CASE STUDY
For us, supply chain is about managing constant disruption. Every day presents a new challenge. It may not always be a geopolitical crisis, but there is always something happening somewhere across our markets that affects operations. We need continuity, visibility and the ability to make informed decisions quickly. greater credibility with users. We continue to adopt Oracle’ s standard functionality wherever possible while enhancing the platform only where it delivers genuine business value.
Was there any specific business challenge or turning point that made you rethink your analytics and data strategy?
For us, supply chain is about managing constant disruption. Every day presents a new challenge. It may not always be a geopolitical crisis, but there is always something happening somewhere across our markets that affects operations. We need continuity, visibility and the ability to make informed decisions quickly.
Take ports as an example. In Dubai, if a shipment arrives at Jebel Ali, you generally expect it to clear within a day or two. In some of the African ports where we operate, there may only be six cranes, and if four of them break down, repairs could take months. Suddenly, a vessel that would normally be unloaded in 48 hours is delayed for a week. Shipping lines don’ t want to keep returning to congested ports, so the disruption compounds very quickly.
Those realities made us realise that operational visibility alone wasn’ t enough. We also needed compliance and risk intelligence. In several African markets, import duties can reach 60 %. That makes compliance absolutely critical. We cannot afford inaccurate declarations or disputes with local governments, particularly because MTN is one of the largest taxpayers in many of the countries where we operate.
At the same time, we depend heavily on suppliers, shipping lines and global trade routes. Events such as the US-China trade tensions, regional conflicts or supply shortages all have the potential to disrupt our operations. We wanted to understand those risks before they became problems.
When we looked at the market, we realised there wasn’ t a solution that provided the level of intelligence we needed, so we built our own risk analysis platform on the Oracle technology stack.
One principle has guided us throughout the journey: never let a crisis go to waste. When the first wave of US-China trade tensions emerged in 2018, we used it as an opportunity to build a resilience model. That work has since earned multiple international awards because it fundamentally changed how we approach supply chain risk.
Rather than reacting to disruptions, we wanted to predict their downstream impact. We mapped every relevant data point and analysed the ripple effect of global events. A conflict in one region may appear unrelated to our business, but once you trace the supply chain, the consequences become clear. For example, the disruption of semiconductor-grade neon production during the Russia-Ukraine conflict had implications for global semiconductor manufacturing, which ultimately affected telecommunications equipment availability.
By understanding those interdependencies, we can identify potential risks much earlier and determine what actions should be taken before operations are affected.
Today, our analytics strategy is no longer just about reporting. It is about building resilience, anticipating disruption and giving the business the intelligence it needs to stay ahead of uncertainty.
The Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence Platform provides a single, governed data model. Has it fundamentally changed decision-making at the business leadership level?
The simple answer is yes. The more nuanced answer is that every question you answer opens up three or four more. That’ s the nature of analytics. The better your data becomes, the deeper your business questions become.
One of the areas I oversee is operating free cash flow and working capital management. Traditionally, that means focusing on payables, receivables and inventory turns to improve the cash conversion cycle. The initial insights from the Fusion Data Intelligence Platform( FDIP) were extremely valuable, but we quickly realised that standard dashboards weren’ t enough. We wanted more than drill-down reports. We needed deeper, more granular insights into complex business issues such as vendor performance, payment behaviour and operational risk.
Ultimately, FDIP hasn’ t simply changed how we report data. It has changed the quality of business discussions. Instead of making decisions based on isolated metrics, we can balance financial performance with supplier relationships, compliance and long-term resilience. I wouldn’ t describe it as a one-time transformation. It’ s an ongoing evolution, with every new insight creating opportunities to ask better questions and make smarter decisions. •
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