SAP Introduces Co-innovation Lab in Africa

• SAP Introduces Co-innovation Lab in Africa

SAP has announced the opening of Africa’s first ever SAP Co-Innovation Lab.

It said that the lab offered a hands-on environment for SAP to innovate jointly with software solution partners, system integrators and technology partners on current and future technologies.

According to a statement by the company, the aim of the lab is to increase competitive advantages, driven by greater efficiency and productivity on the African continent, with the ultimate goal to satisfy the demands of customers.

“Not only is innovation key to survival in today’s economy, but the speed at which you are able to transform is becoming increasingly critical. Far too often, great ideas are lost. Consequently, businesses are looking for smarter, quicker and more efficient ways to innovate,” the Managing Director of SAP Africa, Brett Parker, said.

In the context of the digital revolution, the key objective of SAP Co-Innovation Lab is to provide a suitable environment, relevant technology and available expertise to assist collaborators and, ultimately, customers, to transform good ideas into business-ready solutions, at a much faster pace.

Africa’s entrepreneurial spirit is well known with rapid technology adoption such as mobile phones significantly enabling entrepreneurship across the continent.

“Co-innovation links the innovative power of SAP and its ecosystem of partners to help our customers on the way to a true digital business,” the Executive Vice-President, LoB Digital Assets and IoT SAP, Dr. Tanja Rueckert, said.

He added, “We are very happy to now be able to bring the proven model of SAP Co-innovation Labs to Africa.”

Since the inception of the first lab in Palo Alto in 2007, various SAP Co-Innovation Labs have already been established across the globe such as the United States East Coast, Brazil, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, India, Singapore, China, South Korea, Japan – all of which boast interconnected operations, supported by cloud computing. Expansion of the lab network around the globe broadens the pool of talents working on solutions and brings a wide array of expertise and knowledge to the table.

“Collaborating with the SAP Co-Innovation Lab in Africa provided us access to a range of local and global skills we required to bring our vision to life for a truly integrated enterprise solution enabling unified business planning across technical and the ERP domains in the energy and natural resources industry,” said John Megannon from MineRP.

He added, “With the completion of our SAP COIL Phase 2 project, we will have the first in a series of market-ready offerings available and customers ready to adopt the solution.”