SAP eyes SME space

By agencies   |   Tuesday, 21 February 2006, 20:30 IST
Printer Print Email Email
HYDERABAD: In order to tap growing opportunities in the small and medium enterprise (SME) space, global business software solution company SAP is considering to establish new offices in various locations in India, including Chennai. Announcing this, SAP Asia-pacific’s President and CEO, