SAP SMB solutions provider receives top honours for outstanding innovation

Pictured here is Mr JJ Bezuidenhout Managing Director of Business Process Support.

Business Process Support (BPS) - a business excellence consultancy and resident at The Innovation Hub - recently received an award in the 2006 Support Programme for Industrial Innovation (SPII) Awards. The honour was awarded in recognition of outstanding innovation for their SAP ESA project, which was a Top 10 finalist out of 140 qualifying projects.

The SAP ESA project - which has been branded by the company as the BPS Engineering & Construction solution powered by mySAP All-in-One (BPS E & C) - includes a comprehensive business management system and support services aimed at improving business excellence to a level that has never before been attainable by the smaller to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in South Africa's engineering and construction industries.

BPS Managing Director, Rian Bezuidenhout, explains that BPS E & C achieves this through the use of an innovative approach to removing the cost and capacity barriers of entry faced by SMBs to the ultimate in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. He says that, while the project was also able to reduce the hardware and software costs of ERP, the real savings were achieved through the reduction of implementation costs - the most costly element of ERP. Capacity has been addressed through the development of innovative support services that supplement the administrative capacity of the SMB.

"We built a micro-vertical focused industry solution template, as opposed to developing company-specific solutions. This allows for quick implementation and avoids the costly consulting-intensive process of building a custom solution", says Bezuidenhout. This, in addition to exposure to the global best business practice on which the system is based, results in greatly reduced risk for the SMB.

The SPII Awards aim to recognise and reward companies that have successfully commercialized SPII supported projects and that bring the Programme closer to the people by promoting innovation throughout the country. The BPS E & C project was funded in terms of SPII's Matching Scheme, which offers financial assistance in the form of a grant of 50% of the cost incurred during the technical development stage of a project. An interesting observation, according to Bezuidenhout, is that both BPS and the overall winner of the SPII Project of the Year award are tenants at The Innovation Hub.

Bezuidenhout also adds that a major benefit of having received this award is the increased credibility that it gives to their business - particularly with the IDC (Industrial Development Corporation). This in turn offers a new opportunity to become involved in the innovation of others.

"The particular functionality of SAP that we specialize in is known as Product Life-Cycle Management (PLM), which is aimed at product development. Now, that expertise combined with our reputation with the IDC, puts us in a position to offer other companies who are innovators the systems support and credibility that will enable them to attain the funding they need and execute their projects successfully", he says.

In addition to BPS E&C, the company's portfolio of products and services also includes the innovative and highly successful Flexispace Virtual and Instant Office solutions. The latter is a temporary office accommodation solution that provides a cost-effective, configurable replacement for floating space. The concept was tested at the Hub and such has been the success of Flexispace that plans are now underway to establish further operations in Centurion.

For more information on Business Process Support, contact Mr Duan Fourie on 012-844 0500 or dfourie@bpsupport.com.

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