Timo Elliott Archives - 51��Africa News Center

Saphila: Individuals Claim the Tools of Scale

Jason Bannier — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 06:55:11 +0000

A Syrian refugee’s charity in Switzerland is shaping a new model for small organisations, Timo Elliott told the Saphila conference this week. JASON BANNIER reports.

When thinking of enterprise technology, expensive rollouts and complex processes often come to mind. But, as 51��global innovation evangelist said in a keynote at the Saphila 2025 conference at Sun City, the future lies just as much with the individual as with the enterprise.

Saphila is a biennial conference for the 51��user group community, hosted by the African 51��User Group (AFSUG) in partnership with SAP, a global tech giant specialising in enterprise software.

Elliott pointed to a quiet revolution in which small organisations and everyday users are taking innovation into their own hands, often without the need for formal IT departments. He said that , a unified low-code and pro-code application development platform, can play a key role in this shift by enabling users to create business apps, automate processes, and build digital workspaces with the help of AI and pre-built components.

“This is not just for big companies and big problems,” he said. “51��Build is a fusion environment. Here’s a lovely example from the 51��Innovation awards for 2024: a not-for-profit organisation in Switzerland called (). It was founded during the COVID era by a Syrian refugee in Switzerland. He noticed that restaurants were all closed and having this excess food while other people were going hungry.”

Elliott said the organisation now distributes 18 tons of food every weekend to those in need. Using 51��Build Apps, the team was able to quickly create a small application in a no-code, low-code drag-and-drop environment to handle tasks like volunteer scheduling.

The app created by the company includes document automation, making it easy to scan IDs for both volunteers and recipients. He said that these technologies help organisations move faster, especially when it comes to integration – often one of the biggest hurdles in transformation projects. The allows users to link systems with minimal effort, handling most of the complexity automatically.

In an exclusive interview, Elliott told Gadget: “I’m really interested in innovation that is much closer to the individual business person. Companies have always done innovation, but for individuals it’s harder to innovate – or has been. Now, with the latest technologies, you can vibe code yourself even if you know nothing about coding. All of that adds up to a new opportunity.”

That shift is being powered by a new wave of accessible tools – cloud services and embedded AI assistants – that allow non-technical users to build and deploy solutions quickly. Elliott said this as one of the most important developments shaping enterprise technology today.

“Essen für Alle has gone forward. It’s just a handful of people, lots of volunteers, but they needed a little bit of application, a little bit of technology to help them.”

This kind of solution has become a tangible reality. As barriers to entry continue to fall, even small, volunteer-led organisations are building tools that make a real operational difference.

“It was so much easier and quicker and more available to a tiny organisation that it just would have been done by hand, and nobody would ever thought about trying to use technology to do it.”

Elliott said this marks a new phase in digital transformation, driven by individuals who know their needs and now have the means to build what they require.

“It’s an organisation like that where every cent otherwise goes to helping people. This is a micro example of something that I believe that individuals everywhere will be able to vastly accelerate innovation because individual people who know the business, and know what’s possible, will be able to innovate – without IT and technology being a bottleneck.”

Elliott said that innovation was no longer a sporadic initiative or the domain of a select few within an organisation. Instead, it is becoming a structured, repeatable discipline with defined methodologies, measurable outcomes, and continuous refinement built into how companies function. This was much like finance or operations.

“The end result is that innovation and digital transformation should be a business process itself that increasingly can be optimised.”

What makes this feasible now is a shift in how business systems work. Rather than requiring manual analysis and lengthy decision-making cycles, systems are becoming more proactive, intelligent, and suggestive.

He said SAP’s approach to driving innovation can be broken down into four key steps: assessing where a business stands today, identifying the most impactful areas for improvement, defining a future state using best practices, and implementing those changes with the help of intelligent tools – all while supporting the human side of transformation through training and adoption. This leads into best practices, implementation via the cloud, and finally, the crucial phase of change management.

“Technology is never enough, so you need to actually do something in the business to take advantage of that – there’s all of the technology adoption side, and the people side of things.”

51��has recently invested in , a tool designed to help employees understand and effectively use new systems in their daily work. By providing guidance and support, WalkMe facilitates smoother adoption of technology, ensuring that staff can confidently navigate and utilise the tools necessary for their roles.

