Now is the time to set yourself up for the future of best practices (by Dr. Ibrahim Abduba)
Within an enterprise, a wholesale culture shift is needed for digitalisation
to take hold and be used to its full efficiency-boosting potential
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, June 3, 2020/ -- By Dr. Ibrahim Abduba, ERPM Strategy and Business Development Leader – East & West Africa at Oracle
It has been said over and over by a multitude of business systems
experts. One of the greatest barriers to digital transformation is not
technological. It is human resistance to change. Within an enterprise, a wholesale culture shift is needed for digitalisation to take hold and
be used to its full efficiency-boosting potential.
Of course, enterprises are now operating in a context of forced,
unprecedented change beyond the scenarios covered in most business
continuity plans. Who projected that we would one day be in a situation
where essentially everything would close at the same time, crippling
supply chains? Or that a company’s workforce would be mandated to stay
home, with no access to on-premise systems? Businesses need new
solutions to ensure business continuity in the current economic climate, recover quickly and ensure operational resilience in the “next normal”
beyond COVID-19.
The time is ripe for change, but it demands a greater embrace of new
perspectives. These newer attitudes have been slowly taking root in
Africa. First, there was the move from manual to automated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) (https://bit.ly/3cohBuI) applications. This led to the realisation over the past decade that
cloud-based systems drive greater operational agility than their
on-premise equivalent, allowing enterprises to operate efficiently and
securely, even across borders.
As an example, Bank of Kigali Plc (https://bit.ly/3ctrO99) in Rwanda has leveraged cloud-based functionality such as end-to-end
process automation to reduce costs, improve scalability and innovate
customer offerings.
Despite such success stories, many companies continue to cling to the
mindset of “I have my own customised ERP, and it works for me; I’m not
giving it up.” That attitude is understandable, but current challenges
prove traditional ERPs lack the flexibility to overcome them
efficiently. Rigidity is simply not contemporary best practice.
Even before the current crisis, Steve Cox, Oracle’s Group Vice President for ERP EPM Product Marketing, referred to the future of best practices as being one of less work, more automation and better outcomes (https://bit.ly/304lJNS). The wider business context has, of course, shifted, but evolving
technology remains key to unlocking business benefits, such as greater
speed and cost savings.
Best practice is also continually being disrupted and redefined by
emerging technologies. We see artificial intelligence (AI) and machine
learning (ML) well entrenched in Oracle Cloud applications now,
producing insights from big data, automatically maintaining systems and
underpinning chatbots. Becoming similarly commonplace in enhancing
everyday work processes are the likes of blockchain, Internet of Things
(IoT) and augmented reality (AR), with the first two having special
advantages for supply chain management (SCM).
Even with expensive IT upgrade cycles, old on-premise platforms may
battle to integrate with such new solutions. By contrast, through cloud, enterprises can instantly leverage the latest best-in-class
technologies, which connect seamlessly because of already considered
integration capabilities. The cost of continual upgrades goes away, and
it becomes easier to predict spend and calculate budgets.
With continual cycles of disruption the new business “normal,” the
ability to accurately predict and prepare has become the best practice
for enterprises. Cloud ERP offers users the ability to effortlessly pull together data sets across a business for better insights that drive
scenario planning and optimisation strategies. At the same time, an
organisation’s human talent is liberated to focus on innovation instead
of losing their workdays to mundane manual tasks like report generation
and transaction processing.
Leveraging these capabilities, and more, does not require reinventing
the wheel. To make an enterprise truly future-ready, and minimise
unpredictable risk, starts with overcoming attitude barriers.
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