SAP announced the winners of its latest SAP Africa Partner Awards, which recognise the insight, expertise and value that partner organisations deliver to companies using SAP technologies to run core business processes.

The winning partner organisations include Dimension Data, Accenture South Africa, and Zimele Technologies.

Tracy Bolton, chief operating officer at SAP Africa, notes the important role partner organisations play in supporting digital transformation initiatives across the continent. “African organisations are adopting cloud technologies at an unprecedented scale as they strive to boost efficiency, unlock innovation and transform their business models.

“As a partner-led organisation, SAP works closely with a broad range of innovators, experts and market leaders to ensure African enterprises have the support and insight they need to realise their intelligent enterprise ambitions.”

 

The winning companies at this year’s SAP Africa Partner Awards include:

* Dimension Data, winner of the Top Cloud Performance category, which considers cloud bookings, year-on-year growth, and renewals;

* Zimele Technologies, winner of the Top Capacity Growth category, which considers skills development, training and the percentage increase in certified consultants;

* Accenture South Africa, winner of the Go-Lives category, which recognises the number of customer go-lives; and

* Dimension Data for excellence in SAP RISE, which considers RISE bookings.

 

Growing interest in cloud adoption

Andrew Strachan, head of sales: business applications at Dimension Data, cites growing interest from customers wishing to migrate their on-premise ERP business processes to cloud environments. “We help our clients move to the cloud and embrace the latest SAP technologies.

“Lately we’ve seen growing numbers of clients adopt the SAP RISE program to move their on-premise SAP applications into both public and private cloud environments. We work closely with SAP and our customers to ensure that their cloud migration is a success.”

 

 

Skills essential to cloud success

One of the most important factors for successful cloud adoption is the availability of sufficiently skilled consultants and technology experts.

In research conducted by SAP Africa, four in five African organisations said they were affected by a lack of tech skills, leading to increased pressure on existing teams, a lack of competitiveness, and stifled innovation capabilities.

 

 

Partner ecosystem thriving

Bolton cites the thriving partner ecosystem as a cornerstone of SAP’s success with supporting Africa’s digital transformation efforts.

“The winners at this year’s SAP Africa Partner Awards are a showcase of the expert guidance, technological capabilities and business insight our partners provide to organisations across the continent. We look forward to deepening our relationship with our partners and continuing with the great work done to date in driving cloud adoption and tech-enabled innovation throughout the continent.”