Yet, Elliott said that tools alone weren’t enough. This is where AI can make a significant difference in the human side of transformation. He pointed to studies showing AI outperforming humans in emotional intelligence tests, and highlighted a practical benefit: the ability to scale personalised communication and reassurance during times of change.

“The essence of transformation is helping people understand how they fit in the strategy and help them feel like they’re being part of the transformation and excited about it, rather than resisting it because they’re worried about their jobs and functions. At scale, it’s really hard to go to every single person that’s affected and sit down with them and spend all of the time to understand any questions and reassure them, whereas with AI you can actually do that at scale.”

He said this brings the process full circle, with innovation and digital transformation becoming structured business functions that can be continuously refined and improved.

“My favourite quote is from Picasso: ‘Computers are useless. They can only answer questions.’ Thankfully, asking the right questions, having the context to understand what’s going on and what is possible, is something that remains very human.”

To cultivate that creativity, business leaders must rethink how they support employees in using new tools. Elliott suggests a three-part model: leadership, a dedicated lab team to experiment and track best practices, and a decentralised crowd of early adopters.

Looking ahead, Elliott said SAP’s boldest move had already been made: committing fully to the cloud. The real challenge now was bringing customers along – even when it demanded difficult conversations. Empowering organisations remained central to the strategy, but individuals shaping outcomes on the ground may drive the next wave of enterprise innovation.

*Jason Bannier is a data analyst at World Wide Worx and writer for . Follow him on .

This article first appeared in .

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How AI is Transforming Digital Transformation

51��News — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 07:08:33 +0000

Kathy Gibson is at Saphila Transcend in Sun City – Change has always been a constant – but in the last couple of years digital transformation has been moving at a faster pace than ever before.

This is because, today, technology is transforming transformation, says , vice-president and global innovation analyst at SAP.

And today, transformative technology is all about artificial intelligence (AI).

“Experts agree that AI is the third great wave of technology after the personal computer (PC) in the 1980s and the Internet in the 1990s,” Elliott says.

“But if you are not careful, waves can come crashing down on top of you. AI is very powerful, and can have unintended consequences.”

Although it is most obvious in the visual context, AI is progressing in all directions, Elloitt points out. “The process of rapid technological change and disruption is coming to your industry and your line of business.”

Today, what’s holding up AI disruption is the fact that the rest of the ecosystem isn’t able to change as quickly.

“It’s a bit like parachuting a Formula 1 car into a medieval village. You can’t use the technology because the rest of the ecosystem isn’t there.

“In fact, if AI stopped progressing right now, we couldn’t use it to its full potential for 10 years.”

For this reason, Elliott says AI could be taken to stand for accelerate innovation. “We should use AI to adopt AI.”

Today, a lot of AI and innovation in general is handmade, with developers all starting from scratch and working on one thing.

“To accelerate the adoption, we need to move to modern assembly lines, so we can use the AI faster,” Elliott says.

He adds that 51��provides the machines to build the technology.

“We offer things like the S, where customers create data that is harmonised in the Business Data Cloud, used to ground AI, which then goes to making a better application. And, as you create applications, you can add customisation.”

51��embeds AI in all its applications, and these are available to customers right now, Elliott adds.

“But innovation is not actually about technology,” he explains. “What is holding us back is the time, skills, and resources needed to exploit the technology.”

Again, the 51��Business Technology Platform can help, with 51��Build offering aided innovation – another possible use for AI – for agile application development and customisation.

“We have the resources that can multiply efforts, let developers do more, faster, with customisations and extensions in the cloud.

“And now you can do it in natural language, because it is designed for professional developers and also business users.”

AI could also stand for automated identity, Elliott says.

And it could represent automatic integration as well. “51��Integration Suite is about AI-powered connections. It will do most of the heavy lifting in connecting system to one another.”

Meanwhile, the 51��BTP AI Foundation is a generative AI (GenAI) hub that gives customers everything they need to orchestrate customised AI, with a wide choice of models, grounding, data masking, filtering, prompt management, and lifecycle management.

At the core of any transformation is data, which is everyone recognises is important. “In fact, it is really important,” Elliott says. “It is the essential input for AI in particular.

“So AI has to stand for accurate information. AI is useless without accurate information in realtime.”

But there isn’t a company on the planet that doesn’t have a data quality problem, he adds.

