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Mid East Info
07-05-2025
- Business
- Mid East Info
e& sets new benchmark in sourcing, winning ‘Best Procurement Transformation' at SAP NOW AI Tour - Middle East Business News and Information
e& Group procurement has been awarded the 'Best Procurement Transformation' Award at the SAP NOW AI Tour, held in recognition highlights e&'s commitment to innovation, strategic impact, and the continued advancement of digital excellence across its procurement function. Saeed Al Zarooni, Group Chief Procurement Officer, e&, said: 'This award is a testament to our relentless pursuit of excellence and innovation in procurement. Through deeper supplier collaboration, sustainable sourcing practices, and a relentless focus on efficiency, we've not only optimised costs but also positioned procurement as a strategic enabler of innovation and growth across the Group.' Through the use of AI, data analytics, and agile processes, e&'s procurement transformation has enhanced transparency, improved decision-making, and accelerated operational efficiency, while ensuring full alignment with the Group's sustainability goals and the broader ESG framework. This award celebrates e&'s ongoing transformation journey that has redefined procurement across the Group through the adoption of cutting-edge technologies, data-driven strategies and agile operating models. Central to this success is its Procurement Centre of Excellence, which plays a critical role in aligning procurement strategy with the broader vision of e&. Basel Alshawa, Head of Finance & Spend Management, SAP Middle East & Africa – South, said: 'We congratulate e& on winning the 'Best Procurement Transformation' award—a reflection of their pioneering spirit and bold commitment to reimagining procurement. By harnessing the full potential of SAP Ariba and embedding AI and advanced analytics into their sourcing strategy, e& has elevated procurement from a back-office function to a true engine of innovation, agility, and sustainable value. Their approach sets a new benchmark for telcos and beyond, demonstrating how intelligent technologies can drive transparency, smarter decision-making, and meaningful ESG outcomes across the enterprise.' This recognition reflects the dedication, vision, and collaborative spirit of the e& procurement team and its ecosystem of internal and external stakeholders. Through its bold approach to innovation and strategic transformation, e& is setting a new benchmark for procurement excellence in the technology sector. The success of e&'s procurement transformation reflects the Group's broader commitment to its 'Go for More' philosophy—pushing beyond conventional boundaries to deliver greater value, drive sustainable impact, and lead with purpose. By reimagining procurement as a strategic enabler, e& continues to set new standards for innovation and operational excellence, supporting its ambition to create a smarter, more resilient, and future-ready organisation. About e&: e& is a global technology group committed to advancing the digital future across markets in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe. With the group's financial performance in 2024 showing a consolidated revenue of AED 59.2 billion and a net profit of AED 10.8 billion, e& continues to maintain its position as a financial powerhouse, reflected by its strong credit rating and solid balance sheet. Founded in Abu Dhabi over 48 years ago, e& has evolved from a telecom pioneer into a technology group. Its footprint now spans 38 countries, offering a comprehensive portfolio of innovative digital services ranging from advanced connectivity, entertainment, streaming and financial services to AI-powered solutions, cloud computing, ICT, cybersecurity and IoT platforms. The Group is structured around five core business pillars: e& UAE, e& international, e& life, e& enterprise and e& capital, each catering to distinct customer and market needs. These pillars empower e& to lead in various sectors, from telecom and digital lifestyle to enterprise services and venture investments. The ongoing strategic investments in AI, IoT, 5G and cloud services reinforce its leadership in the global technology landscape, driving the future of smart connectivity and innovation. Driven by innovation, sustainability and a commitment to digital empowerment, e& is set on creating a smarter, more connected future for individuals, businesses and communities.
