Category: Africa

According to SAP, developers will get 85% of the app revenue, with SAP taking the remaining 15%. Paul Webel, SAP Africa GM, says SAP's medium- to long-term strategy is to allow users to consume its applications on multiple devices. He says SAP is targeting ...

British American Tobacco (BAT) expects to begin the pilot of its new single SAP enterprise resource system in September 2012. The company, which operates in 180 markets, is planning to roll out the new system to the whole business by 2016, starting with a pilot in Malaysia and then Asia Pacific. It will replace the six SAP instances that BAT currently runs across the global business, which was reduced from 62 SAP and CS3 local ERP systems, three years ago.

Asher Bohbot, CEO of EOH, has won the IT Personality of the Year 2011, and Sandi Macfie, CIO of Southern Sun Hotels, has scooped this year's Visionary CIO title. The winners were named at the Computer Society of SA (CSSA) President's Awards Breakfast at the Hilton Hotel, in Sandton, this morning. Now in its 33rd year, the IT Personality Award was presented by the CSSA, in conjunction with ITWeb, the Gordon Institute of Business Science and Gartner Africa.

Anglo American said optimising its procurement, asset management, knowledge systems and shared services will be vital in making the most from its $5.1 billion (£3.2 billion) takeover of De Beers, announced on Friday. In a presentation to investors, Anglo American said simplifying systems and processes was a key part of making the takeover a success. Both Anglo American and De Beers are extensive SAP users. Anglo American uses SAP enterprise resource planning and SAP Netweaver business intelligence. De Beers also uses SAP, as well as the vendor’s Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence application.

We welcome EOH and BlueWare to the SAPortals platform as partners. EOH SAP Services has joined as a premier partner and will be sharing their insights and unique value proposition to the broader SAP community. Our latest news includes an interview between Alec Hogg and Piet Mouton on the recent PSG investment into the EOH group. BlueWare will be sponsoring the weekly NetWeaver Newsletter as well as positioning Vistex and their Software Asset Management (SAM) products through our platform.

SAP Africa has announced the appointment of Marius Moantsoga as the new Regional Director for Francophone West and Central Africa. Moantsoga will oversee SAP's activities in the region and ensure that revenue targets are achieved.

SAP Africa's COO, Derek Kudsee, who opened the launch event, pointed to the fact that businesses today are continually demanding more from their software. “Instant use, instant value, lower costs, and ultimately, sustainable growth, is the name of the game.

SAP's Business One Starter Package continues to gain popularity with prominent brands and businesses across the African continent. Planet Electronics is among those to recently implement the solution, and the company is already seeing improvements in its business processes around the importing and distribution of automotive electronic accessories and household audio equipment. The SAP Business One Starter Package is a pre-configured solution - for one to five users - that can be tailored further to meet business needs. “We're delighted with our recent purchase and installation of SAP Business One,” says Planet Electronics' director, Guyck van Heerden.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) stand to benefit after the launch of the SAP Business One software that is tailor-made to efficiently manage business processes at lower costs. Introduced in the country by Associate Business Consultants, ABC Rwanda.

We welcome you to submit news or opinion pieces about SAP, partners, people moves and projects in the broader SAP African ecosystem. Please email us at contribute@saportals.com.

New SAP general manager for Nigeria, Richard Edet has pledged to make West Africa the best run region of its operations on the continent. SAP appointed Edet this week to lead its operations in Africa’s most populous country. He brings with him a wealth of experience within the IT sector, having previously worked at International ICT companies such as Cisco, IBM and Microsoft. At SAP, Edet will be responsible for creating a solid foundation to sustain SAP’s growth in West Africa and driving SAP commitment towards being the best corporate citizen in the region. “My objective is to make West Africa the best run region on the continent,” Edet said after his appointment.

The eventful group is hosting its BI conference in Johannesburg, they have brought out a number of top speakers including Ingo Hilgefort (BO Expert) and Lt Col Jorg Steinhorst. Conference includes client presentations from: SABMlller, Altron, SAPPI and City of Cape Town. A hands on workshop is being run on Wednesday which includes data stewardship and best practices for Business Objects 4.0 toolset. SAPortals will be tweeting from the conference, be sure to follow us @saportals

Simon Carpenter, Director of Strategic Initiatives at SAP Africa, added: “This is an exciting development in our long partnership with Google. In developing economies, such as those in Africa, there is a great need for geospatial analytical capabilities.

While many companies gravitate to large service providers for their SAP implementations, smaller partners can often be less expensive and provide niche expertise, according to Forrester.

The African Cashew Initiative (ACi) is a project aimed at helping small-scale cashew farmers in Ghana increase their productivity and income by offering training programs and materials. Learn how SAP Research is investigating how mobile business applications can support these farmers and their cooperative in bringing the cashew nuts to market.