Two South African companies - AngloGold Ashanti and Royal Bafokeng – and Kenyan SMB Antarc have walked away with the top honours at SAP Africa’s 2013 Quality Awards Africa for their successful implementations of SAP technology.

The SAP Quality Awards celebrate customers who have excelled in the planning and execution of their SAP software implementations and who embrace SAP’s 10 Quality Principles in a way that realises real business value and delivers significant benefits to their organisations, said Rajendra Dhaniraj, quality director for Africa at SAP Africa.

Antarc was named gold winner in the small enterprise category for its successful implementation of SAP Business One on HANA that made what the judges called “an immediate business impact.” Royal Bafokeng walked away with the honours in the medium enterprise category for a massive implementation of SAP solutions across the organisation as part of as strategic initiative to divest from its parent company, Anglo Platinum, and create its own technology platform.

In the hotly-contested large enterprise category, AngloGold Ashanti’s implementation of mobile and cloud-based solutions across six different countries across the world won out over some impressive work from JD Group and Standard Bank in logistics and mobile solutions, respectively.

“Successful SAP implementations are the result of excellent planning, rapid and cost-effective execution, and adherence to SAP’s quality standards,” said Dhaniraj. “In the five years since we introduced the Quality Awards, we have seen a steady increase in the quality and professionalism of project management, and there is really not much to choose between this year’s Gold, Silver, and Bronze Award winners.”

The nominations for the Partner Awards came from within the SAP Africa sales teams and customers were evaluated according to stringent criteria, which include adherence to the 10 SAP Quality Principles, time and cost of implementations, as well as rapid time to value.

The African Awards were presented in a variety of categories including cloud, mobility and HANA technologies, which are SAP's core focus areas and help it deliver on its promise to provide speed, accessibility and adaptability to businesses in Africa.

The 2013 Africa winners are:

Small Enterprise Category
Gold Winner: Antarc (SAP Business One on HANA)
Silver Winner: Engen (HANA implementation in preparation for CO-PA on HANA RDS)
Bronze Winner: Behr Group (SAP Business One)

Medium Enterprise Category
Gold Winner: Royal Bafokeng (SAP ERP, SAP ASAP, SAP Solution Manager, SAP LTS)
Silver Winner: Bilfinger Power (SAP ERP)
Bronze Winner: Kenafric (SAP ERP)

Large Enterprise Category
Gold Winner: Anglo Gold Ashanti (SAP One ERP)
Silver Winner: JD Group (SAP ERP, POS)
Bronze Winner: SBSA Business Release 3 (SAP BS6, SAP BA, SAP BW, SAP CRM, SAP LTS)

For more information, visit the SAP Newsroom.

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Andrea Slater
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