When the world went virtual overnight

Major shifts and disruptions in the workplace due to COVID-19 can lead to critical gaps in the employee experience and have serious implications on employee well-being, productivity, and the long-term business, if not addressed quickly, feels Anand Raisinghani, Vice President, Platforms & Technologies, SAP Indian Subcontinent.

How are you coping with the current Covid-19 crisis? What are your tips for enterprises?

The world went virtual overnight and had to change their processes and strategies to suit the new reality. We are no different. While we are now getting accustomed to the new reality of remote working, technology has helped us stay connected. We have leveraged the power of technology to help us carry out our business seamlessly not just for our employees, but in strengthening our engagement with the customers.

I believe the key lies in building seamless engagement platform with employees and communities we live in. We want to make the best use of this time to offer our stakeholders—be it customer, employees or partners with multiple opportunities to learn and upskill, reskill themselves. Various online sessions, workshops, webinars, etc. has helped SAP to enable its workforce and enterprises could adopt this approach to keep the employees motivated and satisfied

This global pandemic is an opportunity for enterprises to adapt and explore digital tools faster. Businesses should ensure that they focus their efforts on connecting with customers beyond just transactions. While customers too are learning to adapt to the change, it is imperative for organisations such as ours to support them through this journey. In addition to this, engaging with partners is more important than ever at this juncture. We are skilling our partners and customers proactively along with sharing tips and tricks with our peers in the industry to overcome this hurdle.

What changes do you see taking place in technology in a post-Covid-19 world?

The post-COVID era is going to offer a new perspective to a lot of ways in which the world was functioning—a stronger synergy between system, people and processes. People will be more digitally equipped, teams would be more collaborative and there would be a positive sentiment between groups. Technology that is binding us together now, will take a more important role in the lives of people and organisations. The importance of technologies like cloud, AI, machine learning, etc. are going to come to the forefront since organisations today have experienced the benefits of it first-hand.

The focus of businesses will be to ramp up volumes and get back to normalcy. It is also going to be culturally challenging, but we must take it as an opportunity for teams to stay motivated, learn new skills, new business models by leveraging digital technology and conducting knowledge sharing sessions and come back stronger than ever.

Specifically, how will ERP evolve beyond 2020?

The aim of organisations will be to get back to normal as soon as possible and hence every decision made will have data backing it up. Right from supply chain to management to purchasing management, ERP is going to define the productivity of organisations in the immediate future. With cloud ERP solutions leading the way, personalised ERP solutions are going to be in demand to recover quickly from the economic impact. We are also hoping to see a rise in adoption of ERP solutions by SME’s in order to enhance their processes and productivity.

As enterprises emerge from the COVID-19 crisis and seek to reduce operational risk while enhancing digital capabilities, migration to S/4 HANA can be an opportunity to adopt newer, more resilient cloud-based technologies that can help to achieve those objectives.

How do you address the massive disruptions in the global supply chain?

Global supply chains have been disrupted in the past few months, across industries. It is becoming increasingly important for organisations to protect their supply chain operations by undertaking measures like focusing on extended supply networks, exploring alternative supply chains and scenario planning. SAP operations are supported by several strategic suppliers. We are with them in this journey to ensure they apply comparable mitigation practices with their teams, while maintaining superior service levels.

Our customers and partners are an integral part of SAP family and we are doing our best to ensure their business continuity by providing access to some of business-critical SAP solutions:

• SAP Ariba Discovery – offer both suppliers and buyers an open platform to post and solve their sourcing needs.
• SAP Qualtrics - Opened the XM Platform to create a free Remote Work Pulse thereby enabling organizations to manage and support their employees. This include understanding their requirements and how they can help their employees feel supported and productive
• TripIt from Concur - Offering services to organizations help with travel issues
• SAP Litmos - Providing remote training capability

How has the Qualtrics Remote+ On-site Work Pulse benefited the new WFH reality?

Major shifts and disruptions in the workplace due to COVID-19 can lead to critical gaps in the employee experience and have serious implications on employee well-being, productivity, and the long-term business, if not addressed quickly. To adapt to the new WFH reality effectively, we are offering Remote Work Pulse. Remote+ On-site Work Pulse is a technology offering from SAP Qualtrics to help organizations assess preparedness for a remote workforce and is publicly available for free.

Organizations making use of the Experience Management (XM) platform can rapidly address entire workforce needs around well-being, safety, resources, and enablement for their employees working from home. They offer organizations with surveys and corresponding reports to quickly identify and prioritize employee needs in order to take quick actions.

What are the details of your €3 million Euro Emergency Fund?

SAP’s enduring mission is to help the world run better and improves people’s lives and believe that the private sector plays a very important role in uplifting the community. At a time like this, it is imperative to step up for the society you operate in. With this vision in mind, we have established a €3 million COVID-19 Emergency Fund to support the urgent needs of the World Health Organization (WHO), the CDC Foundation, and smaller non-profits and social enterprises that work on the front lines serving local communities in crisis. Specifically, we are donating €1 million to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for the WHO hosted by Swiss Philanthropy Foundation and the United Nations Foundation for virus prevention and detection

In India, we have planned a series of strategic social investments to ensure a lasting benefit on society. This include -

• Our plans to contribute INR 1 crore through our CSR efforts for all possible COVID support.
• Partnership with UNDP India, HelpAge India, NASSCOM Foundation and Rise Against Hunger to support and contribute to the citizens of different strata affected by or vulnerable to COVID-19.
• Committed to guarantee all 3000+ contract staff retain jobs without any salary cuts under our flagship Code Unnati program
• Offering SAP kitchen in our Bengaluru facility to cook and distribute 5000 lunch and 5000 diners every day.