Business leaders, technology partners and SAP experts met last week to discuss the role and potential of innovation to power East Africa’s economic development and growth.
Hardeep Sound, regional sales director: Emerging Africa at SAP, noted that organisations throughout the region are investing in business transformation and technology for greater efficiency and resilience.
“Interest in business AI and cloud ERP solutions are at an all-time high as companies seek to reimagine their business future by leveraging powerful technologies. Powered by the latest digital transformation capabilities and supported by a rich ecosystem of expert partners, companies throughout East Africa are accelerating their innovation efforts and unlocking new growth opportunities.”
The comments were made at SAP Innovation Day Kenya, part of a series of global events held in key markets across the world. The Kenya event follows successful similar events held in South Africa and Nigeria in May and July respectively.
SAP Innovation Day Kenya brought together business and technology leaders from across the East Africa region to discuss the latest strategies and approaches to technology-led innovation. Key to the discussions was the role of business AI in powering the region’s next wave of innovation and growth.
Johannes Dressler, MD for Emerging Africa at SAP, emphasised that East Africa is a strategic market for SAP, and is home to some of the fastest-growing economies in the world. He noted that East African organisations can leverage technology to achieve sustainable growth and market competitiveness.
“Every organisation in the region and globally is striving to understand how to leverage technologies such as AI, which have become necessities instead of luxuries. To remain competitive and thrive in turbulent markets, companies today need to connect their end-to-end processes and drive greater efficiency, innovation, revenue and profitability.”
Interest in artificial intelligence is growing amid the promise of greater efficiency and scale. AI has also been identified as a key thematic focus by the Kenya National Innovation Agency’s Strategic Plan 2023-2027, especially its application in developing innovative solutions for use in biotech, urban planning and climate change efforts.
Evert-Jan Tromp, vice-president for cloud and innovation: EMEA at SAP, highlighted that the current focus is on laying the foundation for organisations to adopt and derive value from technologies like AI. “Enterprises are transforming their capabilities to establish a clean core that can drive their success with AI and other emerging technologies. Here, our partner ecosystem plays a crucial role by helping companies understand the processes and best practices that accelerate adoption and maximise value realisation.”
At a panel discussion held during the event, Martin Mwarangu, group CIO at the Kenya Tea Development Agency shared insight into his company’s transformation journey. The Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) is a private company owned by 600 000 smallholder tea farmers spread across 16 tea-growing counties throughout Kenya.
“The business case for our transformation journey was to achieve greater efficiencies and cost-savings throughout our operations while centralising our data and establishing a solid foundation for our future transformation efforts,” says Mwarangu. “One of our core objectives is the adoption of best practices, for example standardised financial reporting across our various business entities that would enable improved decision-making.”
KTDA will continue to evaluate further innovations in their transformation journey. Mwarangu added: “We are in the people business, with hundreds of thousands of suppliers and farmers and other players in our broader value chain, and intend to leverage SAP’s human capital management and supplier management solutions to enhance our capabilities.”
The event also included the announcement of a significant deal signing with pioneering social enterprise Hewatele, which specialises in the supply of medical oxygen to over 150 facilities across Kenya. Hewatele made the strategic decision to adopt SAP’s next-gen Cloud ERP solution to streamline operations and enhance its ability to deliver critical medical supplies more efficiently.