T-Systems in SA has signed a R66 million deal with Japanese construction and mining equipment manufacturer Komatsu, for the implementation of an end-to-end SAP solution.
The deal, in place until 2014, is set to provide the global manufacturer with new business functionality across its operations in SA, Namibia and Botswana.
The project will see Komatsu's aging “Option 3” business system being replaced with a SAP Best Practice ERP and CRM solution that is hosted off-site, at T-Systems' data centre, in Midrand. The SAP solution can be extended to support additional users, functionality and regional locations, as and when required.
T-Systems CEO Mardia van der Walt-Korsten says this project is key to the company taking a larger slice of the industrial machinery and components vertical.
“This sector is an attractive one because it comprises organisations that supply equipment to the vast majority of resource and construction-driven entities in Africa, with the resource- and construction-based verticals predicted to grow phenomenally over the coming years,” she says.
The real deal
She describes the contract as a “real ICT” deal, consisting of a complete SAP implementation that includes telecoms, systems integration and dynamic computing components.
Komatsu SA MD Mike Blom says the new hosted-SAP solution forms a vital part of the company's aim to transform all of its business processes and activities to significantly higher levels of efficiency. It is also expected to enhance the exchange of data and information with its parent company in Japan.
“We are looking forward to the speedier business response time, elimination of duplication, unification of data, improved control and surveillance of processes that the system will afford us,” he adds.
Van der Walt-Korsten says the SAP solution chosen for Komatsu will cover more than 95% of its ERP business processes and bring key advantages to its business environment. These include visibility, control, planning and forecasting.
The deal comes on the back of T-Systems' foray into the automotive sector, where it gained experience with similar implementations. This deal is most likely the biggest SAP implementation concluded in SA this year, claims Van der Walt-Korsten.
Solid growth
The company signed some significant deals this year, including a R1.8 billion Old Mutual outsourcing contact - the biggest outsourcing deal in SA's financial sector to date. It also won a R50 million outsourcing deal with consulting and actuarial firm Negotiated Benefits Consultants.
Other deals included an ICT outsourcing contract with Woolworths and a multimillion-rand contract to provide SAP-based software solutions to the Ethekwini Hospital and Heart Centre's new hospital in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.
The company is also tipped to secure arivia.kom before the end of this year, which government is in the process of privatising. T-Systems is considered the firm favourite to buy the state IT provider, which comes with two multi-year deals to service Eskom and Transnet's ICT needs.
“This has been a phenomenal year of growth for T-Systems. This year alone, we have seen a 58% growth in revenue,” says Van der Walt-Korsten, adding, however, that the growth did not come without pain.
“We are facing the challenges of having to retrain people and to ensure the T-Systems culture of service excellence gets passed down to all our employees.”
The recent IT Personality of the Year award-winner predicts that, over the next three years, the company will see a slowdown in growth, and that it will focus on establishing service delivery excellence as a value proposition.
Meanwhile, she says several more “exciting” deals are in the pipeline.
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