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Mobility key for African SAP users

Tyson Ngubeni
By Tyson Ngubeni
Sun City, 09 Jun 2014
African SAP users are demanding SAP solutions tailored to high mobile penetration, says Sal Laher, AFSUG chairman and Eskom CIO.
African SAP users are demanding SAP solutions tailored to high mobile penetration, says Sal Laher, AFSUG chairman and Eskom CIO.

The African SAP User Group (AFSUG) is increasingly urging the German software company to tailor solutions to meet the continent's mobile-dense environment.

This is according to Sal Laher, AFSUG chairman and Eskom CIO, speaking at Sun City today, at the Saphila 2014 conference, which brings together SAP users from across the continent.

South Africa's SAP customer base consists of around 280 companies, says Laher, and AFSUG aims to represent their concerns to the German software giant's global decision-makers.

Laher said recommendations made by a collective of African companies through AFSUG help influence SAP's corporate plan and strategy for meeting requirements specific to the region. "Mobility has been identified as a key need by South African customers and our role is to ask SAP to design products which suit us."

According to Laher, recommendations are raised at the SAP User Group Executive Network (SUGEN), which brings together other regional user groups to help develop market-specific solutions.

Paolo Masselli, AFSUG board member and CEO of Britehouse Specialist SAP Division, says while Africa tends to follow rather than set global technology trends, its high mobility penetration highlights the need for localised solutions.

"Sometimes we leapfrog the order of technologies which developed markets have gone through. Instead of starting with high computer penetration to tablets and then to mobile phones, Africa has started with a very high cellphone penetration," said Masselli.

He describes mobility as a "massive mechanism to reach a broad user base at a low cost" in Africa, prompting the need for developing relevant solutions for the region.

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