SAP West Africa in collaboration with one of its partners, Hartford Green Consulting showcased the SAP Business One Solution at the 10th Leap Africa CEOs Forum, which held in Lagos during the week.

A recognized annual event in the Small Medium Enterprise circle, the forum attracts over 800 guests annually including SME founders, captains of industries, CEOs and Managing Directors drawn from different sectors of the economy and public sector officials.  The theme of this year’s forum was Staying ahead: Maximizing Profits and Mitigating Risk.

The Forum initiated in 2005, brought together entrepreneurs, CEOs of top corporations and indigenous companies, risk management experts from different sectors as well as local and international speakers to share knowledge and insights that will equip entrepreneurs to build sustainable local businesses that continue to yield value for generations.

Explaining the rationale for participating, Kelechi Nwosu, channel director, SAP West Africa, said: “In this era of trade globalization, organizations are constantly seeking ways to improve performance and remain competitive.  SAP is a global leader in Enterprise solutions delivery and has over the years worked with organizations of different sizes to become more innovative, this has helped redefine the competitive landscape and also help them run better.”

“We recognize that SMEs play an important role in the growth and development of every economy and are committed to supporting the growth of this sector in Nigeria working with our partners.  SAP offers best in class solution for SMEs and Enterprises alike.  Our alliance with Leap Africa is a justification of our commitment to make a difference in the SME space.  The best run businesses run SAP,” he added.

The SAP Business One application is business management software that caters to small and mid-sized businesses.

A complete and customizable solution, the single, integrated solution provides clear visibility into the entire business and complete control over every aspect of business operations.

It captures all critical business information for immediate access and use company-wide.

Unlike accounting packages and spreadsheets, it delivers what is needed to manage key business areas such as accounting and finance, sales and customer management, purchasing and operations, inventory and distribution, reporting and administration.

SAP Business One is designed with flexibility in mind because every business is different.  Whether it is deployed in the office or in the cloud, it can be accessed from the road using SAP Business One mobile app. 

What’s more, employees can start using it from day one.  And as the business grows, you can customize and extend SAP Business One to meet your evolving needs.

Ade Adenuga, managing partner, Hartford Green Consulting said, “The SAP Business One application offers an affordable way to manage your entire business – from sales and customer relationships to financials and operations.  Designed specifically for small businesses and sold exclusively through SAP partners like Hartford Green Consulting, it helps you streamline processes, capture all of your business information in a single, scalable system, act on timely information and drive profitable growth.”

He added that the SAP Business One application is trusted by over 47,000 companies in 150 countries and can be deployed on premise or in the cloud in as little as 2 to 8 weeks.

The Forum provided CEOs of SMEs with practical tips for organizational growth and sustainability, foster sharing of best practices in entrepreneurship, enable SMEs identify and mitigate risks to promote business growth and provide networking opportunities for partners, sponsors, invited guests and participants – to interact and discover prospects and challenges for SME growth and development.

Earlier in his keynote address at the forum, Dharnesh Gordon, managing director, Nestle Nigeria PLC said Nigeria has very creative entrepreneurs with a passion to win, and warned that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste if the entrepreneur cannot learn from it, because business is about learning.

He urged entrepreneurs to continue to innovate as a new way of doing business lies in the innovation process.  “Crisis and risk is exactly what life is about. You have to continue to innovate and in the innovation process is a new way of doing business.  Embracing risks should be the DNA of every entrepreneur, so embrace it as an opportunity to learn.”

Abubakar Suleiman, executive director, Finance and Strategy, Sterling Bank in his presentation on managing financial and currency risks in the Nigerian and global business landscape, said, “The world is now a global village and there is a growing contagion of risk of international development on local or national businesses,’’ and charged entrepreneurs to always seek advice on issue of foreign exchange as recent currency devaluation and rising interest rates have grave implications for the business sector.

Speaking on importance of insurance and other formal risk mitigation strategies in protecting businesses, Oluwole Oshin, founder and managing director, Custodian and Allied Insurance Plc, explained that insurance transfer or shared risk could make the difference between a growing concern and bankruptcy, while emphasising, “ As SMEs, you cannot do much without transferring your risks’’.

Other renowned speakers such as Clare Omatseye, managing director/chief executive officer, JNC International and President, Healthcare Federation of Nigeria, Adepeju Adebajo, Managing Director at Lafarge Cement Wapco Nigeria, amongst others spoke at the event.

These presenters with key insights spoke on handling financial management and currency risks in the Nigerian and global business landscape, managing supply chain, operations and sales risks in Nigerian business landscape, importance of insurance and other formal risk mitigation strategies in protecting businesses as well as building a culture of risk management: thinking one step ahead.

Since its launch in 2005, the CEOs Forum is reputed as a platform for exposing business owners to the importance of succession planning, instituting effective systems, structures and ethical leadership within their organizations to ensure long term sustainability.

To date, the CEOs Forum which fosters the exchange of ideas and best practices, has attracted over 3400 business owners, chief executives, directors, managers, as well as leaders in the public and non-profit sectors.

SAP is the world leader in enterprise applications in terms of software and software-related service revenue.

With a 43-year history of innovation and growth as a true industry leader, we are the world’s third largest independent software manufacturer based on market capitalization.

Hartford Green Consulting, on the other hand, has been an acredited SAP Channel Partner since 2008, and has delivered SAP projects for organisations in virtually all sectors and industry verticals including Oil & Gas, Defence, Public Sector, and Financial Services.

Hartford has a specialist team delivering successful SAP Business One projects to the Nigerian SME sector to build value, manage risk and improve performance…