SA Africa has revealed plans to set up its first African AppHaus in Cape Town.
The SAP AppHaus Network is a community of SAP partners that are united in the belief that innovation requires a creative environment, a multi-disciplinary team of designers, domain experts, design thinking coaches and enterprise architects, and a human-centred approach to ensure innovation meets real-world needs.
Tracy Bolton, chief operating officer at SAP Africa, says: “Our goal is to make innovation real and help our customers transform into intelligent enterprises. This is done by applying our human-centred approach to innovation, leveraging the power of SAP technologies, including SAP Business Technology Platform, and fostering a culture of innovation.
“Companies need innovation to transform and sustain their business, but innovation needs more than just technology,” says Bolton. “Culture is often cited as a major hurdle for digital transformation and innovation within organisations. The SAP AppHaus concept offers a framework for companies to establish a culture of innovation, focusing on the five key enablers – People, Process, Place, Leadership, and Technology.”
The first AppHaus was established in 2014. Today, the network consists of 22 locations across the globe, five SAP locations and 17 partner-driven locations, with Cape Town set to become the home for an eighteenth partner – as the first on the African continent later this year.
The Design Thinking approach has gained mainstream prominence over the past few years as more companies recognise the value design plays in innovation and business growth. A McKinsey study found that businesses that embrace design generate 32% more revenue and drive 56% higher shareholder returns on average.
According to Bolton, customers can kickstart their journey with a unique set of methods bundled in an Innovation Toolkit offered by the global SAP AppHaus team that enables them to build a strong culture of innovation.
“Partners and customers leverage SAP Business Technology Platform as single platform for cloud and hybrid innovation environments, including hundreds of pre-built integrations for SAP and third-party applications,” says Birgit Fien-Schmalzbauer, global head of the SAP AppHaus Partner Network. “By putting people at the centre of every engagement, our goal is to ensure ideas are feasible and can deliver real-world business value.”
SAP is currently engaging with a shortlist of potential partners for the Cape Town AppHaus.