South African bank Standard Bank announced that it is moving its core SAP Cloud Platform services to Microsoft Azure to improve customer experience and to marketing new products, more efficiently.
The partnership between Microsoft and SAP aims to speed up the digital transformation of SAP customers to S/4HANA through jointly developed reference architectures and roadmaps.
Standard Bank chief information officer personal and business banking Sabelo Nkwanyana stated that leveraging the strengths of Microsoft and SAP exemplifies how Standard Bank is making partnerships to develop customised solutions for its clients.
Nkwanyana continued saying: “SAP has a deep understanding of our business requirements and how we want to ensure our customers are happy with our service offering. This partnership continues our focus on innovation by leveraging the respective skills of SAP and Microsoft to transform the digitisation and personalisation journey for our customers.”
The partnership to help Standard Bank deliver faster time-to-market products and services
Microsoft said that the project will deliver a unified approach to how Standard Bank runs SAP S/4HANA in Microsoft Azure.
The project is expected to help the bank deliver faster time-to-market products and services, apart from optimising its IT infrastructure. The South African bank could access a range of features that can be deployed instantly and scale as per demand, by moving workloads to the cloud.
The project is expected to result in cost reductions, improved system performance and access to innovation.
Microsoft South Africa managing director Lillian Barnard said: “The Project Embrace initiative between Microsoft and SAP announced globally last year is centred around the customer journey to SAP S/4HANA and SAP Cloud Platform on Microsoft Azure.
“The work that we are doing with Standard Bank is the first local demonstration of this partnership, and another milestone in the journey Microsoft is on with Standard Bank, to bring innovation into every aspect of the bank’s IT system and enable enriched interactions with the bank’s customers.”
SAP Africa managing director Cathy Smith said: “announcement is the biggest partnership centred on SAP implementation in Africa. With client experience a key strategic pillar for Standard Bank, Project Embrace reflects the shared commitment of both SAP and Microsoft to accelerate our customers’ journey to the cloud.”