On the heels of the launch of SAP's flagship SAP Business Suite, powered by HANA, in January this year, enterprise application software leader SAP announced the global launch of the SAP Enterprise Foundation extended edition solution, which also took place today in Shanghai, aimed at helping companies accelerate their business growth, and increase productivity and efficiency. This announcement was supported today at a customer and media event held in Johannesburg.
Rising IT and operational business costs, coupled with a scarcity of skills, mean businesses of all sizes in Africa are increasingly pressured to innovate in order to succeed in a competitive landscape. To complicate matters, many businesses are faced with the challenges of integrating disparate IT systems and increasingly rigorous compliance issues. In order to stay on top, they require simplicity and precise insight from their business data when and where they need it, and to spend more time and resources on innovation and less time on keeping the lights on.
SAP Africa has demonstrated solid double-digit growth over the last few years, and SAP Business Suite, powered by HANA and supported by the new SAP Enterprise Foundation extended edition, are expected to play important roles in further driving growth into 2013 and beyond. With SAP HANA, judicious organisations in Africa are already securing a competitive edge, and through real-time insight and intelligent analysis of their business operations based on large volumes of transactional data coming from various sources across the organisation.
Royal Swazi Sugar Corporation (RSSC), based in Swaziland, is the first SAP Business Suite powered by HANA customer in Africa. The organisation chose the solution with the goal to speed up processes, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve systems integration. "RSSC is one of the largest companies in Swaziland, employing more than 3 500 people while producing two-thirds of the country's sugar and ethanol. A key factor in choosing SAP Business Suite powered by HANA is the objective to realise true business efficiency and rapid real-time insight into our data," said Rob Coombe, RSSC's Group IT Manager.
Combining SAP Business Suite powered by HANA with innovations from Analytics, Mobility and Technology, SAP Enterprise Foundation extended edition is the ideal entry solution enabling organisations to accelerate their growth strategies and innovate like never before with a fully integrated, comprehensive solution. It can be consumed from the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud with a growing number of data centres in Europe and Africa, as well as on premise at the customer site.
"With unparalleled real-time abilities, SAP Business Suite powered by HANA has quite simply changed the technology game," said Pfungwa Serima, CEO: SAP Africa. "In order to remain relevant, companies have no choice but to keep up with rapid growth and change, improve profitability and reduce the cost of running their operations. In high-growth markets such as Africa, one of the biggest challenges is to accelerate productivity while keeping abreast of all business-relevant factors. SAP Enterprise Foundation extended edition is a powerful anchor for solutions, providing everything a business needs in a small footprint."
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