Sun City, South Africa, 29 Oct 2012
Global business solutions leader SAP announced at Saphila 2012, Africa's biggest SAP User Group conference, that the acquisition of Ariba into the SAP family has accelerated SAP's cloud growth strategy. Several Saphila keynote sessions will be dedicated to showcasing innovative cloud technologies and highlighting their potential for making businesses run significantly better.
Last week, SAP said in its Q3 earnings announcement that the company had raised to $4.3 billion its 2012 software revenue outlook to reflect gains from newly acquired software-related services company, Ariba. SAP's vision for the cloud is to enable customers to reach their business objectives and help them manage their most important assets, namely: people, money, customers and suppliers, and Ariba has been pivotal in helping drive SAP's cloud strategy. This strategy clearly takes into consideration the following major business trends as identified by global research firm, Gartner: consumerisation of IT, big data, mobility, social, new business models, cost efficiency, simplification and investment security.
SAP aims to reach one billion people through cloud solutions by 2015 and become the fastest growing database company globally. By joining forces with Ariba, SAP will create the premier business network to connect businesses and their systems to those of their trading partners and enable new processes only possible in a digital environment. SAP plans to enable its more than 197 000 customers to easily connect to the Ariba business network through pre-built integration points - no matter what size or industry, and no matter whether on-premise or on-demand. SAP also plans to provide open access to the business network, extending the benefits of business collaboration to any company, on any system, from any provider.
More than 730 000 companies across 140 countries currently use Ariba's cloud-based solutions and business network to discover and collaborate with a global network of partners. Through the acquisition, SAP will deliver an industry-leading end-to-end procurement solution and become the leader in the fast-growing segment of inter-enterprise cloud-based business networks.
Following the acquisition, Ariba will continue to operate as an independent business within SAP and will serve as SAP's Cloud Procurement Suite. Both SAP and Ariba will maintain their innovation and support commitments to their existing on-premise customers. Ariba will leverage key SAP technologies - enterprise mobility, analytics, in-memory computing in its cloud applications and network solutions.
"Ariba's strengths of having more than 15 years of cloud spend management and being a global leader in business networks, are now coupled with SAP being the number one enterprise applications company with 40 years of business software leadership, innovation and solutions expertise," said Pfungwa Serima, CEO of SAP Africa. "This is good news for existing and potential SAP and Ariba customers. Ariba partners will soon be integrated into the SAP Africa ecosystem through a specific partner recruitment process. Presently, more than 63% of the world's transaction revenues touch an SAP system; the implications are mind-blowing."
The SAP Procurement portfolio will remain the de-facto on-premise suite, while Ariba will become the cloud-based portfolio. Both suites will continue to see investments, development and innovation while benefiting from access to the Ariba business network linking buyers and a vast number of global suppliers. The two offerings together enable a blended or hybrid procurement roadmap approach to fit any organisation's future varied requirements.
Ariba, which was founded in 1996, combines industry-leading, cloud-based technology with the world's largest Web-based trading community to help companies buy, sell and manage their cash more efficiently and effectively. Prior to the acquisition, Ariba had 40 offices present in 21 countries, including North and South America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Australia.
For more information, visit the SAP Newsroom.
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