MTN Group is the world's seventh largest mobile telecom operator and the leading internet service provider in Africa and the Middle East. Serving nearly 280 million subscribers in 21 countries, the $15 billion company provides essential communications services to countries in clear need of modernization. As Arun Kumar, MTN's general manager, put it: "We're proud to be part of helping every African and Middle Eastern nation adopt the latest in Internet and mobile technologies."

To efficiently source products and services from more than 15,000 vendors around the world, MTN wanted a modern supply chain management (SCM) solution that could automate and digitize its supply chain processes on a single platform. "Within our supply chain operation, we have cross-functional teams spread over multiple countries," Kumar says. "As a result, our sourcing transaction cycle times need to be very short. We needed to have a robust platform that would allow us to do that while giving us complete visibility into all of our sourcing activities."

MTN needed to move quickly to stay ahead of fast-moving competitors. The company was slowed by limited supply chain visibility, persistent business delays and errors, and escalating costs stemming from entrenched manual business systems. It often took days to inform partners and regulators of urgent trade issues. Managers had trouble locating contracts, tracking supplier performance, and understanding the flow of materials to locations across the continent.