Category: Partners

EOH, one of South Africa’s top three IT service providers and the largest enterprise applications provider in in the country, today announced the acquisition of SCT and CoRoS Consulting. The acquisitions complement EOH’s SAP capabilities and further allow EOH to enhance the spectrum of our offering to our customers. This addition to the EOH family makes us a 3500 strong person EOH team, enhancing our expertise, and underscores our philosophy of working with the best people the industry has to offer.

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.

Accenture is rolling out a new private cloud solution based upon new SAP technologies. This private cloud is touted as one that can offer the same benefits as an off-premise to public cloud transfer, but with the level of data security and integrity found typically with on-premise legacy technologies. Accenture’s private cloud also rests on two key features to cloud computing in general: easy migration while lowering costs. This will be accomplished with the transparent migration of two SAP properties that will manage the infrastructure: the ERP software suite, which supports tailored business processes and operations, and the SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse component, which integrates data warehousing capabilities on a scalable platform.

SAP offers two incentives / commission modules - Vistex's Incentives Administrations (IA) and Incentives and Commission Administration (ICM). These two products are both used for the calculation and disbursement of commission in SAP, but are fundamentally different - this document highlights which questions to ask to discover which product is correct for you, if you are considering a commission solution for your SAP R/3 system.

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.

In an interview with Alec Hogg, CEO Piet Mouton provides rationale for their increased investment in EOH and cites their: BEE credentials, future plans and partnering approach as key reasons for the decision. He indicated that they would have preferred to keep investment quiet, but regulation rules require them to announce the size of their stake.

“HCL as a company is obsolete now,” said the IT services company’s vice president and CEO, Vineet Nayar. “What worked for HCL from 2001 to 2011 will not work from now to 2015,” he said at a gathering of HCL employees, business partners, customers, media professionals and analysts in Singapore on 29th September (Thursday). He was sharing his views on the future of technology and trends that are shaping the world and how organisations can lead the change through disruptive management.

What needs to be considered before enterprises move into the cloud? Are there areas to be addressed before doing so? CIO Asia speaks to Accenture's Kevin Campbell, group chief executive - technology, and Trent Mayberry, managing director, ASEAN Technology Group Platform, for more. One big argument for cloud computing is the so-called shift from capital expenditure (Capex) to operational expenditure (Opex), a shift that undoubtedly will go down well with cost controls and long-term enterprise spending. How should CIOs begin to do so? Are there any "templates" or predetermined processes that they can implement?

Gijima is set to become the first enterprise partner for Apple in Africa, in a deal that is expected to be announced within the next week. In terms of the agreement, Gijima becomes the only partner for Apple in delivering solutions in the enterprise space. As things stand, Apple’s platforms are mainly engaged by the consumer sector on the continent.

I attended the regional SAPhila conference in Caledon last week, you had to look hard to find the customers amongst the partners. Highlights from my perspective was Robert Enslin, President Global Field Operations - who kicked off the plenary session with some good insights into what global customers and SAP's strategy going forward is, as well as Alison Lambert's presentation on customer loyalty (which included details on the Pick n Pay Smart Shopper program).

Debbie Zwane-Chikura has been appointed as the Chief Operations Officer (COO). Raymond Defteroes, Vito Bonafede & Rolf Eichweber has been named as Chief Client Officers Commercial, Industrial & Financial sectors respectively.

Asher Bohbot discussed the EOH results and shares some of their growth plans going forward. He comments on their targetting of the government sector and provides information on their job creation initiative

Barnstone, has just launched the Barnstone Graduate Academy to contribute to South Africa's pool of professional services skills. The Barnstone Academy will offer 12 young graduates a six-month training and internship with the potential for full-time employment thereafter.

SAP has accredited a specialised mining solution developed by local professional services company, Barnstone. The Barnstone Mining Solution leverages Barnstone's extensive mining experience to create a pre-configured version of SAP's All-in-One software for the mining industry. “Mid-market mining companies face a double challenge: reducing costs, while gaining the flexibility to move rapidly into niche areas in a highly dynamic marketplace,” says Conrad Steyn, business development director at Barnstone.

Gijima was heavily impacted by its financial settlements including a R374 million with South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs. Bogoshi revealed that Gijima is focusing on “ Vision 2025”, forming new partnerships, exploring the African business markets, exploring mobility and building efficient applications.