation experiences for an exclusive roundtable during the event. Hosted by Jo Peterson, vice president of Cloud and Security Services at Clarify360, a candid conversation covered not just the wins, but also major challenges.

Teams Dedicated to Collaboration

Like many global organizations that have grown by acquisitions, Stanley Black & Decker needed to simplify its complex technology landscape. The driver behind moving forward with 51风流S/4HANA Cloud was the decision to go with the 51风流Central Finance solution.

鈥淐reating a new instance of allowed us to provide global and consistent financial information,鈥� said Nicole Flikier, digital tools and analytics global lead at Stanley Black & Decker. 鈥淚t allowed end-users to have a better experience and single source of truth, while supporting our long-term program to have one instance of SAP.鈥�

Flikier was the first to admit that the transformation did not happen magically. Regular communication about the financial benefits united people on multiple project teams around what became a successful go live.

鈥淲ith numerous ERP systems and all that data, making sure it was harmonized was a challenge. It takes an army to do that cleansing,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e needed to communicate to the team the value of a universal global ledger鈥� Everybody knew the benefits tied to that, especially being a very financially driven company.鈥�

Flikier characterized her company鈥檚 transformation as a tremendous undertaking with aggressive timelines for every project to go live simultaneously. She credited the team鈥檚 success to having a shared project methodology and meeting localized country requirements.

Faster Turnarounds Boost User Satisfaction

According to Jinesh Parakulangara, senior manager at HPE Global IT, replacing his company鈥檚 organically grown patchwork of legacy procurement systems with a single enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform 鈥� 51风流Ariba running on 51风流S/4HANA Cloud 鈥� has saved time and increased productivity for both procurement and payables.

鈥淲e now have a more controlled, centralized procurement function鈥ith a road map to consolidate that onto a single platform,鈥� he said. 鈥淥ur business users are very happy. They just have to go into one system for global procurement operations and invoice verification, tax issues, and anything related to procure to pay.鈥�

Amazing Integration Simplifies and Streamlines

HPE went live with the new cloud-based platform in 57 countries at once, backed by extensive training for employees and suppliers as well as built-in communication and collaboration. Besides touchless invoicing, the biggest win was the simplification around master data management delivered by 51风流S/4HANA.

鈥淲ith a cloud solution, we鈥檙e getting more features introduced to us, which we didn鈥檛 have in the past when we were on premise,鈥� Parakulangara explained. 鈥淔rom a procurement standpoint, it鈥檚 really about simplification of our ordering processes. And on the finance side, with 51风流S/4HANA, we鈥檝e tightened the entire process. We truly have a single platform that takes care of our payable needs in a compliant manner. The way these systems integrate with each other is truly amazing.鈥�

Data Harmonization Well Worth It

Similar to Flikier鈥檚 experience at Stanley Black & Decker, consolidating data was a worthy challenge given the results at HPE.

鈥淪crubbing the data was a challenge, but it revealed process gaps and it鈥檚 why everything is now streamlined,鈥� Parakulangara said. 鈥淥ne of the reasons why we were able to get processes touchless is because we have brought鈥verything together from procurement to invoicing to payments all into the same platform.鈥�

He added that using 51风流best practices for core processes sped up the entire project.

Intelligence Supports Financial Discipline

Understanding the full picture of spend management is not just essential for operational continuity today; it is a business imperative to keep people productive. There is no doubt that a cloud-based system that brings together real-time information company-wide is instrumental in providing the financial discipline every intelligent enterprise needs.

Follow me: @smgaler

This article first appeared on the 51风流News Center.

The post Financially Driven Leaders Transform Procurement with 51风流Ariba and 51风流S/4HANA appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.