Dimension Data has established a SAP consulting company to complement its "infrastructure capabilities" with "SAP application expertise".
The start-up, Pebbletree Consulting, was established through DiData`s venture capital company, Protocol, to target the SAP ERP market, which DiData estimates to be worth between R800 million and R900 million in consulting revenue in SA and growing at between 10% and 15% a year.
Mark Bowman, DiData SA`s COO, says the overlap between SAP installations in the company`s customer base is very high. "There`s always been a gap in our offering and it`s a good way to develop that capability in our overall mix by bringing highly skilled people on board."
Pebbletree, which started operation over a month ago, is led by Paolo Masselli, former founding partner of SAP implementation consultancy, CDE, now part of Comparex. Maselli is joined by Hendri Pretorius, also a former director of CDE, and Grant Tate, who brings on board experience in international SAP projects in the automotive industry. The management team owns 50% of Pebbletree, while the other half is owned by Protocol.
Between selling CDE to Persetel and joining DiData in August 2000, Masselli ran Comparex`s Middle East operation in Dubai. But Masselli says Pebbletree will not compete with CDE, nor is DiData going to compete head-on with the largest SAP implementation players, which include Accenture, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Consulting, Comparex and AST.
"We want to get access to the SAP base," explains Bowman," and our interest is predominantly in running SAP hosted solutions off our overall managed services proposition."
Bowman adds that Pebbletree will focus on the newer components of the SAP offering, such as CRM, Web services, enterprise portal and e-business space, where he believes "there isn`t much competition at this stage".
Admitting, however, that the overall SAP consulting space is competitive, Masselli says Pebbletree`s goal is to capture one-tenth of the local market. "These things don`t happen over night. It will take us five years to get there."
He says Pebbletree`s initial focus is South African, but its longer-term ambitions span DiData`s global footprint. "The five-year plan is to establish the group`s SAP capability internationally, mainly centred around the footprint in Germany, the US, Australia and Asia."
Recruitment foray
According to Masselli, Pebbletree aspires to become a SAP global alliance partner, which will require "establishing the company on all continents, and having some global implementations in place".
The first step - a local SAP service partner status - should be achieved by September. "We have an agreement with SAP that states we will become a SAP service partner as soon as we attain 25 certified SAP consultants on board," says Masselli.
So far, Pebbletree is providing resources to three local SAP projects: Coca-Cola SABCO, Amplats and Barlows.
With a severe shortage of senior-level SAP skills in the country, Pebbletree`s aggressive recruitment drive is good news for consultants and recruiting agencies, but bad news for the competition.
"We are going to go out and recruit a core of extremely capable, senior project managers who will assist us in growing the company locally, and also establish the capability internationally for DiData," says Masselli. "We`ll use our network of contacts, we`ll headhunt them, and we`ll have to pay a premium to get them on board."
Despite the IT market slowdown, the local SAP arena has remained buoyant. Katherine Carrick, service alliance manager at SAP Africa, says: "New SAP consultancies are being started and there`s lots of recruitment activity, as well as staff movement between various SAP service providers.
"But, with SAP moving into new areas such as CRM and SRM (supply relationship management), new certified skills are moving into the market," she says.
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