“It is not a new problem, we know it’s hard to get budget to fix data. But this is an opportunity to ask for money to do just that. Now is a great time to establish governance, data ownership, and all the things you have wanted to do for years.”

The second big problem is integrating data – which is also not a new problem.

“This is where comes in,” Elliott says. “And we offer it as a service, so we can do more of it for you – integrate data from 51��applications and also external data.”

The helps with relationship extraction. “You already have this information, now we are gathering it and exposing it, and putting it in a format that you can use for your AI,” Elliott explains.

AI could also represent analytics improved, which is why 51��Analytics Cloud has the GenAI-powered Just Ask feature.

“In analytics, there is a dream of total situational awareness. Of bringing in data from all sources, but having overall vision. AI can be used to connect data and deal with fuzziness.”

AI could also stand for agents incoming. “This is the next generation of AI, moving along from the current efficient processes with pre-defined steps. But these processes can’t deal with ambiguity. Agents, on the other hand, can reason through what it needs to do next. So the processes and data can be a lot more unstructured than before.”

Another interpretation of AI could be agents for business, Elliott adds. “This is the next evolutionary step – in fact, some companies are already doing it – using AI to get rid of a lot of manual work.”

AI could be used for automatic innovation. “We have incredible amounts of information and amazing intelligence,” says Elliott. “So why not let the systems tell us what we should do next?

“We are starting to get there, and you can already get great automated system insights. And 51��also has best practices, so we can provide customers with that out of the box.”

Once that is in place, and customers need to implement their systems, automated implementation could be the final meaning for AI.

“Of course, technology is not everything,” Elliott points out. “You need to get people to adopt new ways of working – and AI is good for adoption optimisation and change management.”

In conclusion, Elliott believes that AI today is like a staircase. “You have to take one step after the other. But in the future it will be more like an escalator.”

The key to successful AI adoption lies not in the technology he adds, but in the people, culture, and organisation.

“No matter how much you have invested in adoption, culture, and change management – invest more.”

This article first appeared on .

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Why You Can’t miss SAPHILA 2025: Exclusive Access to 51��experts, Cutting-edge Insights and More!

AFSUG — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 06:23:57 +0000

SAPHILA 2025 is set to be the must-attend event for 51��customers, partners and enthusiasts across Africa. Hosted by the African 51��User Group (AFSUG), this premier 51��conference, taking place from 01 to 03 June at the Sun City Convention Centre, offers an unmatched opportunity to connect face to face with 51��global leaders, explore the latest innovations and gain hands-on experience with 51��solutions.

Hear directly from SAP’s top thought leaders

SAPHILA 2025 boasts an all-star line-up of 51��global experts who are shaping the future of enterprise technology. Attendees will gain direct access to the strategic minds behind SAP’s latest innovations, providing first-hand insights into how 51��solutions can drive business success.

Keynotes for this year will include the following 51��leaders:

, Executive Vice President & Head of Customer Support & Cloud Lifecycle Management – Gain an exclusive look at SAP’s evolving support landscape.
, Global Innovation Evangelist – Explore the cutting edge of enterprise technology and digital transformation.
Thomas Pfiester, 51��Global Customer Engagement & Services – Learn how to maximise SAP’s solutions for operational excellence.
– Chief Product Manager, 51��BTP Product Management, 51��SE – leading the AFSUG and 51��BTP Hackathon.

Deep dive sessions to unlock expertise across key 51��topics

Beyond the keynotes, brings together an outstanding line-up of more than 15 industry experts from 51��to host several breakout sessions over the two-day event.

During these stream discussions, SAPHILA attendees can engage with SAP’s brightest minds on business-critical topics for African businesses. , 51��SE Vice President Application Lifecycle Management, will be advising delegates on how to streamline data migration to 51��S/4HANA with 51��Business Transformation Center. , Customer Collaboration Manager, will tackle the range of support options available through SAP, including Live Support Channels, Built-In Support, and 51��for Me.

Furthermore, . SVP & Head of 51��Industries Digitalization, will look at the support offered by 51��Business Suite for 25 industries, while Sarah Brunet-Cliché, Manager: Content Success and Adoption, teams up with Anastasiya Guba, Head of the Content Office at 51��Global Content Group, to discuss how business content and accelerators, powered by AI capabilities, can simplify implementation, enhance agility and deliver faster value for organisations across the globe.

