By AMA PRESS RELEASE
Vice President, SAP Middle East Africa South, Sergio Maccotta, says: “Africa is a vital region for SAP’s vision of bringing out the best in every business. As our incredible customers, partners and experts gather at this year’s SAPHILA, we are excited to explore new opportunities to help organisations take advantage of the latest cloud and business AI innovations to power growth and success throughout the region.”
SAP experts, partners and customers are converging this week at SAPHILA 2025, the flagship user conference for SAP’s Africa ecosystem.
SAPHILA is the premier conference by the African SAP User Group (AFSUG), an independent, non-profit organisation representing SAP’s customers and partner communities in Africa. SAPHILA is held biennially in collaboration with SAP. The event is currently underway at the iconic Sun City Resort & Convention Centre.
SAPHILA 2025 takes place as organisations across the continent increasingly leverage cloud and AI-powered technologies to break through traditional limits and explore new frontiers of innovation.
Head of Global Customer Engagement & Services and Member of the Extended Board at SAP, Thomas Pfiester, noted the critical importance of a holistic approach to business transformation and cloud adoption to unlock the full value of innovations like AI.
“Organisations are under pressure to stay agile and foster innovation across the entire enterprise. But this is much more than just a technology shift, it’s about capabilities, tools, and methodology to accelerate business transformation and deliver faster time to value.”
Research conducted by SAP found that cloud and AI skills were the most prized among African organisations when recruiting tech talent. All companies that formed part of the Africa’s AI Skills Readiness Revealed report expected the demand for AI skills to increase this year.
Executive Vice President and Head of Customer Support & Cloud Lifecycle Management at SAP, Stefan Steinle, highlights how companies adopting an AI-first and suite-first strategy are revolutionising their business operations.
“Organisations are unlocking smarter decision-making, seamless collaboration and innovation-fuelled growth by embedding systems of AI agents and leveraging a unified data layer enabled by SAP Business Data Cloud. For our customers and partners, the journey to unlocking the power of cloud is accelerated by RISE with SAP, the most effective route to transforming their on-premise ERP landscape to a cloud-first model.”
This year’s SAPHILA is the biggest yet, with over a thousand delegates in attendance. In addition to keynote speeches and insightful presentations from local and global experts, there are also a range of interactive sessions, including an Ask Me Anything session, product deep dives through a personalised digital portal, and several practical sessions.
Interim Managing Director for South Africa at SAP, Nazia Pillay, said SAPHILA is the most important networking event for SAP’s ecosystem this year. “As our customers and partners explore new realms of possibilities with powerful business AI and cloud technologies, this year’s SAPHILA will provide invaluable insights and guidance on how to best take advantage of this new era of innovation. We thank AFSUG for driving this essential event in this year’s calendar and look forward to sharing our latest insights and solutions with the broader SAP ecosystem.”
AFSUG CEO Amanda Gibbs adds: “This year’s SAPHILA is an unmissable event for every company and partner that leverages SAP’s technologies to transform their operations and drive innovation. Thank you to our friends at SAP for their support and for the incredible lineup of local and global experts sharing their invaluable learnings with our delegates.”
