Tracy Bolton, Chief Operating Officer at SAP Africa, says the additional skills capacity comes at a critical time for the region.

“Ongoing economic uncertainty, inflationary pressures and the impact of new technologies such as Generative AI are creating challenges for organisations seeking to unlock growth and drive innovation. With this latest group of candidates, organisations gain access to work-ready cloud and technology skills that can support their digital transformation efforts.”

Market challenges drive need for digital skills

Organisations throughout Southern Africa are beset with multiple challenges to their growth. Economic growth in the region stood at 2.7% in 2022, well below the global growth of 3.4% and the 3.8% growth experienced throughout Africa.

Business leaders are also striving to meet sustainability targets and deal with the impact of disruptive technologies, including the emergence of Generative AI and its application in a broad range of business cases.

However, organisations are hampered in their efforts at deploying technology to support their response to challenges through a pervasive tech skills shortage.

In skills research conducted by SAP, nearly eight in ten (78%) organisations in the region said a lack of tech skills had impacted them in the past twelve months, with a lack of innovation, delays with completing projects, and a loss of clients to competitors among the most common impacts.

Graduates ready to make impact

The SAP Young Professionals Program, offered by the Digital Skills Center of SAP, is aimed at enabling young talent to utilise the latest SAP technology and innovation.

The program covers software functional and technical knowledge and certification, with a strong focus on the latest technologies and a range of soft skills to ease entry into the workplace.

This latest cohort received training on SAP S/4HANA Cloud (public edition), SAP’s flagship enterprise resource planning solution, as well as SAP Activate and SAP Business Process Integration. In addition, graduates developed a broad range of soft skills, including design thinking, interpersonal skills, interview skills, and business model innovation methodology.

Candidates took part in training between early-July and end-August, and were chosen from a pool of candidates in South Africa and Zimbabwe. The full program took place virtually, allowing a broader range of candidates to take part.

Letlolo Baloyi, who is one of the graduates in this latest group, says: “The SAP Young Professionals Program has been nothing short of a catalyst for my personal and professional growth. Through a meticulously crafted blend of immersive learning experiences, mentorship, and hands-on projects, the program has equipped me with a comprehensive understanding of SAP’s innovative technologies and their real-world applications.”

Since its launch in 2012, the SAP Young Professionals Program has trained and graduates more than 4100 candidates across 41 countries, including over 1900 in Africa alone.

Bolton adds:

“The program is aimed at supporting our customers and partners in the region by ensuring they have access to essential skills needed to benefit from their investment into technology, and forms part of our broader global commitment to promoting education and entrepreneurship. We wish the graduates well and look forward to the positive impact they will make at their new workplaces.”

Gartner predicts that worldwide spending on public cloud services will grow 20.7% to reach $591.8-billion in 2023, outpacing the 18.8% growth forecast for 2022.

However, says Cameron Beveridge, Regional Director for Southern Africa at SAP, moving to cloud environments requires effective change management to ensure digital transformation initiatives reach their objectives. “There is palpable excitement around cloud services in African markets, but there are still questions around how to effectively migrate and how to orchestrate multiple cloud solutions once the migration is complete. And while it’s true that one of the main benefits of cloud services is the ability to fail quickly without incurring huge cost or time overruns, you really don’t want your cloud initiative to fail due to poor change management.”

Studies have highlighted the importance of effective change management to the success of digital transformation initiatives. McKinsey data indicates that less than a third of digital transformation initiatives succeed worldwide. This is partly due to poor change management, of which barely a third (34%) are clear successes.

Methodology, Partners reduce perils of Cloud Migrations

Brent Flint, Head of Enterprise Applications at Dimension Data, believes part of the answer to effective change management during cloud transformation projects rests on an effective methodology. “Migrating core business processes from on-premise environments to the cloud requires a proven methodology to accelerate the transition and reduce associated risks. A repeatable methodology that incorporates automation to ensure aspects such as data integrity, for example, can ease data migration and speed up the time-to-value.”

SAP introduced RISE with SAP in 2021 to help companies get started with SAP cloud solutions, accelerate cloud adoption, and simplify the process of shifting core business processes to cloud environments. “Companies undertaking digital transformation initiatives that could benefit from RISE need to ensure their implementation partners are accredited and have the skills capacity to support the project throughout,” explains Flint.

