E-business is undoubtedly the flavour of world economies currently, but what is the fuss all about and is it relevant to Africa?
According to Tim Toussaint, general manager for Africa at leading inter-enterprise software solutions provider, SAP Africa, it is. "The Internet is unprecedented in history, it encourages new standards, new front-ends, and - most importantly - new business models.
"African companies can take advantage of this growing market, predicted by Forrester Research to be worth some $59 billion globally by the end of 2000, and compete effectively on the world stage by linking their business systems into global marketplaces and supply chains."
This, in fact, is what many B2B (Business-to-Business) advocates preach. SAP should know: they dominate the market for the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, which underlie many successful e-businesses. Tightly integrating front- and back-office processes, SAP's systems enable businesses to work together seamlessly with suppliers, customers, and prospects by facilitating real-time collaboration.
This seamless collaboration has the potential to significantly reduce costs by optimising the entire supply chain. "Although the Internet itself is merely a technical infrastructure, it changes the methods of conducting business," says Faheem Ahmed, product marketing manager for Africa at SAP. "Collaborative business is the biggest thing to hit us since personal computing, and SAP's e-business offering, mySAP.com is without question the single most powerful collaborative e-business (c-business) solution on the market."
At the core of mySAP.com are powerful programs for accounting and controlling, production and materials management, quality management and plant maintenance, sales and distribution, human resources management, and project management.
Information and early warning systems are also available, while a Business Information Warehouse conveniently edits external and internal data to support decision-making at all corporate levels. Customer Relationship Management modules round out the suite by enabling companies to intelligently automate, integrate, and leverage their relations with customers.
Topping it all is a snazzy web-enabled enterprise portal dubbed the mySAP.com Workplace. "Everything the user needs to do their job is featured in the workplace," says Ahmed. "E-mail, group calendars, business scenarios from SAP, legacy applications... everything can run within this single interface. But what is really amazing is how easy it is to participate in the global mySAP.com Marketplace."
The mySAP.com Marketplace is an open electronic hub, providing both services and integration for enterprises and business professionals to collaborate across business processes, conduct commerce and interact in professional communities. Access, acquisition and dissemination of knowledge and process integration across company boundaries are greatly enhanced by the mySAP.com Marketplace.
Says Ahmed: "Instead of having to rely on independent buying and selling systems, companies can collaborate to greatly improve internal and external business relationships. The structure of the mySAP.com Marketplace is based on 24 communities of interest - 20 focused on specific industries and four concentrated on topics that cross industry boundaries - with more communities to be featured later."
SAP solutions are hard at work in some vertically structured industries. For example, banking and insurance businesses are using mySAP.com to co-ordinate revenue and risk management and optimally manage their financial assets. Manufacturing companies use mySAP.com because it simultaneously supports several types of production. Special enhancements to the system enable government agencies to make their services more efficient and cost-effective, while many utilities use it to reorganise their business processes and improve the quality of their services.
"More than 50% of SAP R/3 installations are in small and medium-size companies today," adds Toussaint. "These examples illustrate the versatility that has persuaded companies in over 90 countries around the globe to adopt SAP R/3."
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