SAP South Africa shows strong growth

Enterprise performance management sector is growing considerably

SAP South Africa has made strides in the past year to extend its reach into the enterprise performance management (EPM) market, exceeding revenue rates of other regions covered by its mother company, SAP AG.

EPM applications are those that address the strategic and managerial processes within organizations and that have a strong focus on analysis and decision making

“SAP already enjoys a strong presence in South Africa due to a comparatively large installed based of its ERP solutions, which is where we are picking up a lot of new business from customers adding the EMP functionality,” explains Simon Carpenter, SAP South Africa Director of Strategic Initiatives. “The local economy has also been somewhat sheltered against the fallout from the global economic crisis and although  IT budgets have been under less pressure than elsewhere there is still a strong focus on EPM applications because they help to bring greater clarity to a very uncertain world.”

Carpenter says SAP has also seen strong interest in East and West Africa, particularly in extractive industries such as the mining, oil and gas sectors that have had to improve their performance management capabilities more than in times of buoyant commodity prices.

“There is also increasing pressure from a sustainability point of view, as these companies are having to make more efficient use of natural resources and become more transparent on how they use those resources. And these requirements are only going to become more stringent,” he says.