Angolan insurance company ENSA has chosen SAP All-in-One to replace a business administration system that no longer meets its needs and to help manage the company's IT infrastructure.
The contract is a direct one between ENSA and SAP Africa Region, the division of global business solutions giant SAP AG, responsible for sales of SAP products in sub-Saharan Africa excluding South Africa.
This is SAP Africa Region's first direct deal in the Southern African Development Community countries.
SAP All-in-One, aimed at mid-sized enterprises, will also be used by ENSA to manage the company's internal administration and business processes.
Says Tarn'e de Beer, SADC territory sales executive for SAP Africa Region: "Thus far in Africa SAP has gone to market through business partners who know their local environments well and have both the contacts and infrastructure on the ground to deliver our products as well as we would.
"That strategy has worked well for us but, consistent with SAP policy globally, we also want to build direct relationships with organisations in Africa and, as with our services division, be the primary contact where that seems appropriate.
"So this deal with ENSA represents our first step in that direction and marks the success of an intensive, highly focused preparation period during 2007."
According to Mario Mota Lemos, head of ENSA's IT department, ENSA's previous business administration software had ceased to meet the company's needs. "We needed a system that could integrate easily with the solution that manages our products and client relationships and would also help us manage our IT assets and infrastructure. We asked our IT consultants, Deloitte, for a recommendation and their office in Portugal suggested that we use an SAP product.
"We then contacted the SAP Africa office, where Tarn'e acted very quickly to get us a quote. Speed was important to us, as we were implementing a new insurance-specific solution at the time and wanted a business solution to be up and running in tandem with it.
"It was also Tarn'e who suggested SAP All-in-One to us, as it could be implemented faster and less expensively than the enterprise version of SAP while still giving us all the functionality we needed."
Consultants from the Deloitte office in Angola will be ENSA's implementation partners, with go-live scheduled for mid-year.
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