BMW Group South Africa (SA) aims to expand its IT Operations Centre, at the company’s Rosslyn plant, as well as its SAP Shared Services Centre (SSC), in Pretoria East, to employ a combined total of more than 600 people by 2017.

The SAP SSC currently employs 200 specialists, with a target of 320 in 2017. The SSC started in 2014 with 80 employees.

The IT Operations Centre also employs 200 people, and will grow to 300 by 2017. This centre opened its doors in 2010 with 115 people.

The South African SSC and IT Operations Centre comprise one of only two specialist hubs globally for the German carmaker.

These high-tech centres support BMW operations in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia and the Pacific.

BMW Group CIO and senior VP for information management Klaus Straub says that South Africa has a “high availability of information technology (IT) skills”, as well as the ability to deliver on IT projects.

The SAP SSC, for example, has implemented more than 130 projects globally.

Projects undertaken by the SSC include IT solutions and operations in the fields of logistics, production, human resources, finance, sales, aftersales and distribution.

BMW Group SA and sub-Saharan Africa CEO Tim Abbott adds that there is “a very good IT competence level in South Africa”.

He says South Africa’s sophisticated financial sector has a “strong hand” in developing IT skills, but that it is not “strong enough” to absorb every skilled person.

The local IT operations are also assisted by the fact that there is no time difference between South Africa and Europe, notes Abbott.

Straub says the digitalisation of the automotive industry will place increased demands on BMW’s IT network.

This digitalisation process includes connectivity, such as the car connecting to the Web and the driver connecting to the Web and the car; artificial intelligence, or machine learning; autonomous vehicles, which ‘talk’ to the environment and other vehicles; and car-sharing platforms.

BMW has announced that it will have a self-driving vehicle ready by 2021.

With these developments also comes the increasing need for more sophisticated IT security, says Straub.

The SAP SSC participates in the SAP Skills for Africa initiative.

Through this initiative it provides six young graduates from rural areas and previously disadvantaged backgrounds with on-the-job experience.

Graduates are employed by BMW South Africa on a contract basis for the duration of the development programme.

One such graduate is Tshegofatso Tlhabanelo, from Kimberley.

Following the completion of his BCom honours degree at Rhodes University, he struggled to find a job. He was one of 2 000 applicants to the Skills for Africa initiative.

Today, he is a junior developer who has helped to roll out an SAP project at BMW’s China plant.