By Emeka Aginam

Foreign Direct Investment plays an extraordinary and growing role in global business. It is usually characterized by new markets and marketing channels, access to new skills, technology and financing, among others.

These amongst others benefits are what Nigeria and some other African countries stand to gain from the investment to be made by SAP.
Just last week in Johannesburg, South Africa, Systems Applications and Products, SAP, in a world press conference in Johannesburg, South Africa   announced plans to invest up to $500 million to accelerate innovation and growth in Africa.

Apparently, the expansive opportunities within Africa have been the reason for the rise on the influx of FDI by the multinationals on the continent.
Although governments are usually apprehensive of the implication of the presence of foreign firms to the nation’s growth and development, but by the time the announcement was there were convincing signals that SAP’s commitment to up skill- local African talents through innovation was not in doubt.

Benefiting countries:
The African countries that will benefit from the pilot program will include Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Angola and Morocco.
Goals of the investment:
The goal, according to SAP,  is to establish the African region as one of the company’s top-five growth markets globally.
Much of the direct investment, the firm said will be outside South Africa, where SAP already has a solid footprint.
The investment, according to SAP, is part of its vision of helping make Africa run better and improve the lives of Africans.

Core goals:
*Accelerating growth across five regions with hub anchors in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Angola and Morocco
* Up-skilling next generation of IT leaders and professionals by training up to 10,000 consultants by 2020 in close collaboration with local governments and universities
* Building on 22 years of experience, commitment and close collaboration with customers, partners, governments and universities throughout the African continent.
The  investment when fully concluded is expected to up-skill  next generation of IT leaders and professionals by training  consultants by 2020 in close collaboration with local governments and universities.

Africa as important market:
Listening to SAP Africa Executive leadership , one thing was clear. Africa, including Nigeria is the next big destination for SAP while investment groups and venture capital funds have taken notice of Africa’s burgeoning IT market.
However, the plan to invest$500 million to accelerate and grow local talents in the continent explains the potentials of the market.

Potentials to leapfrog
Speaking on the potentials of Africa as the next big destination, Robert Enslin, a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and president of Global Customer Operations, told the gathering that Africa has the capacity to leapfrog with technology.
With innovative solutions from SAP, Enslin with optimism said that, Africa has unique opportunity to succeed.

Time for Africa to succeed:
“This is time for Africa to succeed. We will use our cutting edge technologies to accelerate growth in the continent. With our current investment, amazing growth is expected in the continent.
“The African market is unique in its growth potential and readiness to innovate. SAP’s additional investment in the continent reflects SAP’s vision to help the world run better by delivering leading-edge innovation.”
“In Africa, we plan to engage and invest in even more markets while helping build the appropriate talent base for the IT industry, and support our customers and partners by actively contributing toward crucial technology and business skills-sets and new employment opportunities in Africa.”

Growth plan:
According to him, SAP Africa growth plan is built on the following pillars:
*Accelerating industry growth in energy and natural resources, utilities, public sector, financial services and telecommunications in the core countries of South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Angola and Morocco.

* Promoting innovation on the continent by accelerating the roll-out of core innovative SAP technology solutions that can help address the enormous resource challenges Africa is facing. Africa is in a unique position to absorb the latest technology innovations, including mobile, cloud and the flagship in-memory platform SAP HANA, as many businesses are not burdened with legacy systems already in place.

* Enhancing small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) growth, which contributes 40 percent to Africa’s GDP, by selecting Kenya as the next market for the company’s Emerging Entrepreneur Initiative, due to the strength and potential of the Kenyan market to grow and support a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem, among others.
Believing   that African has potentials to leapfrog with innovative technology, the CEO of SAP, Africa, Pfungwa Serima, assured that the global market leader for business software was committed to creating innovative environment to building new solution for Africa.

According to him, part of the investment will be on training the people of Africa, thereby creating opportunities to develop potential market.
Skills for Africa Scholarship:
At the event that also had an interactive sessions on SAP’s cloud computing and Big Data, Serima disclosed that SAP will launch the Skills for Africa Scholarship Programme in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Angola by the end of the year.

“SAP Africa is leveraging its established presence and valued ecosystem relationships to immediately commence execution of this plan across the four key pillars that we believe will drive the greatest growth and impact for the continent” he said.
For Mark Walker, Director, Insights and Vertical Industries, IDC Middle East, Africa and Turkey, IDC, this is the time for African government to use technology for economic development.

According to him,  “Innovative technologies such as mobility and the cloud are among the fastest growing IT segments and are already having a significant impact on businesses’ ability to grow and innovate.
“We are facing a major turning point where we either embrace the cutting-edge or remain rooted in the past. Solid, forward-looking investment plans will not only dramatically strengthen Africa’s ICT landscape, but also its ability to compete on a global scale.”