LAGOS, Nigeria, September 18th, 2025-/ West African business leaders, technology partners and SAP experts met in Lagos this week to explore a bold new vision for business to thrive in an increasingly competitive technology environment.
Shiraz Khota, Managing Director: Emerging Africa at SAP, said: “Organisations across the region are leveraging the latest technologies to build a trusted foundation for AI and amplify their insights and processes to transform the way they work. From harnessing collaborative AI agents to solve complex problems and accelerate decision-making, to seamlessly connecting their entire business value chain, West Africa’s business community is gearing up to unleash their full potential powered by cloud, data and AI.”
The comments were made at SAP Business Suite Innovation Day on September 17th, a special event for SAP customers and partners to showcase how SAP Business Data Cloud and SAP Business AI come together to deliver exceptional value as part of the SAP Business Suite.
Experts from across the SAP ecosystem provided behind-the-scenes insights into the power of business AI and cloud, and how these new innovations combine powerful cloud applications with the most contextual and reliable data to enable collaborative AI agents to tackle the most difficult business challenges with confidence.
The event also included presentations by regional business leaders who have successfully leveraged SAP technologies to accelerate growth and unlock new capabilities.
Juzar Badami, Group Head: SAP Centre of Excellence at Dangote Industries Limited, shared some insight into how the company leverages cloud technologies to power growth and drive efficiency. Dangote Industries Limited is the largest conglomerate in West Africa and one of the largest on the African continent, employing more than 30 000 people.
“Succeeding in today’s fast-paced business landscape requires strong foundations built on the latest technologies. Critical to this is a modernised enterprise resource planning landscape that enables organisations to fully leverage the power of emerging technologies, all built on a clean-core strategy that ensures the business has access to real-time, accurate data for decision-making.”
Titilayo Adewumi, Country Managing Director for Nigeria at SAP, said: “Africa’s greatest wealth lies in its people, including our fast-growing youth population. Our ability to cultivate the right mix of skills is critical to our digital transformation ambitions, especially as we rush to leverage the power of AI and cloud in our businesses.
Research conducted by SAP found that half of Nigerian businesses expected a ‘significant’ increase in demand for AI skills this year. The SAP Africa’s AI Skills Readiness Revealed report also found that 93% of Nigerian companies already experience a negative impact on their innovation capabilities due to a lack of access to AI skills. The same report revealed that West Africa was the region most likely to partner with expert third-party providers to fill the AI skills gap in their organisations.
Khota adds: “The region stands at the edge of a new era of growth and innovation powered by data, cloud and AI, and supported by a workforce geared for our emerging technologies. To ensure this collective effort succeeds, organisations need access to the right skills. While efforts at developing AI-ready skills are underway, companies should also explore ways to augment their skills base in the short term by partnering with our thriving ecosystem of expert partners and collaborators powering business transformation in the region.
Distributed by African Media Agency (AMA) on behalf of SAP Africa.
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