Beveridge adds that companies that successfully leverage the insight, skills and experience of partner organisations can reduce risk and enhance the impact and business outcomes of their transformation efforts. “Companies are realising that cloud adoption is not a once-off event: it requires near-continuous refinement and evolution to deliver business value. This makes the role of expert partners, who have developed experience with specific use cases of cloud technologies and can guide organisations in their adoption of cloud solutions, critical to their success.”

Keys to cloud success

Understanding how and where the journey to the cloud should start remains among the biggest obstacles to the digital transformation efforts of African organisations.

Lauren Wortmann, Vice President: Applications at Dimension Data, says there’s still some resistance to the cloud among organisations limiting the success of cloud transformation projects. “Cloud adoption is a business-critical activity, but the optimal starting point is not always clear. Many organisations and their IT teams also acknowledge that the shift to cloud is coming, but there’s internal resistance due to fear about how it will affect the business and existing IT skills.”

Arguably the most important factor when developing a cloud strategy is defining a clear business case for cloud adoption. “Cloud is not just about cost efficiency,” says Wortmann. “It’s about modernising the business and its core processes, unlocking new opportunities, enhancing capabilities and achieving broader digital transformation. For this to be successful, there needs to be massive buy-in from the business at every layer, from the boardroom to the IT department and every end-user.”

The era of large on-premise deployments was typified by big winners and big losers, but the new era of cloud has changed the dynamic entirely. Flint explains: “In the old days, if you defined the scope of the project correctly upfront and quoted accurately, you could deliver a successful implementation that delivered new capabilities and was profitable to the technology provider and their implementation partner. The era of cloud requires a change of mindset. Today, tech vendors and partner organisations need to strive for near-continuous innovation, with KPIs around unlocking additional business value from existing technologies built into managed services contracts. It puts the onus on partners to unlock features and benefits from software, with the goal of ongoing value generation.”

Wortmann adds that companies should be smart when choosing how they start their cloud journey. “Aspects such as Human Capital Management are perfect starting points for cloud adoption, with solutions like SAP SuccessFactors offering a high-value, low-risk way to test how cloud migration plays out in the organisation. Larger, more critical business processes such as core finance, sales and logistics carry high degrees of risk due to fears of disruption and business continuity in the event of downtime.”

Flint believes one of the keys to successful cloud adoption is simplification. “Organisations should work with their partners to understand their application landscape and identify opportunities for simplification. Reducing customisation can also keep things simple while driving costs down. Partners need to avoid customisation to limit technical debt and achieve quicker time to value. Adopting best-practice standards for core business processes opens the door to incremental innovation which can suit cloud-first companies better.”

Beveridge says this requires a change in mindset to how digital transformation initiatives are approached, both by customers and partners. “The most successful tech partners will be the ones that develop strong commercial models that meet customers’ expectations of what value digital transformation projects should deliver. However, there’s no blueprint for how this should work. Organisations should work closely with tech providers and implementation partners to develop strong business use cases and change management programmes to ensure each initiative delivers business value and unlocks new capabilities, efficiencies and opportunities for growth.”

A growing wealth of evidence shows that sustainability has become a mainstream business and societal issue. Leading companies are embracing sustainability not only to reduce harmful practices but also to accelerate business transformation while protecting and creating value.

Bloomberg reports that the value of total ESG assets may reach $50-trillion by 2025, accounting for a third of total assets under management globally. This is nearly double the $22.8-trillion in ESG assets under management in 2016.

Effective sustainability-led business transformation creates long-term value for organisations as well as the communities and environment in which they operate. And when sustainability is embraced, it drives innovation across the business, leading to benefits for employees, customers, communities and investors.

However, there isn’t really a template for sustainability that can be repeated across businesses and industries. Each business needs to find tailored approaches to sustainability that take into account its industry, customers, business model and geographical market.

And nowhere is this more apparent than in the energy sector.

Energy market shows complexity of sustainability

The latest data from the International Energy Agency shows the global consumer energy bill topped $10-trillion for the first time in 2022.

Amid growing demand for reliable energy from a global population that has swelled past the eight billion mark and severe energy constraints resulting from the conflict in Ukraine, many countries have had to rethink their energy mix.

At or near the top of priority lists is the transition to cleaner, more sustainable and less environmentally-damaging forms of power generation, mostly from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

Calls for a ‘just transition’ have grown over the past few years as devastating storms, widespread flooding and extreme temperatures bring home the distinct dangers of a warming climate.

