MTN South Africa chief enterprise business officer Kanagaratnam Lambotharan
Telecommunications group MTN is offering global enterprise software giant SAP’s Business One enterprise resource planning software to small businesses in a mobile cloud format to enable them to manage and monitor their operations in real time, says MTN South Africa chief enterprise business officer Kanagaratnam Lambotharan.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools aggregate data from company transactions and accounts to provide a holistic view of a business’s performance. However, these software tools are expensive and difficult to maintain, as they require significant infrastructure and expertise to manage on the premise.
Small businesses can now access the integrated SAP business management tool over the Internet and in a mobile format without having to install and maintain servers and infrastructure on their premises.
“This is an exciting opportunity for us to provide a service that is in demand from the small, medium-sized and microenterprise (SMME) market segment. The MTN Business ERP solution is cost effective and easy to install and set up. It is designed for industry and SMMEs and is modular to enable companies to deploy the functions they require,” says Lambotharan.
Business software and intelligence systems are helping companies to manage their productivity and profitability on a daily basis, enabling corrective measures to be implemented timeously.
“Now, with SAP Business One, small companies can also improve their performance and dynamism to respond more quickly to opportunities and mitigate threats,” says SAP Africa chief customer officer Simon Carpenter.
The MTN Business ERP system can be deployed in a cloud format or as a hybrid on-site and cloud system, should companies want to host some of the systems on site, with secondary systems hosted on MTN’s network.
The ERP system also enables companies to scale their use up or down according to business needs, with a monthly subscription paid for each user of the system, he highlights.
SAP channel and service partner Britehouse will provide support for this new cloud-hosted ERP offering, Carpenter adds.
“This partnership with MTN is our way of gaining traction in cloud-hosted ERP systems, starting in South Africa, with the aim to take this solution into Africa,” he notes.
Meanwhile, SAP provides free software development kits for companies that want to expand or design their own business management software module, enabling further customisation.
“The system will enable small companies to adhere to best practices with regard to reporting and management software and SAP can also help companies to customise the systems to their needs,” concludes Carpenter.