By Rolo B. Cena
Project Team Lead, HCM
Shaheen News October 2011 Issue
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - Commitment can be defined as the strong belief of the people in the basic philosophy and precepts of an organization and how faithfully are these carried out with genuine spirit and drive to achieve business objectives. It is an interaction governed by obligations, which maybe mutual, self-imposed, explicit or implied.
When members of the Core Team were brought to Riyadh on the 15th of May 2010, they were not technologists; they were business scientists who were dedicated to map out the Companies’ business processes for the technology called SAP.
And mapping these processes, considering the apparent diversity of AIG was not an easy task. True to its form, this exercise gave birth to the Business Blue Print that became the sole and major basis in developing the system for the Group.
The roadmap of Shaheen, no matter how plain and simple it appeared on paper, has always been very difficult. For one, the Core Team has struggled for a year now trying to make both ends meet, apart from grasping the wisdom SAP Technology offers vis-à-vis the actual business processes our respective companies have.
During those times, the overwhelming sense of pessimism or frustrations was just hard to suppress. These events paved the way for various approaches of disengagements, or attempts to, but the message was resoundingly clear: that while others leave or most become skeptical, the plan to proceed with the project remains relatively unscathed.
And it pays! The benefits may not be fully clearly visible now but soonest the team would be able to realize them. Truly, what Selman Al-Fares enunciated in the meeting made sense: “It always takes nine months for a woman to deliver a child.”
Conversely, one year of unsteady but relatively manageable pace has shown a great deal of commitment from both sides: the Core Team aggressively pursues for the prime demands and basic requirements to complete the project while the management strongly supports the Team at all cost.
Definitely, we are going to wear the suit of SAP.
Valuing the benefits now, ultimately SAP could further usher AIG to strategic locations elsewhere and may bring about another strategic change or repositioning especially in the global market scene. While major industry players have been in existence for decades now, the business conquest the group is tracking can precisely determine the passion to create the art-of-war strategy that can conquer uncharted islands in the long run.