The World Economic Forum reports that global energy investment reached $2.4-trillion in 2022, of which a record $1.4-trillion is investments into clean energy. However, most of that investment stemmed from more developed Western economies.

In emerging markets, investments into clean energy are more complex, partly due to the availability of natural resources, where fossil fuels such as coal are easy to mine and readily available.

To achieve sustainability goals in emerging markets while still driving growth and economic progress, organisations need to develop smart, tailored strategies. But it can be challenging to understand where to start.

Sustainability requires tailored strategies in emerging markets

Developed countries have already leveraged carbon-intensive forms of energy to build their industries and boost their economic growth.

A transition to cleaner energy is arguably much easier in developed economies than their emerging market peers, where many of the developmental gains enjoyed by Western economies are still to be realised.

Much of Africa is still in a process of industrialisation and urbanisation, a transition that developed economies have long since completed. To build industries, support economic development and accommodate a rapidly growing population, African countries need access to affordable, readily available forms of energy.

This means that fossil fuels will likely remain a core part of the energy mix across much of Africa, especially in industries such as manufacturing and mining, where wind and solar power simply can’t provide the baseload energy needed for production.

Take mining as an example. The mining industry has traditionally been among the leading consumers of energy. As energy capacity becomes increasingly constrained, especially in countries like South Africa, mining operations have had to reduce their reliance on the national grid and build their own stable power supply.

This has led to huge investment into solar energy as a means of keeping the lights on. The power generated through solar helps power mining fleets and support the running of the entire operation. Some mining companies have even invested in hydrogen-powered vehicles as a means of reducing reliance on the grid.

However, solar power cannot provide the power needed for energy intensive processes such as smelting. For these processes, mines and manufacturers still need to rely on less sustainable forms of power.

Plotting a viable course for sustainability

Understanding the need to balance sustainability with business viability, how can African organisations start their journey toward sustainability in a way that still drives successful business outcomes?

Firstly, sustainability does not mean sacrificing profits. In fact, companies that successfully integrate sustainability into their strategies can potentially unlock a broad range of benefits, including increased revenue, reduced material expenses, reduced utility and fuel expenses, greater employee productivity and talent retention, and reduced hiring expenses.

Secondly, companies that can effectively manage their ESG (Environmental, Societal and Governance) risks can see a boost to their reputation, improved management of tax costs, and greater scope for investment to unlock long-term value.

Incorporating sustainability into the core business strategy therefore holds the potential to deliver immense benefits, and should be a top priority for business leaders.

Third, when developing a business case for sustainability, organisations need to take a three- to five-year approach, which provides enough time to allow for new initiatives to gain the traction needed to yield results.

The business case should be developed in alignment with core elements of the company income statement to ensure each sustainability benefit is directly tied to a measurable business outcome.

Funding for sustainability initiatives should come from existing line items in operational budgets, similar to how aspects such as marketing, education, and communication are budgeted for. Savings achieved through reduced material and utility expenses or reduced hiring expenses can be allocated to fund further sustainability efforts, unlocking additional cost savings.

Finally, organisations should understand that remaining trapped in the inertia created by unsustainable business models will make it difficult to succeed as they lose loyalty, talent, customers and market share to their more sustainable peers.

By proactively making sustainability a core part of their business strategy, African organisations can discover new sources of competitive advantage for all stakeholders.

Cathy Smith, Managing Director at SAP Africa, says there is an urgent need to invest in skills development and training to ensure Africa can capitalise on its youth dividend.

“More than half of the world’s population growth between now and 2050 will take place in Africa, where 1.3-billion people are expected to be born by mid-century. With the correct investment in skills development, Africa’s economy could transition away from its reliance on natural resources to build the world’s future tech workforce, bringing untold economic and social benefit to the continent and its citizens. However, as our research reveals, African organisations still face some difficulties with attracting, retaining and upskilling suitably skilled tech workers.”

The research was conducted among organisations in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Negative impact due to lack of tech skills

The ‘Africa’s Tech Skills Scarcity Revealed‘ report found that a lack of skills is having a negative effect on the continent’s digital transformation efforts.

Four in five organisations surveyed reported some negative effect from a lack of tech skills, with 41% reporting that employees are leaving due to the pressures they experience as a result of understaffing.

