Page 26 - bne_Magazine_February_2019

26 I Cover story bne February 2019
Sberbank's CEO German Gref has embraced the digital revolution in Russia
Russia’s major corporates undergoing a digital transformation
Within the framework of the overall scheme, several initiatives are being implemented, including those focused on switching to e-documentation and maintaining information security.
The company aims to complete its digital switch by mid-2019, when the rollout
of the digital solution is expected to
be completed at the company’s Oskol Steel Mill and Urals Steel plants.
Meanwhile, oil giant Gazprom Neft has even more ambitious plans for its digital transformation as it expects to not only benefit from cutting-edge digital tech- nologies but also eventually become
an IT leader among local companies.
One of the directions of the company's digital transformation is development of a digital platform to manage information flows and datasets, which at a later stage could be opened up to the company's partners and contractors.
Similarly to most companies in the energy exploration and supply sector, Gazprom Neft is focused on a physi- cal product. As a result, the company heavily uses digital doubles, which allows engineers based thousands of kilometres from the oilfields to test and control operation of the equipment.
Gazprom Neft is in the process of finding applications for digital solu- tions across the company's entire diverse business, which includes oil
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Everyone is on board. Digitisation has been made a top priority of the government that has already transformed the tax service so that a cosmonaut paid his taxes from space
last year. Companies are putting their businesses online and retail has gone into the cloud so fast that footfall in Russia’s leading malls is already visibly falling each year. And Russians love their gadgets to the point where even babush- kas have been seen paying for groceries using an e-wallet on a smart phone.
The state-owned retail banking giant Sberbank is probably the best known example of Russian companies that have thrown themselves into using technology to boost their business, but a lot of more dour industries, like metal- lurgy, have joined the train recently.
Metalloinvest, one of Russia’s lead- ing steel and mining companies, has been pursuing a digitisation strat- egy since 2016, dubbing the pro- gramme Industry 4.0. The scheme is focused on standardising the com- pany's processes and stepping up flexibility and speed in reacting to internal and external challenges.
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"The world is changing enormously fast," Yuri Gavrilov, the company's director for strategy, development and transformation, told Vedomosti. "We need to adapt, and to adapt quickly. However, speed is achiev- able only when the company is manageable and processes can be adjusted with lightning speed.
"To achieve that, we need, among other things, to change the principles
“We need to adapt, and to adapt quickly”
of interaction between our employ- ees and modes of collaboration with suppliers, and customers," he added.
Using SAP S/4HANA as the digital core of its platform, Metalloinvest originally applied new solutions
at Lebedinsky and Mikhailovsky mining and processing enterprises before scaling them to the entire company. As a result, the time required for bureaucratic procedures was reduced by about a quarter.
exploration, extraction, processing, transportation, sales and supply.
The oil major is also focused on unifi- cation of its financial and accounting processes on the basis of digital tem- plates, which has already resulted in annual savings of RUB70mn ($1.1mn). Further cost savings are expected
from currently run programmes for streamlining accounting and switch- ing to paperless documents.