Through purposeful acquisition and astute tracking of SAP's own global strategy, formally boutique SAP solutions provider, Britehouse Specialist SAP Division (SSD), has become the only South African-based SAP company able to design, deliver, host, and take specific SAP applications into the cloud.
In addition, because of the acquisition of Dimension Data by telecoms giant, NTT, earlier this year, Britehouse SSD is now part of a global team of over 4 000 SAP consultants.
The company has grown very quickly in the three years since Pebbletree, a niche player focusing on SAP business consulting and SAP application development, deployment, and optimisation in the mining, professional services, hi-tech logistics, and manufacturing sectors, merged with OneArch Solutions, also a niche player specialising in the industrial sector and warehouse distribution.
At the same time, Pebbletree acquired Eventus Education, a change management and training company that added key elements to successful project delivery.
This year, the company acquired 60% of Swicon360, the only African company globally certified to offer SAP HCM Business Process Outsourcing, and 51% of BasisOne, Africa's Premier SAP-accredited hosting provider. It also acquired 100% of Kopano Outsourcing, an HCM Consulting company.
Britehouse SSD CEO Paolo Masselli says the philosophy underpinning all the acquisitions has always been to provide customers with solutions on a SAP platform that create tangible value for their business.
“That meant, on the one hand, deepening and broadening the range and scope of our SAP specialisations so that, progressively, we could offer clients a fully-rounded service. On the other, it meant ensuring that our offerings could always fully exploit not only innovations in SAP products, but also the incredible depth of existing products.
“The quickest way to achieve that was to acquire existing capabilities rather than try and develop them internally.
“We were, however, extremely selective of the companies we aimed for. Apart from their technical capabilities, it was vital that their corporate culture matched our own.
“Delivery on the customer's mandate is core to our ethos, because it's the best way to establish long-term relationships and to ensure repeat business. We're known for treating each customer's business as our own. That's an attitude you can't teach. It's who you are. So we made sure that, autonomous as they are, all the companies that are now part of Britehouse SSD, are like-minded.”
Britehouse has always tracked SAP's Global Strategy and that is currently defined as 'on premise', 'on demand', and 'on device'.
On premise represents traditional SAP functionality, owned by the client and installed at the client's premises.
“We've built a sizeable practice on business intelligence based on SAP's business objects as well as warehouse management, APO, enterprise asset management, and, recently, enterprise document management, using Documentum in our alliance with EMC,” Masselli says.
On demand encompasses SAP's software as a service (SaaS) offering. “Swicon360 and BasisOne give us the means to provide business process outsourcing in the area of human resources, specifically payroll, employee self-service, management self-service, talent management, and performance management,” Masselli says. “These facilities and BasisOne's hosting expertise position us to expertly help clients move towards the cloud.”
On device relates to enterprise mobility. Britehouse views enterprise mobility as a cornerstone of SAP's strategy and has invested in the past two years in the establishment of a specialist mobility division. This division has developed extensive expertise in delivering a variety of mobile solutions across the SAP application stack, allowing users to transact in various business processes anywhere, anytime.
Having acquired a full service capability in all aspects of SAP operations relevant to an increasingly virtualised and cloud-based world, Britehouse now plans to leverage the international ecosystem of which it forms a part to build a global brand.
“We will continue to grow,” Masselli says. “Not only because it's one of the most exciting things a business can do, but because extending our reach and our exposure to best practice and cutting-edge projects enables us to continuously hone our ability to efficiently and cost-effectively give customers the solutions that are most appropriate for their needs.”
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