Business leaders in the UAE must embrace innovations like mobile, cloud and real-time management of big data to unlock new opportunities for growth, performance and productivity, said an expert.

SAP co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe was speaking in Dubai to an audience of customers, industry experts and senior executives at SAP’s annual regional forum.

Snabe emphasized that no company will remain untouched by fundamental shift in the IT industry to mobility, cloud and in-memory computing.

“We live in an interconnected and fast-changing world facing dramatic technology advances such as the emergence of cloud computing, ubiquitous connectivity through rapid expansion of mobile devices, and unknown opportunities to turn the exponentially growing amounts of data into intelligence via in-memory computing,” said Snabe.

“These fundamental technology shifts will impact all businesses. We are entering the area of business networking where companies of all sizes and industries will connect, collaborate and trade in open, transparent and flexible business networks. SAP is dedicated to provide the world’s leading business network to create growth, productivity and innovation.”

Mobility is rapidly transforming the way we live and work. Smart phones today are many times more powerful than PCs in the 90s. In most developing nations, the majority of Internet users are mobile-only.

In India nearly 60 per cent of the population is mobile, in Egypt it is 70 per cent and the mobile only users are under 25. The next generation of workers and managers will be mobile and connected, said Snabe.

SAP is the clear leader in enterprise mobility providing both, its Afaria mobile device management solution for secure and instant access from any device and any mobile operating system, he added.

The cloud is fundamentally changing not only the way individuals interact with each other, but also how enterprises connect and work with their global networks of customers, suppliers and partners.

SAP is rapidly expanding its leadership in the cloud. Five months ago SAP acquired Success Factors and gained immediate strength in the fast-growing segment of cloud-based applications for people and talent management, Snabe said.

Two weeks ago SAP announced the planned acquisition of Ariba, the world’s largest cloud-based business network for buyer-seller collaboration in the world. SAP’s more than 190,000 SAP customers will have instant access to Ariba’s cloud-based network of 730,000 market participants generating more than 320 billion US dollars in cloud based transactions.

The top 2,000 global businesses today spend $12 trillion annually with their suppliers. SAP customers make up the majority of the global 2,000, which will enable the company to significantly expand this business and execute its leadership ambition to become a 2 billion Euro cloud company by 2015.

Hagemann Snabe’s speech comes off the back of SAP’s recent announcement to roll-out a four-year plan worth $450 million that will up-skill local talent and drive sustainable innovation and growth in the Mena region.

The plan includes recruiting more than 500 additional employees, opening several new offices and expanding the company’s partner ecosystem and the SAP University Alliances program. Additionally, significant increases will be made in the availability of comprehensive, innovative and localized service offerings.

SAP Mena will also establish a dedicated “Training and Development Institute” that aims to certify 2,000 new consultants within the next four years. This will triple the company’s existing consulting capabilities in the region and further support the localization of SAP solutions to meet fast-growing regional industry needs, a statement said. – TradeArabia News Service