The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) is automating its back office process in a 2.3 million dollar agreement signed with Tech Mahindra Ltd on July 10, 2015.
The automation is a 10-month process starting on August 9, 2015. Tech Mahindra, a firm specialising in digital transformation, consulting and business engineering, will be assisted in the project by its local agent, Fairfax Technologies. The two will implement and support enterprise resource planning system (ERP), business intelligence, customer relation management and enterprise performance management system.
Eleven local and international companies had participated in the tender for the implementation of the system. Two companies, Oracle, an American company, and SAP from German offered their solutions. The bank has selected Oracle’s product.
The Ethiopian banking sector is currently going through a robust IT transformation and CBE has always been the trendsetter, said Bekalu Zeleke, president of the Bank, during the signing ceremony.
This will make the bank the fourth enterprise next to Ethiopian Airlines, Ethiopian Railway Corporation and ethio telecom to acquire the solution and implement the system. In 2014/15 fiscal year the bank registered 276.3 billion Br in total assets and 242 billion total deposits.
CBE has 10.5 million account holders, 968 branches and 23,000 employees. The new system will be implemented in all of its branches.
The bank has paid 2.6 million dollars for the purchase and licensing of Oracle ERP from Oracle; 22pc of the money was for the licensing of the solution. The bank will pay this amount (572,000 dollars) every year to renew the license. It started negotiating with Oracle in February, 2015.
The system will be integrated with the core banking system of the bank, by which CBE’s transaction, payments, settlements and taxes are automatically monitored, according to Ephrem Mekuria, communication head at the Bank.
Moreover, it will integrate the human resource system, including profiles of the employees and performance management.
“We have already prepared dedicated staff members in order to implement the system,” he said.
This will make the bank to integrate its process and become more competitive, said Girmachew Admasse, CEO of Fairfax. The business intelligence system for instance will help senior officials to make a rational decision.
Established five years ago, Fairfax has been implementing the system for a number of enterprises.
The fact that IT market in Ethiopia is becoming mature and the demand in the market for competitive advantage is a driving force for companies to adopt the system, said Girmachew.
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