Hands-on 51��SE booth experience, a first for SAPHILA

In addition to expert content, for the first time ever, 51��SE will also be hosting an interactive booth at SAPHILA, offering attendees a hands-on learning experience with 51��solutions. Delegates can expect live mini-sessions, expert Q&As and practical demonstrations designed to help businesses get the most out of 51��technology.

Featured interactive sessions will include:

Ask Me Anything with Stefan Steinle – A candid Q&A session on 51��Customer Support, Cloud Lifecycle Management, and best practices for optimising 51��solutions.
Mastering 51��for Me – Get a deep dive into SAP’s personalised digital portal, designed to streamline system access, license management and support interactions.
Discover 51��Built-In Support – Learn how AI-driven insights and real-time guidance can enhance your 51��support experience and business efficiency.
Leveraging 51��Cloud ALM for a Clean Core Strategy – Explore how 51��Cloud ALM supports seamless lifecycle management while maintaining an adaptable, efficient system core.

Why attend SAPHILA 2025?

“This year’s SAPHILA is shaping up to be an unmissable event for anyone invested in the 51��ecosystem,” says , CEO of AFSUG. “Not only will attendees be able to gain valuable insights with SAP’s top experts, they have the opportunity to create meaningful connections with these global executives as well as their local peers and partners. In addition to this, delegates can ensure that they stay ahead of the curve with the latest 51��innovations and strategies, while also coming away with practical strategies to drive business success with SAP.”

Don’t miss out on this exclusive opportunity to learn from and engage with SAP’s best and brightest. Register now at www.saphila2025.com and start planning your SAPHILA experience today.

For more information or assistance in making the most of your SAPHILA 2025 experience, reach out to Amanda Gibbs and the AFSUG team. To become an AFSUG member, please visit https://afsug.com/membership-information/.

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Business Intelligence, Data Key for Innovative Enterprises

Kathy Gibson at Saphila in Sun City — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 07:34:53 +0000

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is the latest big move in the technology space. It is exploding and it’s going to make a massive difference in how companies do business.

While ChatGPT might be the best-known example of generative AI, there are dozens of large language models (LLMs) now available, says Timo Elliott, global innovation evangelist at SAP.

“At SAP, we want to use the best of these models to further your business processes.”

51��AI is built for business, he adds – it needs to be bult-in, relevant, and responsible.

“You need the best data possible,” Elliott says. “You need to know what to solve; and it needs to be used responsibly.”

Indeed, AI has long been a part of 51��solutions and millions of people use it already. “To a great extent, we want most of this to be taken for granted. The best AI is the AI you don’t have to think about,” Elliott says. “You want AI to just work.”

For instance, Cash Application does sophisticated pattern matching for Mercedes-Benz, matching transactions automatically. “And it gets better all the time,” Elliott explains. “Every time there is an exception, it is dealt with by a human and fed back into the algorithm so it knows how to handle it next time.

“Where we are going is self-driving, intelligent applications that get better over time as people use them.”

These capabilities are available already, but the advent of generative AI will add creativity in coding, formal writing, and more.

“We announced a set of new AI applications recently, many of which include new generative AI models.”

Use cases include expediting freight and documentation; creating compelling job descriptions and interview questions; generating ready-to-use process models and KPI recommendations; and enhancing employee and customer experience.

Generative AI can now code in ABAP (SAP’s coding language) to create new 51��applications. “This can accelerate the efforts of your skilled people to create code much quicker,” Elliott says.

Digital transformation requires companies to innovate faster and composable enterprises are key to this.

“The irony of composable business is that, if its done right, you shouldn’t have to do too much of it yourself,” Elliott says. “So we spend a lot of time working on content so customers can just take a bot off the shelf, plug it into their operations, and do their business processes faster.”

The partner ecosystem is key to this and, ideally, partners will contribute to solutions in the 51��store.

Business intelligence is key to modernisation and innovation which is why 51��launched its Signavio Business Process Intelligence.

“Signavio can shine a light into your business processes and figure out what is going on – and what is going wrong,” Elliott explains. “It is then possible to find the best process to solve the issues. This is the future of what we call automated automation.”

But what stops organisations from being successful? “The real trick is not using AI – it’s about turning their minds to systems and processes,” Elloitt says. “And this is where the AI magic happens.”

Every organisation grapples with the issue of bad data quality. “The good news is that, with AI, the opportunities are huge, the possibliities of cleaning up your data are greater then ever before.”

