Data, digitalization keys to stewarding sustainable Phl

Improving sustainability outcomes through the effective use of organizational data to make informed decisions is critical to sustaining economic development, said Rudy Abrahams, Managing Director of SAP Philippines.

Apple Evangelista, head of the Sustainability and Social Responsibility of the Globe Group, and Henrik Batallones, Marketing, and Communications Director of the Supply Chain Management Association of the Philippines, echoed Abrahams.

"Businesses across Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, believe they can boost their earnings while protecting the environment, and this reality is a positive indicator to continue pushing toward sustainability. However, organizations must refocus their strategies to realize the significant value and reap better and actual outcomes," said Abrahams.

A SAP and Oxford Economics report also revealed that 66 percent of businesses in Asia do not think it is challenging to be sustainable and profitable simultaneously. However, only eight percent say they receive significant value from their sustainability strategies today.

This reality may have happened due to the disconnect between sustainability plans and actions for many organizations.

While 60 percent of businesses have a communicated sustainability plan, only 20 percent have incentivized leaders based on their success. In addition, less than half (44 percent) say their employees are active participants in their sustainability efforts, with the highest in India at 52 percent, followed by Singapore at 51 percent and the lowest in Malaysia at 33 percent.

"In the Philippines, organizations considered sustainability a cost tied to regulatory compliance. But that perspective is changing. Sustainability is now seen as a strategic imperative to ensure that organizations provide better service to their customers and help ensure a sustainable future," Batallones said.

SCMAP is the premier supply chain industry sentiment organization in the country. Composed of the country's major manufacturers, logistics providers and retailers, SCMAP moves the industry's global competitiveness by engaging with stakeholders in the public and private sectors, advancing supply chain education on all levels, and organizing events that provide a venue for supply chain professionals to connect.

Meanwhile, Abrahams said too much focus on compliance could sometimes hinder achieving sustainability goals. Citing data from the SAP and Oxford Economics report, he said that regional organizations consider compliance the second biggest sustainability challenge (26 percent), only behind reinventing business strategy. This means that organizations in the country may need to refocus their plans to achieve more excellent value and benefit from sustainability.

Investing in data, improving sustainability outcomes

Key to improving sustainability outcomes will be the effective use of organizational data to make more informed decisions. This remains a challenge for businesses in the Philippines as it takes time, especially for organizations like Globe, the Philippines' top telco and digital solutions platform, which has various entities with different processes and reporting formats.

To address this challenge, Globe has been utilizing SAP solutions, with 70 percent of the company's internal systems now run by SAP. With SAP solutions already in place across its business units globally, the company migrated to SAP S/4HANA to improve fragmented processes, manual workloads, inefficiencies, lack of insights and delayed decision-making.

Meanwhile, SAP Fiori apps helped enhance the user experience and access to insights. Enhanced visibility enables well-informed decision-making throughout the organization, and automation and fewer reconciliations in finance allow faster financial transaction processing, book closing, and error-free reporting.

Finance functions became integrated and efficient, providing real-time business insights, while IT security was strengthened with improved authorization controls and compliance. By facilitating these improvements, SAP S/4HANA proved to be a catalyst for change for Globe, helping it adapt to changes quickly in its business environment.

"For us at Globe, sustainability is putting our purpose into action. By understanding what is material to us as a business and what matters to our stakeholders and our industry, we recognize how data-driven strategies play an integral role in guiding our sustainability practice," Evangelista said.