SAP SME World Tour returns to SA to reach out to SMEs in other major centres across the country

Johannesburg — SAP Africa has announced it is building on the success of last year’s inaugural SAP SME World Tour by hosting this event in other major centres around South Africa, as well as Nigeria.

SAP brought this event to South Africa for the first time late in 2008, as part of a global initiative across 50 cities in 10 countries to educate users on SAP solutions for small businesses and mid-size companies.

“This decision was taken as a result of the success and overwhelming response from customers and partners who attended the SAP SME World Tour that was held in Johannesburg in November 2008,” says Derek Kudsee, Director SME of SAP Africa.

The road show will visit Johannesburg again, as well as Durban, Cape Town and Lagos, Nigeria throughout the month of May. SAP Executive Vice-President, SME Sales and Channels, Eric Duffaut, will attend the Johannesburg event as a special guest speaker.

“We are extremely excited about being able to reach out to the other centres around the country. This will bring us closer to our customers and help us get an even better understanding of their business environment and challenges,” says Kudsee.

The event is designed to be highly interactive and focused on the needs and challenges of specific industries to ensure delegates can hone in on the issues that are uppermost on their minds.

The company’s SME president, Hans-Peter Klaey, was the guest speaker last year at the event that is comparable with SAP’s SAPPHIRE Conference, an annual gathering of the company’s international customers.

“In addition to talking to our customers about our solutions and how we can help them improve their operations, this is also an opportunity for them to interact with their peers, industry partners and SAP executives,” explains Kudsee.

Kudsee says one of highlights of last year’s event was the introduction of the SAP Business All-in-One fast-start program, which is designed to deliver rapid business results and lower the total cost of ownership by offering pre-configured SAP Business All-in-One solutions for mid-size companies in the manufacturing, services and wholesale industries.

The 2009 SAP SME World Tour will be hosted over the following dates:

Wednesday, 06 May 2009 at the 1on1 Conference Centre, Gateway, Umhlanga, Durban

Tuesday, 19 May 2009 at The Bay Hotel, Camps Bay, Cape Town

Thursday, 21 May 2009 at the Protea Hotel, Oakwood Park, Lagos, Nigeria

Wednesday, 27 May 2009 at The Campus, The Forum, Bryanston, Johannesburg

Novell will once again sponsor the events, while SCT and BlueKey will join in to sponsor the Cape Town regional event.

For further information on how to book, please contact Sotirios Dramalis on +27 11 319 7496 or email him on sotirios.dramalis@sap.com

SAP solutions for small businesses and mid-size companies

With more than 37 500 small and mid-size customers worldwide, SAP is a leading provider of business applications and an established and highly successful player in the small and mid-size enterprise (SME) market. SAP offers a broad and innovative solution portfolio for small businesses and mid-size companies to meet the heterogeneous demands of SME customers. SAP solutions for small businesses and mid-size companies include SAP Business One, a single integrated application for successfully managing small businesses; SAP Business ByDesign, the software industry’s most complete, integrated and adaptable on-demand solution for mid-size companies; and SAP Business All-in-One, a customisable and extensible solution for mid-size companies with deep industry best practices built in. Sold, implemented and maintained through SAP and an expanding network of qualified partners, all of the solutions are competitively priced, easy and quick to implement and scalable to customers’ growing business needs. The SAP solutions specifically designed for SMEs help enable small businesses and mid-size companies to lower operating costs, improve operational excellence, gain better business insight and control, and grow their businesses flexibly. Additional information is available at http://www.sap.com/solutions/sme

SAP

SAP is the world’s leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With approximately 75 000 customers (includes customers from the acquisition of Business Objects) in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol “SAP”. (For more information, visit www.sap.com)

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning and related applications.

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