German business software major SAP, which is facing controversy related to $11 million bribe paid to certain African companies, announced its new strategies for strengthening its business in Africa.
First, SAP has launched a new go-to-market plan in Africa to maintain business continuity across the continent.
SAP has never revealed whether the company faced any revenue related challenges in Africa. In January, SAP said it had a solid performance in the EMEA region with cloud and software revenue increasing 3 percent. Cloud subscriptions and support revenue grew by 51 percent with Germany and Russia being the highlights.
Second, SAP recently announced the opening of an SAP Leonardo Center location in Johannesburg in the third quarter of 2018.
Third, SAP will also announce a new SAP Africa managing director next week. This follows the dismissal of SAP’s African management team in 2017.
“This journey has taught us profound lessons and provided us with reasons to reflect on our business, our processes and our responsibility towards our employees, customers, partners and the South African public,” said Adaire Fox-Martin, member of the Executive Board of SAP.
SAP confirmed that some of its employees paid bribe to third parties for bagging software contracts from South African state-owned enterprises (SOE) Transnet SOC and Eskom. SAP made payments to Gupta-related entities.
SAP in a media statement said that there is no evidence of any payment or attempted payment to any South African government official or any employee of an SOE in connection with the Transnet and Eskom transactions.
SAP made significant changes to its global compliance processes. The company has allocated additional legal compliance staff to the SAP Africa market unit. SAP has strengthened its independent Compliance Committee in the SAP Africa region.
All South African partners are going through revised due diligence processes. SAP continues to investigate the public sector business in South Africa going back to 2010. If SAP identifies any further matters of concern, it will address them with the same attention and robustness as the Transnet and Eskom investigations.
