focused on the end-to-end sustainability of our business ,” says Karl . “ We are also focused on reusing and extending the lifetime of our assets and supplies with refurbishment and repairs , instead of producing and buying new . This sub-pillar of our ESG strategy coincides with our drive for agility .”
Expanding on MTN ’ s sustainability strategy , Karl explains the group ’ s shared value of developing a responsible environment through social and governance practices that are supported by procurement and supply chains . “ Only healthy societies can prosper ; we have an obligation to support societies to stay healthy or become healthy .”
One way that MTN achieves this is through its localisation policy . ” Through technology innovation and onboarding of local suppliers , we can help societies to prosper and suppliers develop . We do this with sustainability governance oversight by our social and ethics committee to ensure that we are meeting our pledges and supplier code of conduct .”
What does the future hold for MTN Group ? Over the next 12 to 18 months , MTN Group will continue to drive its procurement transformation , focusing on agility and its new operating model . “ The next 18 months are going to be a very bumpy journey ,” says Karl .
“ With the introduction and completion of our transformation , it will be important to focus on change management within the group to ensure that our human workforce doesn ’ t fall back onto old methods . The next 18 months will be very much about adapting . We will be looking at the metrics of adapting , the usage of tools , adapting machine learning and adapting data .”
In addition to its internal ambitions for the next 12 to 18 months , MTN will also be
“ We are building the largest and most valuable business platform , with a clear focus on bringing Africa and its enterprises forward ”
DIRK KARL GROUP EXECUTIVE
AND CPO , MTN
working on its collaboration with startups and universities – specifically , with the University of Johannesburg .
“ With the university , we will be continuing to work on advanced digital procurement solutions and supply chain tools . We want to advance our control tower and nerve centre here at MTN , which combines sourcing transactions , inventories , and supply chain disruptions . We also want to ensure that our markets are getting the supplies they need on time , with early alert systems in place to further improve our intervention and prevention if disruptions occur ,” explains Karl .
“ Finally , we want to focus on our people , investing in their skills and training over the next 12 to 18 months . We are providing agile coaching , agile training , and scrum certifications , along with upskilling our teams in areas such as intelligent automation to be future ready , which we hope to translate into valuable business outcomes ,” concludes Karl .
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