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South Africa Becoming A BMW World IT Hub

South Africa Becoming A BMW World IT Hub

BMW South Africa joins the U.S. and India as one of three BMW centers chosen to supply specialized information technology services to BMW worldwide, IndependentOnline reports.

This means that BMW South Africa’s IT hub will more-than triple the number of software engineers it employs.

The BMW SAP Competence Hub, launched at the BMW site in Menlyn, Pretoria, this week
employs 80 software engineers skilled in the development of applications using SAP
software for enterprises. The center will grow its team of engineers to between 250 and 300 engineers, according to Guy Kilfoil, spokesman for BMW SA.

“The choice of this location has been made, first and foremost, according to the availability of IT skills in the region,” said Karl Probst, spokesman for the BMW Group.

South Africa will focus on building applications and software for BMW internal business processes that include production logistics, warehousing and production IT solutions, according to IndependentOnline.

The South African BMW plant in Rosslyn has been exporting the BMW 3 Series sedan since 1992, but has been outsourcing its IT expertise to other BMW production locations globally over the past six years, said Bodo Donauer, managing director for BMW SA.

BMW’s South African engineers have developed processes for China, Brazil and India and
supplied sales and marketing, logistics, human resources and finance solutions to Germany, the U.S. and the U.K., according to IndependentOnline.

IT is the biggest enabler of business for the group, Kilfoil said. “We’ve decided the IT
drives business and that we will run IT like a business.”

The South African hub will not grow BMW SA’s balance sheet, Kilfoil said. Services will be charged out to BMW branches in the different countries. Establishment of the IT hub in South Africa required investment in hardware and real estate rental, but the monetary investment was not “huge,” he said.

South Africa’s SAP skills are unique, according to BMW. About 60 percent of all South African SAP configurators are also SAP software developers. The local market consists of medium-sized companies, which forces consultants to be multi skilled to enhance their competitiveness, and this gave BMW access to a unique set of resources.

The company said pooling specific application-based software at the competence
centers, which will share the global responsibility, promoted further industrialization of
BMW IT and further development of the IT organization from a federal IT structure, among other things.

Applications being developed at the competence hub, based on the SAP real-time platform, will enable better-informed decision making and transformative innovation in the automotive market, said Pfungwa Serima, CEO for SAP Africa.

“When you can increase quality and manufacture efficiently while delivering excellent sales
and service, you can significantly increase profitability and secure a competitive advantage,” Serima said. “SAP is thus effectively powering the BMW value chain.”