Bluekey Software Solutions, an African specialist in the implementation, consulting, support, and extension of SAP Business One enterprise resource planning, has been awarded SAP Business One Partner-of-the-Year for Retail, held at SAP's annual SAP Africa Partner Awards ceremony.
The SAP Africa Partner-of-the-Year Awards is the company's premier partner recognition programme that shines the acknowledgement spotlight on its most outstanding partners, which have excelled in developing a partnership with SAP and in helping their customers optimise their operations, boost their productivity, and increase their respective revenues on the continent.
The criteria all nominees and winners have to conform to are not for the faint-hearted and all nominees have to excel in the building of revenue, customer growth, increase in joint channel activities and even the adherence to ongoing enablement events that ensure they are current in all SAP technologies.
SAP chooses the winners based on four factors, which are co-innovation, market expansion, service delivery and sustainability. "In order to make the best decision, we consult with our own customers and industry experts and assess the key performance indicators of the nominees," explains Desmond Nair, Director, General Business & Partner Ecosystem, at SAP Africa.
According to Bluekey's Managing Director, Leo Dreyer, before implementing SAP software, Bluekey dedicates substantial resources to understanding business requirements so that it can be certain of delivering the most appropriate, value-adding technology rather than just selling and deploying software. This includes assessing whether the solution calls for cloud or on-premises and SQL Server or HANA.
"Our solutions are fully integrated, but we also understand that our mobile apps may need to function on- or off-line, and that the POS terminal can only go down when the store closes, not when the line drops. It's what our customers want."
"This award validates that we are on the right track when we offer SAP Business One industry solutions that fulfil highly specific needs and requirements," he says. "The retail market is complex, particularly in the fashion sector - and cost sensitive - and we have to make sure that our customers' businesses are run more efficiently and more profitably."
Bluekey's SAP Business One Retail solution is designed to meet the specific needs of SME retailers with anything from two to upwards of 300 till points, and set-up can range from a single multi-till store to a multi-branch or franchised environment. The retail software gives management the power at head office to have complete control over data, access and operations at stores - and provides retailers with a secure, customisable, flexible, scalable and integrated solution that helps overcome inefficiencies, assists in business process optimisation and provides enhanced, timely management information.
Retail group Soviet believes the award is well deserved; it was impressed with the systematic approach taken by Bluekey in the design and planned implementation of the company's end-to-end back- and front-office systems. "It was pragmatic, professional, deliberate and timeous," says Carel Bothma, Financial Executive of Soviet, "and the solution really provides for our needs."
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