BANGKOK, Thailand — Companies are revisiting their budgets to increase their resilience against economic headwinds. Speaking at the “Thailand SAP User Group Forum: Journey to Sustainability Development & Best Run Awards Ceremony”, chemical giants including Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited (IVL) and Namsiang Group (NSG) highlighted that cloud computing and digital transformation will continue to be top investment priorities to fuel their business growth and build resilience through a potential economic downturn.
Mr.SK Agrawal, President and Program Director of Global ERP and Digital Transformation, Indorama Ventures said, “In 2020, IVL embarked on a digital transformation journey with SAP and Accenture to become a future-ready intelligent enterprise through IVL Olympus project, which aims to drive $600 million of savings by 2023. By replacing more than 70 IT systems across the organization with one integrated ERP platform, we will be able to derive synergistic benefits across our entities with a holistic view on data and information. The implementation of standard processes, master data and streamlined reporting across all business functions will help accelerate the integration of new acquisitions.
This year, IVL completed its acquisition of Brazil-based Oxiteno to become a leading global supplier in high-value surfactant markets. Through the acquisition, IVL extended its growth profile into highly attractive markets in Latin America and the U.S., with additional potential to expand business in Europe and Asia. During the year, IVL also extended its leading global PET packaging footprint into Vietnam.
A key focus for IVL is its Vision 2030 ambition to build its industry leadership in sustainability. “With our integrated business platform, we were able to increase recycled content in accordance with our sustainability goals while maintaining high package performance standards,” added SK.
As the world’s biggest PET company, and the largest supplier of recycled PET resin used in beverage bottles, IVL spearheads the recycling of post-consumer PET packaging, and has processed over 70 billion post-consumer PET bottles since 2011. With a target of recycling 50 billion bottles per annum as well as achieving broader sustainability goals including carbon capture, the company has committed an investment of US$1.5 billion to achieve its sustainability goals.
“Enterprise technology and digital transformation will continue to be an important business driver to help us achieve profitability, efficiency and sustainability, People, Platforms and Systems are the key focuses to invest for driving our future growth. We will continue to enhance a strong management information system and use advanced digital platform where we can access a real-time monitoring and reporting allowing us to be more analytical in decision making and building business plan.”
Namsiang Group (NSG), a leading chemical product distributor in ASEAN which runs a business to support the whole chemical supply chain industry including trading, manufacturing, labs service and retail also don’t expect budget cuts in technology area.
According to Mr. Chaiwat Klangvijit, Chief Operating Officer of Namsiang Group, digital transformation has enabled NSG to run our operations as normally as possible during the pandemic. “In 2020, we partnered with SAP and Netizen to embark on a comprehensive digital transformation journey for our 4 offices in Thailand. By operating on a reliable, one single core ERP platform through SAP S/4HANA, we were able to support the whole chemical supply chain including trading, manufacturing, wholesales and retail as well as improve data financial analysis accuracy, productivity, speed of document management and significantly reduce the presence of repetitive and manual activities.”
“Despite a looming downturn, digital technologies will be vital in helping our company pivot to find new ways to drive up revenue. We expect to increase our investment in digital technology and automatic process solutions to increase operational efficiency supporting our ASEAN market expansion in the future. The collaboration with SAP and Netizen has proved that digital transformation provides a valuable opportunity for core business functions. NSG achieved significant results in productivity, speed of document management up to 40% and data financial analysis accuracy more 35%.” added Chaiwat.
Indorama Ventures and Namsiang Group are the only companies from Thailand that demonstrated their digital transformational excellence and were listed as finalists of the 2021 SAP Best Run Awards for South East Asia. The Best Run Awards celebrate leading organizations in SEA that have emphasized new ways of thinking, adapted to the new norms and deployed technologies that set the benchmark for their industry to drive successful business transformation in today’s digital economy.
Atul Tuli, Managing Director of SAP Indochina, said: “Digital transformation is not a new imperative for business leaders in Thailand, but Covid-19 has made it a more urgent one, with firms looking to enhance their agility, speed, and data-driven decision-making. SAP has been at the forefront of leading our customers through the pandemic and I look forward to empowering our Thai customers and enriching technology ecosystems for creating sustainable growth.”
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Wuttinan Thongnuadee: wuttinan.thongnuadee@sap.com