Bluekey Software Solutions (Bluekey) in Kenya has been ranked 16th in the prestigious KPMG Top 100 Mid-Sized Companies Awards 2014, which serve to honour and recognise Kenya's fastest growing medium sized companies.

As a 1st time entrant in the hotly-contested awards programme, the company considers its ranking in the top 20 as a significant accomplishment that bears testament to the strength and dedication of its team in delivering innovative, professional, and value-adding solutions and services.

"It is through the commitment of our team to our customers that Bluekey has enjoyed continuous and consistent growth, year on year.  We are a small and dedicated company with a big heart. Focused mainly on SAP, we are able to deliver meaningful value to our clients, with specialist skills and customised solutions that have shown to transform their businesses for the better," says Mala Bhatt, the managing director at Bluekey in Kenya.

"Bluekey has always emphasised implementing the most appropriate solutions and qualified support rather than just selling and deploying software. We are also known for innovation, specifically in cloud-based and mobile solutions that empower our clients' mobile ambitions.

"Bluekey was the first SAP partner in the world to deploy SAP Business One HANA in the cloud and is recognised within the international SAP community as a pioneer in this field," she continues.

The company has been in Kenya since 2002, initially implementing solutions from UK-based Access Accounting. It has subsequently grown to become the largest SAP partner in East Africa targeting SME's, employing 16 certified SAP consultants and boasting a dedicated support centre.

The team has implemented over 80 successful SAP projects in Kenya alone.

It is the combination of the SAP Business One product, industry expertise, consultant experience, local knowledge and people on the ground that differentiates Bluekey from other technology implementers in the country.  

A strategic initiative in 2012 to narrow their target market has yielded bountiful returns. The decision to focus primarily on certain key industries meant that Bluekey could deliver solutions with more depth at a lower cost gaining efficiencies and economies through the repeatability of the solution.  

"We call this a template approach," says Francis Karanja, Bluekey's sales and technical director. "The solution is pre-built with upwards of 95% of the customers functional requirement catered for in advance. Instead of conducting System Design or Blueprinting workshops, we undertake solution review sessions where we note only additions to the template."

The outcome of this process is a dramatically shortened design phase, faster implementation and a more manageable system scope.  "It's win – win; the customer gets much more functionality for less money with an earlier ‘go-live', and the project is more predictable, generally coming in on time and within budget," he explains.

This initiative has enhanced Bluekey's reputation for on-time delivery of SAP Business One ERP, SAP HANA and SAP Business One Cloud solutions to SMEs throughout Africa.

Recognised as the most successful SAP Business One partner in Africa, Bluekey has won SAP Business One partner of the year award seven years in a row (2005 to 2011); and more recently SAP Business One Retail partner of the year; and has more than 250 successful SAP Business One implementations under its belt.

Aside from Kenya, Bluekey group offices are in South Africa (Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban), Tanzania and Zambia. With further expansion into Africa expected, this rapidly growing company is poised to go from strength to strength.

"We will continue to drive our growth in Kenya with the provision of innovative solutions that enable businesses to run more efficiently and more profitably. With over six years of providing SAP services to companies in Kenya, we have built a solid foundation from where we will strive to new heights," concludes Bhatt.