SAP launches latest mind-blowing releases of BI, EIM software to African market

Issued by Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide for SAP Africa
Johannesburg, 03 Jun 2011

SAP Africa has launched the revolutionary SAP In-Memory Appliance (HANA), and the new 4.0 releases of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) and Enterprise Information Management (EIM) software for the first time in Africa.

The launch comes in response to the huge volumes of data companies today have to access, analyse and base their business decisions on. These new solutions bring speed, allow more people access to data and make BI and EIM easier to use while ensuring a trusted quality of business intelligence information.

The launch event, which took place on 25 May, was well attended by over 700 delegates from different industries, including retail, financial services and the public sector. The event served as the platform for SAP to unveil the latest ground-breaking innovation solutions, including the 10.0 releases of SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) and Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) software.

Boasting an unparalleled user experience and incorporating social networking tools on a common unified infrastructure, the latest BI and EIM releases reveal the range and capabilities of these technologies, which are aimed at shaping the future of analytics in real-time with in-memory computing. The software places instant powerful analytics in the hands of users, with more mobile devices supported than ever before. It combines structured and unstructured information and provides the tools to govern this information, while providing flexible on-premise, on-demand, and on-device deployment options.

Paul Webel, General Manager for BAT and LOB Solutions for SAP Africa, said after the launch: “In order for African businesses to attract investment and retain talent, they have to overcome the enduring poor perceptions around good governance, compliance and transparency. To mitigate these risks, they must be able to operate off the previously elusive single version of the truth and empower all stakeholders to analyse and present this information in many different ways to different audiences. By embedding BI in the heart of the business processes, the new release of SAP BusinessObjects software is a huge leap forward in this regard, and the most significant BI launch ever within the IT industry."

Africa stands at a significant inflection point in this new world, where the demands for its natural resources are fuelled by a return to global growth, coupled with a desperate need to modernise private and public sector institutions. These changes will ensure that Africa is able to compete globally and the launch of the new SAP Business Analytics releases will aid this transformation and global acceptance.

“Early customer statistics and recent analyst reports reveal how SAP is leading the analytics market,” adds Webel. “The customer results from SAP's High Performance Analytic Appliance (HANA), which utilises In-Memory computing for the analysis of big data at a super fast speed, is delivering on the promise of high-speed analytics to all users within organisations. We believe that our solutions cut across industries and company sizes, and you don't have to run SAP ERP to realise the full benefit and advantage of our innovative software.”

Key elements of the 4.0 release are: the SAP BusinessObjects Data Services software, which helps consolidate any data source, assess the quality, profile and enhance it, then integrate this data into any BI or application environment. The SAP BusinessObjects Information Steward is a new software solution that gives organisations the power to analyse, monitor and rate data sources and categories on aspects such as completeness, accuracy and consistency, and the ability to visually share the information with the business. The SAP BusinessObjects Event Insight is also new software that helps the business understand the impact of streams of business events in real-time. These are just some of the innovations SAP BusinessObjects is delivering in the biggest release of BI and EIM ever undertaken by SAP.

George Mathew, Group Vice-President and General Manager for business analytics and technology out of the US, comments that these releases illustrate SAP's vision to bring customers elegant, fast and easy-to-consume business software that provides real business benefit. By empowering these customers, SAP drives closer towards its goal of reaching as many users as possible. “With these releases, SAP is combining best-in-class analytics with the best-in-class SAP business applications.”

SAP

SAP is the world's leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With more than 97 000 customers in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol “SAP”. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning, business intelligence, and related applications.

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