IOI Corporation

Dato’ Lee Yeow Chor Recognised as Digital Transformation Leader

Business

Renowned international research firm, International Data Corporation (IDC), has recognised IOI Corporation Berhad (IOI) Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Dato’ Lee Yeow Chor as Malaysia’s Digital Transformation (DX) CEO of the Year.

In a statement released recently relating to the Malaysian Digital Transformation Awards (DX) 2020, IDC said: “Through the leadership of Dato’ Lee Yeow Chor, IOI had successfully undertaken its business digitalisation and transformation journey to become an Intelligent Enterprise.”


The purpose of the Awards this year is to recognise enterprises and individuals “as they reimagine their business in the new normal,” said IDC.

Dato’ Lee said the award is a recognition of the commitment and achievements of all IOI employees.

IOI had already implemented the SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System in its downstream resource-based manufacturing business more than 15 years ago. In 2018, IOI decided to implement the SAP ERP System together with the Electronic Plantation Monitoring System (ePMS) using handheld device in its oil palm plantations, which is a primary agricultural business.

The digital transformation programme was initiated with the vision of optimising activities across the entire value chain to maximise productivity, minimise cost and to cope with the fluidness of market conditions. 

“This is a far more ambitious project, involving 107 business units across 170,000 hectares of land, and involving more than 1200 users – many of whom are based at remote areas with unstable internet connectivity,” said Dato’ Lee.

The Group-wide SAP system was implemented in several roll-out stages to streamline IOI’s diverse and stand-alone systems into a single unified platform environment called the ONE IOI Integrated Platform.

The SAP S/4HANA business suite is SAP’s 4th-generation ERP software designed to run on the SAP HANA in-memory database. The SAP system is selected as it has the agility to support plantation industry-specific requirements.

With SAP S/4HANA, IOI has fully integrated corporate information for real-time decision-making and analytics. Its operations are now more streamlined, and its processes have been further optimised.

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the integrated and mobile-enabled platform has empowered IOI Group to operate without disruption while facilitating collaboration, even though some of its employees have to work remotely under the Movement Control Order (MCO) restrictions.

“This digitalisation programme was conceptualised before the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic. With the pandemic, technology and digitalisation have become critical business success factors. At IOI, having completed this programme, we have become more resilient and ready to transform to the next stage of efficiency and innovativeness,” added Dato’ Lee.

Moving forward, IOI is already exploring ways to further automate and systematise time-consuming manual activities by enabling Robotic Processing Automation (RPA).

This integrated digital transformation approach has strengthened IOI’s business fundamentals and the ability to create long-term value for all its stakeholders, including shareholders, employees and the communities in which it operates.

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