SAP East Africa hosted an informational round table at its Nairobi offices focusing on the value of big data for industries and how industries such as financial services, public sector and energy could gain value from new technologies, learn how to challenge old assumptions of doing things and spot new opportunities for economic growth.

SAP technology for Big Data is built on proven best practices across industries; this is an opportunity for companies to accelerate growth even faster using actionable insights that comes with such powerful technology. SAP HANA for Big Data gives companies the technology platform to make things happen, by helping solve business challenges in real time using predictive analytics to uncover hidden opportunities.

SAP's strength lies in understanding the various industry dynamics and finding ways to help companies unlock opportunities. This was evident through the Big Data demonstrations showcasing how various industries are benefiting from using Big Data technology, for example; the manufacturing industry with multiple sites and complex machinery can benefit by accessing performance, maintenance reports and monitoring sites productions from anywhere using a single mobile device.

In addition, the process to replenish worn out parts is done seamlessly eliminating production downtime and saving cost. Whilst on the other side, automobile manufacturers are able to design more efficient cars by collecting data on various car parts including how they perform and how to improve performance. With such insight manufacturers could enhance the quality of their production. From a retail perspective, Big Data technology interrogates historical data to engage customers and predict consumer preferences in real time.

Giving an example of application, Estellede Beer, Manager for Database Technology at SAP Africa demonstrated using day to day occurrence; A person crossing a road is able to take real time input of the different vehicles and their speed on the road. From their life history, one can predict the speed and location of these vehicles at a certain time, thus making a decision when to cross the road - they do not have to go to a library to analyze what they see before crossing the road. Likewise, making business decisions should happen in real time without having to manually analyze data. Before, we could not make predictions because we did not have all that data – now, we do!

SAP has also designed its HANA Big Data platform to utilise natural user interfaces such as maps. The use of maps as interface is what people want to interact with. Using maps interface is a much more natural way to interact with information.