Dubai: Leading Indian IT company Satyam has announced that it has been named the first 'strategic services' partner for European software enterprise SAP in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, an extension of the existing alliance between the two companies.

"The Middle East market is growing substantially and the SAP MENA formation is most appropriately timed," Satyam said in a company statement here Thursday.

The agreement involves the utilisation of Satyam's services to manage over 20 percent of SAP's business in the MENA region under the terms of the 'strategic services', a new region-specific partnership initiative rolled out by the European company.

"Building a vibrant customer-centric ecosystem is key to supporting our customers' business needs in the region," Sergio Maccotta, managing director of SAP's MENA operations, said.

"Satyam is a valued SAP partner and an integral contributor to SAP's global community of innovation," he said.

According to the statement, the partnership focuses on SAP's and Satyam's long-term regional business expansion strategy, which is rooted in SAP's overall value proposition for large-scale global technical implementations across a number of products.