Other consequences include not being able to meet client needs (reported by 46%), reduced capacity for innovation (53%), and losing customers to competitors (60%).

Nearly all organisations expected to experience a tech skills -related challenge in 2023. More than two-thirds (69%) also said they expect to experience a skills gap in the year ahead.

According to the data, the top skills challenge for African organisations is attracting skilled new recruits, although in South Africa the retention of skilled employees narrowly edged out attracting skills as the top challenge.

Co-creating a new world of work

In response to the ongoing tech skills challenges, organisations are taking bold steps to ensure they have access to the correct tech skills. Forty-one percent said that upskilling of existing employees would be a top priority in 2023, while 40% said the same about reskilling employees.

“Companies are also adopting technology tools and flexible work practices to ensure they can attract, retain and mobilise the correct mix of tech skills,” says Smith. “Seven in ten organisations currently use a human capital management or employee experience tool, while nearly half (45%) of companies were open to remote work, although most want employees to be in the office at least some of the time. This new workplace dynamic will require leaders to co-create new models for work, with constant collaboration with employees to ensure alignment with company objectives and culture.”

The ‘Africa’s Tech Skills Scarcity Revealed‘ report further found that the most in-demand skills include cybersecurity and data analytics (63%), developer and industry skills (49%), and digital transformation skills (48%). More than two-thirds (69%) cited technical skills as an important attribute when recruiting, while 66% said industry-specific skills were important to them.

Change management gap persists

The change management skills so essential to successful digital transformation were not highly prized among the companies surveyed, revealing an opportunity for smarter investment in specific skills to improve the outcomes of initiatives. Only 18% of companies cited change management as an in-demand skill.

“Studies have shown that fewer than a third of digital transformation projects succeed, partly due to the fact that only 34% of change management projects are clear successes,” says Smith. “For a continent that is rapidly transforming through the accelerated adoption of digital technologies, ensuring effective change management could greatly improve outcomes and equip organisations with new capabilities to drive growth and innovation.”

Other key findings from the report include:

1. Kenyan organisations are more upbeat about their skills prospects than Nigerian or South African organisations:

Only 53% of Kenyan organisations expect to experience a skills gap in the next year, compared to 80% of Nigerian companies and 73% of South African organisations.

2. Kenyan organisations are more likely to expect employees to work in the office all the time:

37% of Kenyan organisations want employees in-office full-time, compared to 23% of organisations in Nigeria and only 13% of South African ones.

3. The top tech skills challenge for African organisations is attracting sufficiently-skilled new recruits, except in South Africa:

Organisations in Kenya and Nigeria cite attracting skilled new recruits as their top tech skills challenge in 2023, but in South Africa the top challenge is retaining skilled tech workers.

4. South African organisations place a greater premium on digital transformation skills:

Digital transformation skills were cited by 70% of South African companies as an in-demand skill, compared to only 33% of organisations in Kenya and Nigeria.

5. Nigerian companies are experiencing the impact of a lack of tech skills to a greater extent:

All Nigerian companies surveyed said they’d suffered a negative impact due to a lack of tech skills, compared to 60% in Kenya and 78% in South Africa.

The SAP’s report is now available to assist African organisations with understanding the current state of tech skills challenges.

The full report can be found here: Market Research Project: Africa’s Tech Skills Scarcity Revealed.

The last few years have revealed the futility of making predictions about what lies ahead. In our uncertain times, the only guarantee is that the world will keep changing, with change coming at an ever-accelerating rate.

Faced with a sharp downturn in global economic growth, continued disruption to global supply chains from the pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine, and continued labour market instability, businesses will have their hands full in 2023. 

However, for leaders navigating the turbulent waters ahead, it helps to keep an eye on some of the main risks lying in wait. 

While there is no blueprint for how to successfully deal with the following three issues, I believe greater awareness of the task ahead may help leaders develop suitable strategies to ensure businesses and their employees can stay the course in the coming months.

In 2023, the number one task for businesses is learning to adapt to three significant forces shaping the landscape, namely:

1. Dealing with uncertainty and disruption

The challenging economic climate and ongoing uncertainty is calling for greater efficiency across markets and industries. 

According to the latest UN data, world output growth is expected to slow to 1.9% in 2023, down from an estimated 3% in 2022. And no economy is immune: GDP growth in the US is expected to be a paltry 0.4% and only 0.2% in the EU. The outlook for developing countries is no better.