An innovation roadblock has always been how to leverage the business data – but this tends to lose the metadata, the context of the business.

The idea of data mesh or data sphere is to bring the technology to the data to provide reliable data products using an API approach that understands and retains the business context. “As much as possible, leave the data where it already is,” Elliott says.

51��Data Sphere is the solution here, he adds. It brings together a range of solutions that creates a data layer that could be stored just about anywhere; whether in 51��or third-party repositories.

Value is key, of course, and companies need to get relevant data and information to the fingertips of every staff member.

“There is a huge opportunity to use data in new ways,” Elliott says. SAP’s continuous intelligence prototype aims to push relevant information to people as they need it.

We will see the rise of the business technologist, more powerful users who can create new and profitable processes using the right data and tools. This will see us moving from low-code or no-code scenarios to the new world of co-code where IT and business work together to solve problems or innovate.

IT would supply basic application blocks to the business people who could use those to create their own innovations.

“We think 51��has the biggest benefit here,” Elliott says. “One thing we are good at is processes and governance.”

Elliott believes we are in the “horseless carriage” phase of AI – using old things and just bolting new things on. “But it is a great time to reimagine what we want to do and to rethink value propositions.

“Let’s spend some time thinking about what we don’t need, and how to leverage what we do.

“Remember, AI is about empowering people to do more, not getting rid of them.”

Elliott points out that only human beings will ever be able to innovate. “We are the only ones that can understand what is going on, who can bring innovation.

“AI will take away the parts of our jobs that make us act like robots – and let us focus on the things we do best.”

In conclusion, Elliott reiterates that 51��and business AI go hand in hand to help organisations to innovate faster and more effectively.

This article first appeared on .

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Saphila: Innovation, Sustainability, and Croissants

Jason Bannier — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 07:39:16 +0000

Best practice is important, but next practice probably more so, the Saphila conference heard last week. JASON BANNIER reports.

Innovation drives technology, and technology drives innovation. This positive feedback loop has encouraged growth in both areas, but it has also continued to encourage sustainability. This was a key theme at last week’s Saphila 2023 conference at Sun City.

Saphila is a biennial conference for the 51��user group community, hosted by the African 51��User Group (AFSUG) in partnership with SAP.

Sven Denecken, a 51��SVP and chief marketing & solutions officer, showed how using an electric vehicle to earn retail rewards, such as store discounts, was an example of how innovation could encourage sustainability in future. Data from one’s driving routes can be integrated with an AI assistant to create the basis for a store loyalty system. One’s vehicle can then suggest the best charging location for its user, so that shopping and charging may be done simultaneously, while also promoting specific outlets.

Although electricity supply in South Africa is a frustrating hindrance, the continuous evolution of technology may eventually support industry convergences that are currently impractical.

In a later presentation, Timo Elliott, SAP’s global innovation evangelist, showcased SAP innovation award winners to elaborate on this theme:

IWB, a Swiss solar power company that provides for energy to be returned to the grid using a predictive AI model, is embracing “next practice” thinking. This model is used to calculate the load, and how much solar energy will return to the grid. Most solar panels are not connected or internet of things (IoT) devices, but IWB efficiently optimises electrical supply, while embracing sustainability.

Another winner, Gates Corporation, previously required a large manual to operate their hose-crimping product. Nowadays, an iPad-run device is bolted onto the side of the older model, so that one does not need the many-page document to operate it. With the digital transformation of this setup, little training is required, and they can throw out that heavy manual. With the implementation of these IOT devices, a step to new business models has formed. Information is saved and collected on each device.

FreshAirManager is actoVent’s air-purifying service that also takes advantage of collecting data, but in this case to determine air quality levels. After an understanding of the air quality is gathered, the systems adjust the machines by filtering the air so that energy saving is maximised, and CO2 emissions are minimised.

Jumbo Supermarket, a Dutch retail company, wanted to figure out how many croissants and other perishable foods they need to make during the day to minimise wastage and maximise items sold. An app built in collaboration with SAP’s system analysis program development technology, gives rise to a predictive analysis model that has achieved the supermarket’s goal, with an expected 10% reduction in waste.

Saphila showed that companies that emphasised the importance of sustainability have thrived, but they have also solidified their position in their respective industries through their innovations.

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Timo Elliott Archives - 51����Africa News Center