New Indian Express
27-04-2025
- Business
- New Indian Express
We target profitability, not market share: Akasa Air CFO
The country's newest airline Akasa Air, which began its commercial operations in August 2022, recently added its 28th destination - Darbhanga, Bihar (23 domestic and 5 international cities). The airline has served over 17 million passengers since its launch. On the sidelines of the recently held SAP NOW AI Tour in Mumbai, the airline's chief financial officer Ankur Goel told Uma Kannan that they are focused on creating a good solid business and are targeting profitability. Edited excerpts: What is your expansion plan in this fiscal year FY26? It is the same plan that we had last year and the same we will have four years later, and it is to chase profitability. India as a country is underserved and it requires a lot more capacity to come in and that's what we are focused on. As we continue to add capacity, we will continue to augment some of the cities that we have. Navi Mumbai is going to open up this year and so is the Jewar Airport. We would want to fly to those cities as well and beyond that there will be other cities that we continue to evaluate. What about your plans for international expansion? We believe that international for us is here to stay and that it is just far more profitable than domestic when we look at the numbers overall. In fact, 16% of our capacity today is international and it will organically grow because we are chasing markets that are profitable and underserved. So, you will see some cities adding to our capacity. Over the next three-four years, the number could be as high as 40% for international and the rest for domestic. Your deliveries fell short of expectation in FY25. How many new planes are you expecting to deliver in FY26? We don't focus on the shell count. There are multiple ways to generate capacity. You can add capacity by flying your planes more and you can generate capacity by flying your planes longer. The focus for us is not how many planes are coming in, our focus is on how much capacity is getting added. So, in FY26 we should be one-third bigger compared to what we are today. We should roughly add 35% additional capacity in FY26 compared to FY25. How are you looking at the competition? Any plans to increase the market share which is around 4-5%? I don't know what the number is, we don't even track that number because that number is no indicator of success or profitability. People tell us that the number is around 5%. We are focused on creating a strong sustainable airline. Market share will just be an output. The last thing we would want is to have 100% of the market and 0% on the profit. So, profitability is something we are targeting. We are here to get a good solid business in which customers are happy flying with us. Market share becomes more relevant in mature markets. When India's market itself is growing at 20-25% year-on-year, the pie is expanding so much that we just don't have enough airlines and enough aircraft to take that pie. So, the question of market share just does not arise right now. Where do you want the airline to be in terms of growth in the next five years? I hope that you find things absolutely the same. We want to be an extremely boring airline, which means that the level of service that you expect from Akasa today should remain the same. The fact that we scale up should not mean that you got bad quality seats, bad quality products and food. For all of that internally we need to scale up and that means that every single thing that we are doing has to be significantly better so that as a customer you continue to get the same experience that you expect from Akasa which is where the technology comes in for us. As a customer you don't care whether we have got one aircraft or 100 aircraft. You just want to reach from point A to point B on time. So, from a customer perspective, I hope that the experience remains very similar, though one thing that is going to happen is that as the customer's expectations change, we want to be that airline that meets the customer's expectations.
New Indian Express
24-04-2025
- Business
- New Indian Express
AI is a necessity, not a choice, says Rajeev Singh of SAP India
With the increased adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) across every line of businesses, Rajeev Singh, vice-president and business head for midmarket & emerging business at SAP India said AI will be a necessity and not a choice for organisations in times to come and that it will be an integral part of every business. In an interaction with this newspaper on the sidelines of the SAP NOW AI Tour in Mumbai, Singh also said that any AI strategy should be holistic in nature and that it should not be restricted to one particular area of business. Organisations should look at AI holistically, he said. 'Today, if you are not ready to keep AI in your transformational story, you are way behind. First, you need to be on cloud as it gives you AI power, and secondly, for AI to be successful your data has to be clean as AI trains on data and it is extremely critical,' he noted. Singh said cloud adoption is accelerating rapidly among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India. Nearly 80% of SAP's customer base in India is in the SME segment. In a recent survey, SAP found that Indian midmarket businesses are prioritising the implementation of Gen AI (96%), compared with 91% globally. For SAP, which posted its first quarter earnings recently, cloud revenue performance was strong in India. Talking about trends that they are seeing, specifically on AI adoption, he said organisations are now looking at predictive forecasting. 'They are looking at automated job descriptions, sales and supply orders to be created automatically. We are seeing the technology shift coming to a position that every line of business is getting technology intertwined with business processes,' he said. Now, in this era, one cannot have a business process running without using technology within that. 'It is not that processes are running and then we put an IT system on top of it. I think if you're doing that, you are just dead as an organisation. Every line of businesses like HR head, supply chain executives - all are looking at what AI can do for them,' he explained. Singh pointed out that tier-2 and tier-3 cities have grown very fast for them. SAP also revealed in its new analysis that the most popular AI use cases in India are AI-generated visual insights, summaries and translations, AI-assisted process analysis, creating sales orders from unstructured data, predictive forecasting, and natural language queries. Manish Prasad, president and managing director, SAP Indian Subcontinent, said 23% of the world's public cloud customers are in India and that 25% of customers are simplifying their tech landscape. 'We have already developed close to 210 AI use cases that we are using across different functions of our customers' business,' he said. Speaking at the same event, Simon Davies, president SAP APAC, said that India is one of the growth engines for SAP and that they see the fastest adoption of public cloud and fastest adoption in the mid-market, driven by growth in economy and huge opportunities in the country.