For leaders, this instability will force greater focus on keeping the business in balance. Constraints on the global supply chain will require greater investment into technologies that can increase end-to-end visibility, greater predictability and efficiency. 

Leaders also need to acknowledge that there is no return to pre-pandemic conditions. Consumer habits have fundamentally changed.

The way people purchase products, seek information, and engage with brands will continue to evolve. To meet these challenges, leaders need to improve their ability to deal with uncertainty and disruption.

2. Finding the perfect balance in leadership

The past few years have been especially tough on leaders. Coming to grips with the ‘new normal’ has meant a complete realignment of how to deal with customers, how to manage employees, how to enable remote and hybrid work environments, and how to deal with unprecedented change.

These challenges have taken their toll on leaders, as can be evidenced by the recent resignation of New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern.

Leaders, exhausted after several years of disruption and non-stop crisis management, may experience burnout, reducing their leadership capacity and putting additional pressure on organisations trying to navigate turbulent waters.

This year, leaders will need to dig deep, balancing empathy toward employees with the increasingly pressurised requirements of running a business. 

This will demand higher levels of collaboration and co-creation, with the optimal leadership approach bringing in different perspectives to build policies and processes that can ride the waves of change while driving the business forward.

However, leaders will need to extend that same empathy to themselves. Leading organisations through turbulent times requires superb fitness and high degrees of physical and mental wellbeing. Much like the pilot of an airliner needs to put on their own oxygen mask before helping passengers during an emergency, so too must leaders take care of themselves to ensure they can stay the course and lead the business through adversity.

3. Helping employees find sure footing in the new world of work

Nowhere has the disruptive effect of the past few years become more visible than in the way we work. Since 2020, nearly every business on the planet has had to radically change their workplace models to accommodate remote and hybrid work.

As pandemic pressures ease, there are growing calls for a return to full office work among businesses. Companies that have seen their cultures diluted, their teams scattered, and their office buildings standing empty will be hungry for a return to the office.

However, employees are unlikely to sacrifice the gains achieved over the past few years. Employees have seen during the lockdown periods that they can remain productive and achieve the desired outcomes outside the confines of corporate headquarters. Why sit in rush-hour traffic for hours only to get to an office to perform tasks that could just as easily be done from home? 

This year, leaders will need to embrace a consultative approach and co-create the new world of work with regular input from employees. An openness to shorter workdays, a reduced work week, hybrid and remote work models will give leaders the flexibility to meet employee demands, which must to be balanced with the business’ own interests. 

There is no handbook for leaders to follow in 2023 that will allow them to successfully navigate the looming challenges. Instead, successful leaders will need an approach that provides opportunities for co-creating the ideal work environment, one that can withstand the disruptive forces of change while mobilising employees behind common goals that drive the business toward success. 

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The retail industry is one of the few sectors of the economy that emerged from the pandemic relatively unscathed.

Despite depressed consumer confidence levels, rising inflation and the increasing cost of living that could have had a severely negative effect on the sector, the latest BER Retail Survey found that retail confidence in South Africa actually improved in Q3.

The recently concluded Black Friday promotion period is another ray of optimism for the sector. According to NielsenIQ, Black Friday sales are expected to again surpass Christmas sales in South Africa this year.

The consumer research company found that the 2021 Black Friday week surpassed the biggest festive season sales week, with sales of fast-moving consumer goods baskets 23% higher than the average of all other month-end weeks in 2021.

Smart adoption of tech driving retail innovation

While bargain-hunting by cash-strapped consumers certainly contributed to the retail success of Black Friday and other promotional periods, there are larger forces at play. The retail sector’s resilience in the face of severe disruption can also be ascribed to its accelerated adoption of digital technologies that has unlocked new innovations.

For example, the Shoprite Group’s omni-channel retail offerings saw a rapid release of its on-demand delivery service Sixty60 across South Africa. Despite only launching in 2020, Sixty60 claimed a 75% market share in the final quarter of 2021.

Its appeal to the always-on Gen Z consumers entering the customer pool has helped establish Sixty60 as the dominant force in on-demand grocery services, beating out more established competitors.

The fulfilment of online grocery purchases could see retailers introduce their own delivery services, as Sixty60 has done. But other retailers have pursued partnerships to avoid having to invest in new processes and infrastructure. Retailers can provide an excellent customer experience by establishing smart partnerships with expert fulfilment partners.

Africa’s largest e-commerce retailer Jumia recently announced a ground-breaking partnership with instant delivery service Zipline to employ the use of drones to enable quick on-demand deliveries.

German drone delivery service Wingcopter also recently announced plans to deploy 12 000 drones across 49 countries in Africa to aid delivery.

The blending of physical and online retail is also giving rise to new customer experiences. South African retailer Woolworths recently piloted a new service where customers can virtually try on clothes or makeup to see how they’d look before they make a purchase.

As adoption of online commerce accelerates over the coming years, customers can expect to see more innovation in how retailers leverage technology to deliver great customer experiences.

Beating retail adversity

It’s not all good news for retailers though. Most retailers face severe disruptions to their supply chains. A recent survey among US business leaders found that ongoing supply chain issues are causing widespread challenges, including a decrease in revenue (58%), inability to pay employees (50%), and the need for new financing measures such as business loans (54%).

Supply chain gridlocks stemming from lockdown pressures in China means retailers can’t always ensure products are on the shelf.

This is giving rise to retailers increasing their stock thresholds just in case supply chain issues cause product shortages .

Many retailers are also pushing into new product and service categories. For example, Shoprite’s money market account, designed for cost-sensitive consumers and launched in 2020, has already claimed two million customers.

The appeal of the service is two-fold: there are almost no account fees aside from a R5 withdrawal fee, and customers can do their banking while in-store grocery shopping.

3 priorities for retail success in 2023

Retailers can continue their golden run in the year ahead by focusing on a small handful of key priorities.

Firstly, retailers can enhance their use of big data and analytics to guide the development of new services and innovation. Many retailers have a wealth of customer purchase data that can be mined for insight into personalised products, offers and experiences.

Whether purchasing online or in-store, customers seek personalised shopping experiences tailored to their needs and preferences. This can take the form of personalised marketing offers, discounts or rewards, and ensuring product suggestions and sales items are relevant to each customer.

Clothing retailers can take it a step further by tracking customer purchases to understand what styles and types of clothing a customer prefers, and offer similar products or even offer to tailor-make clothing items based on the customer’s preferences, body type, and more.

Secondly, retailers could develop tailored subscription services for certain types of customers.

For example, a pharmacy retailer could use loyalty data to better understand which customers are purchasing baby products. Because of the repeatable nature of purchases such as nappies and baby formula, a smart retailer could introduce a subscription service to qualifying customers that ensures a regular delivery of key baby items.

This would ensure repeat business for the retailer while giving new parents a positive customer experience by removing the need to constantly go to the shop to stock up on essentials.

Finally, retailers should enhance their human capital management capabilities. With customer expectations for great personalised service at an all-time high, retailers that want to win the hearts and minds of customers need to ensure in-store staff can deliver a consistently great customer experience.

It’s no longer enough that in-store staff simply stock shelves and process purchases. Smart retailers will invest in attracting and retaining top talent to ensure in-store staff can provide helpful information, guidance and support to customers during their purchases.

Retailers may choose to partner with technology providers that have the experience and global insight to guide how technology is deployed to assist with the above three priorities. For retailers that get it right, there is practically no limit to their success over the coming years.

Cathy Smith, Managing Director at SAP Africa, says: “Sandi has been an integral part of our organisation’s financial operations for more than a decade, where she has led various transformation initiatives while playing a pivotal role in supporting our business as we drive digital transformation across the African continent. We wish her well in her new role and look forward to her expert guidance and support in the coming months.”

The appointment comes at a time when SAP is changing its business model to focus more heavily on cloud services in its efforts at better supporting the digital transformation efforts of African small, medium and large enterprises.

Sandi De Souza says she is excited to play a guiding role in the company’s transition. “As an organisation we are at a pivotal moment of our journey as we set a new course for the future. I am proud to be part of the team that is helping drive transformation across our finance functions to provide the needed support as SAP transitions to its exciting new cloud-first path.”

Since joining SAP in 2005, de Souza has held numerous senior positions in SAP’s finance, sales and operations departments, including as Head of Licence Management and Commercial Director for Africa.

De Souza is a Chartered Accountant CA(SA) and holds a Master’s of Business Administration from Henley Business School.

Sandi De Souza will focus on supporting SAP’s growth by improving customer centricity, process excellence and people development through the development of agile and scalable financial service delivery models across the continent.

Cameron Beveridge, Regional Director for Southern Africa at SAP, believes corporate leaders are having to balance traditional business objectives such as revenue and profit with the demands of the modern economy that include building a healthy company culture, playing a positive role in society and being a good corporate citizen.

“The lines are being redrawn around what employees, customers and broader society expect of a modern business, especially as it relates to a company’s role in building a more equitable and sustainable world. Present trends indicate that we are moving toward a situation where environmental sustainability, fair employment practices and societal value trump pure profitability.”

Businesses have traditionally focused on creating maximum value for shareholders, and short-term financial profitability continues to be vital to a company’s growth and success. 

However, as the mounting costs and headline-grabbing impact of climate change starts affecting more people in developed and emerging economies, consumers are increasingly demanding that companies also make positive contributions to the environment and vulnerable communities. 

Looking beyond quarterly results

Studies have found that 84% of global consumers try to shop from companies that support causes they care about, while another study revealed that two-thirds of consumers and 73% of Millennials globally are willing to pay more for a sustainable brand. 

“There is growing recognition that companies need to shift their focus from purely delivering quarterly results that drive the share price, to ensuring they minimise their impact on the environment and prioritise creating healthy company cultures, ensuring adequate worker pay, and act as exemplars or enablers of more sustainable business practices,” explains Beveridge. “If your positive quarterly financial results were achieved on the back of environmental devastation, for example, consumers today are more likely than ever to abandon you for a more equitable-minded competitor.”

There are solid economic reasons for building sustainability into a company’s business model. One study found that companies with positive Environmental, Societal and Governance records produced higher returns, had a greater likelihood of becoming high-quality stocks, and were less likely to go bankrupt than their less ESG-focused peers.

“Business leaders still need to produce solid bottom-line results and ensure the financial sustainability of the business,” says Beveridge. “This is forcing them into a delicate balancing act where the correct course of action is not always clear, adding pressure to decision-makers already besieged by the disruptive impact of the pandemic, a constrained global supply chain, and growing economic pressures. Even the World Economic Forum, highlighting the importance for the private sector to look beyond the bottom line, put the onus squarely on business leaders to figure out the correct balance between short- and long-term priorities.”

The new talent battlefield

One of the most obvious examples of the new business balancing act is in workplace culture and employee engagement. During the early stages of the pandemic, businesses around the world shifted to remote models that saw millions of workers performing their day-to-day tasks away from the confines of corporate offices.

“The past two years have marked a greater shift in how we work than the two decades preceding it,” says Beveridge. “In the services industry, workers who previously completed their tasks within an office space under the watchful gaze of managers and HR specialists were suddenly asked to maintain high levels of productivity from home. Now that offices are reopening, many of these formerly office-bound employees now prefer to work remotely at least some of the time, creating new challenges in attracting, motivating and retaining top talent.”

The shift in how people view work came under the spotlight when millions of US workers shifted to more fulfilling or more accommodating jobs in a process dubbed the Great Resignation. “This shift in expectations of what people want from their jobs is forcing companies to rethink their company cultures, their salary packages, and the types of support they need to provide to employees to ensure high levels of productivity and retention.”

Research indicates that real wages in the US have been stagnant for decades, while UN data points to growing inequality for more than 70% of the world’s population.

Work-related stress is also growing and is now the most common form of stress in the UK, with only 1% of workers saying they’ve never experienced it.

“Business leaders are confronted with the task of balancing their teams’ productivity against the physical and mental wellbeing of each employee,” explains Beveridge. 

“As a company providing technology tools and expertise that help companies run better and become more successful, we are in the enviable position to act as both an exemplar of sustainable business practices and an enabler of more sustainable business models,” says Beveridge. “The shift to remote work created a situation where many employees work longer hours than ever before, raising the chances of burnout and forcing companies to implement additional measures to support employees that are working under immense pressure.”

Beveridge advises that business leaders deploy technology tools to dispel uncertainty in their business models and their human capital management strategies. “Companies have an opportunity to be both an exemplar of more sustainable business and employment practices – for example by reimagining their business models to focus more on longer-term sustainability and value creation – as well as enablers, by providing tools that assist other companies in their sustainability efforts. As we enter an era of great uncertainty and ongoing volatility, business leaders will need to leverage the latest technologies to ensure they can manage this new balancing act.”