96% of companies surveyed recognize sustainability as important to the success of their business, with 52% describing it as vital
SAP, a market leader in enterprise application software, commissioned a survey showing that the overwhelming majority of companies in the UAE are fully aligned on the importance of sustainability including the role it plays in the future success of their business.
Sergio Maccotta, Senior Vice President, SAP Middle East Africa South said. “Businesses are facing pressure from customers and partners to demonstrate sustainable practices, and the survey shows that it is being driven internally too, as the financial value of sustainability is increasingly recognized.”
According to Maccotta, the new YouGov survey commissioned by SAP indicated that 96% of UAE companies recognized the importance of sustainability as a business objective, with 52% describing it as vital to their success. Similarly, 94% of IT decision makers surveyed stated that their organizations’ financial performance and sustainability strategies would be connected in the coming 12 months, with 36% stating they would be intrinsically connected.
When IT decision-makers were asked about their companies’ specific sustainability goals in the next 18 months, the most cited goal was addressing sustainability in supply chains (65%), closely followed by reducing waste (62%), and reducing carbon emissions (53%).
Alongside sustainability, the survey showed that companies in the UAE are also overwhelmingly focused on digital transformation. A total of 89% of companies are planning to invest further in digital transformation cloud solutions and services in the coming 18 months. In addition, 95% of respondents stated that technology and innovation was important to the success of their sustainability strategy.
“The survey findings are encouraging as they show businesses are recognizing the vital role that technology plays in sustainability. At SAP, we are always focused on sustainability as we create solutions, whether it is designing business process applications or the OSS Hope Simulator from SAP unveiled today,” Maccotta said.
“The survey results also demonstrate broad support for SAP’s conviction that digital transformation is key to sustainability. Businesses in the UAE realize that cloud computing is far more efficient than on-premise solutions in terms of carbon emissions and energy consumption, while technology is also indispensable in tracking and managing sustainability efforts,” Maccotta concluded.
