Strong partnerships have been vital for this . “ I ’ ve always been a big believer in having relevant partner ecosystems ,” he says . “ Companies like ours , who are manufacturing and retail companies , cannot focus on technology ourselves , because it ’ s not part of our mandate . We need to have a partner ecosystem around us to help us scale up and provide us with the relevant innovation in the areas and the priorities that we set . It ’ s exactly what we have done both before and during the crisis .”

He explains that having partners in various sectors help them to have the right focus and pilot new systems . “ It ’ s

good for us to be able to go with a swift pilot to learn and have a partner at the same time ready to scale it up . We need to be able to combine the value offering from International and Local partners in order to be able to maximize the impact .”

From the International field SAP is an important partner for Motor Oil . “ They help us with all of our transactions , whether it ’ s on the customer side or the manufacturing side . Every inventory and every shipment lives in SAP , so it ’ s a no-brainer for us to look to SAP to also help us innovate .”

One of the largest local players is OTE . OTE has provided Motor Oil with a turn-key solution to modernise its corporate network with a Software

147 technologymagazine . com