Entire Annual Report - Anglo American Platinum

Information technologyThe Group continues to make innovative use of information technology (IT), and thevarious initiatives under way are fully aligned with the Group’s various businessstrategies and objectives.The IT functions continue to be outsourced to some of the strongest IT service providersin South Africa. This selective outsource model has proved to be advantageous asregards managing outsource arrangements and the benefits of this approach are beingseen in the improved service being offered to the various Business Units.The mining industry has embarked on an exciting eBusiness initiative with the jointlaunch by 22 mining enterprises of an electronic Marketplace (Quadrem),www.Quadrem.com, which will enable the participants to optimise their procurementpractices. Anglo Platinum has been in the forefront of this exercise and has played anactive role in developing Quadrem’s strategy by seconding staff to Quadrem. TheGroup has also hosted the initial pilot projects on behalf of Quadrem and the AngloAmerican plc group, with the active participation of seconded staff from AngloAmerican companies from around the world. It expects to implement these revisedbusiness methods within the coming year and to obtain significant benefit from theseand other eBusiness initiatives.The Project Gateway initiative to implement the Systems Applications Product(Revision 3) integrated management information system (SAP R/3) across the Grouphas been completed on time. The year was a momentous one for SAP/R3 as some tensignificant implementations were completed during this period. Full implementation ofthe commercial, financial and logistical modules was undertaken at Amandelbult,Union, PPRust, Leplats and BRPM. Financial procedures are now substantiallystreamlined and the financial management teams have been quick to exploit theopportunities offered by the SAP system.111