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Business Standard
23-04-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
We have over 34K clients leveraging AI globally: SAP Asia Pacific Prez
German technology major SAP yet again showcased that in an uncertain macro environment, businesses will rely on technology. The firm's Q1 2025 revenue grew 11 per cent in constant currency and operating profit was up 58 per cent, giving it confidence of a double-digit growth. SAP also called out India as one of the regions with 'outstanding' performance in Cloud adoption. Simon Davies, president, SAP Asia Pacific, in an interview with Shivani Shinde, on the sidelines of SAP NOW AI Tour, talks about his priorities for the region. Edited excerpts: You completed about 10 weeks in this role and your appointment also saw a change in the regional division. Why the shift from Asia-Pacific Japan (APJ) to Asia-Pacific (APAC) and what will be your key focus areas? Historically, we have operated as APJ, and Greater China was a separate region. We saw two trends — one, there was an opportunity for SAP to bring its capabilities at scale across geographies by combining them. This allowed us to offer best-in-class innovation around artificial intelligence (AI), data and Cloud, among others. We also saw that customers in APAC were increasingly coming together as a region. By merging the two company groups, we are now in a much better position to support our customers and leverage co-investments. For instance, we have a great footprint in India, with SAP Labs. It is the second-largest research and development (R&D) footprint for SAP and China is perhaps our third-largest R&D hub. So now, being a part of one APAC team, we can truly leverage the economic opportunities in these regions for our customers. My top three priorities for APAC are: First, to help customers unlock the power of AI. Secondly, to support their continued journey to Cloud. And third, to scale with our partners so that we can achieve the first two priorities. Have you seen any impact of the tariff wars on your customer spends or tech roadmap? We've been in business for 50 years now, and we've seen all kinds of business challenges — how they evolve and how processes adapt. Nearly 86 per cent of the global commerce touches SAP. So, our focus is to help make businesses more resilient. What are some growth drivers in APAC for SAP? First, AI is real— we have more than 34,000 customers globally leveraging AI capabilities and embedded features. Today, we showcased more than 200 embedded AI use cases, and we've committed to increasing that to 400 by the end of this year. These 400 use cases will demonstrate how we've embedded AI into the daily workflows of employees and business processes, improving productivity. We've seen productivity gains of up to 30 per cent just by summarising information better or analysing processes with an AI assistant. Cloud is another growth driver. For our customers, moving to Cloud unlocks many of these AI capabilities. While AI and Cloud are fuelling momentum, it's also about customer ambition — what they want to achieve. It's no longer about replication, but about reimagining the next generation of processes and capabilities. One area with huge opportunities is data Cloud. We've seen a unique challenge — as AI becomes more central, data becomes more important. The richest contextual data sits within the SAP environment. Many organisations struggle to combine their internal data with external sources. We have seen that organisations have struggled to correlate and combine external data with their existing data. Many have created data lakes for different use cases. Our big focus is going to be data Cloud, which means bringing together data products from the SAP environment. We have partnered with Databricks to get the external datasets. India has been one of the fastest-growing regions for SAP. What is driving this? There are two key drivers. First, many large enterprises in India already use SAP and are looking to transform and move to Cloud. In India, we have over 200 customers live on our public Cloud — the highest for any country globally. That accounts for 23 per cent of our global public Cloud customer base. Second, we have a significant presence in the mid-market segment. In fact, 76 per cent of our customers in India fall in the mid-market and small and medium business (SMB) segment. Over 40 per cent of digital natives are also our customers. During the past 10 weeks, I've met over 100 customers. What I've realised, based on their feedback, is just how critical SAP is to their businesses. Everyone is trying to understand how AI can help them. Many have experimented with AI but haven't achieved the outcomes they were aiming for. The fact that we have 200 embedded use cases, and that customers can quickly see productivity improvements and time savings, is very compelling — especially as AI becomes ubiquitous in business and expectations are high. For example, Wipro, which also uses SAP, expects to increase consultant productivity by 20 per cent using AI. Another observation from my travels over the past 10 weeks is that APAC is being viewed as a growth market by businesses here. It's no longer just about serving Europe and global markets —these regions are now driving their own growth.
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Business Standard
23-04-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Have over 200 customers from India live on our public Cloud: Simon Davies
German technology major SAP yet again showcased that in an uncertain macro environment, businesses will rely on technology. The firm's Q1 2025 revenue grew 11 per cent in constant currency and operating profit was up 58 per cent, giving it confidence of a double-digit growth. SAP also called out India as one of the regions with 'outstanding' performance in Cloud adoption. Simon Davies, president, SAP Asia Pacific, in an interview with Shivani Shinde, on the sidelines of SAP NOW AI Tour, talks about his priorities for the region. Edited excerpts:
