It's been three years since the team from EOH Western Cape first began its work at British American Tobacco (BAT) South Africa.
Tom Du Plessis, principal consultant: EOH Western Cape, says this implementation of BAT's SAP portal has led to the team's increased involvement at the company, growing EOH's service offering to the company throughout.
"While proactivity on our part has had much to do with establishing this partnership, I believe the mutual respect and benefits we enjoy today are as a direct result of the fantastic relationship we have fostered."
When EOH first started working with BAT about three years ago, it was for the sole purpose of implementing and optimising a SAP portal for the company. EOH's goal is always to create an open, honest relationship so as to ensure a successful implementation.
"The key to this was communication - being completely honest about our abilities and delivery throughout. While this sometimes involved difficult conversations about unrealistic deadlines and expectations in terms of the portal, these are the very meetings that arguably set us on the road to becoming BAT's preferred supplier."
Over the years, EOH has subsequently become far more involved on BAT's portal and in other business areas. Today the BAT portal supports a wide variety of business functions and processes, and is an indispensable business enabler within the company. "The portal has increased BAT's security, improved employee access, and reduced maintenance, training and support."
As to the future? EOH has just embarked on a new and exciting journey together with BAT's global GSD team. BAT has decided to implement Skyway as a Java software development tool with EOH's assistance.
Du Plessis explains: "Skyway takes Java software development to a whole new level of efficiency, and will allow BAT to quickly transition from the traditional silo systems approach to true SOA. We have been very busy with readying ourselves for this initiative and we, as well as Skyway USA, are well on our way to help realise BAT's dream."
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EOH is a business and technology solutions provider creating lifelong partnerships by developing business and IT strategies, supplying and implementing solutions and managing enterprise-wide business systems and processes for medium to large clients.
EOH operates in the following three clusters of business units as a fully integrated business:
Technology - Through a number of subsidiary companies, EOH is able to sell, implement and support a range of world-class business applications including ERP, CRM, business intelligence, advanced planning and scheduling, e-commerce and manufacturing execution systems.
Consulting - Concentrated under the EOH Consulting brand are business units offering services ranging from strategic and business process consulting, project services, change management, supply chain optimisation and education.
Outsourcing - EOH offers comprehensive maintenance and support of client's IT infrastructure and applications through the rendering of full IT outsourcing, application hosting and managed services. In addition, EOH offers full business process outsourcing services.
EOH has a presence in all major centres in South Africa and operates in the rest of Africa.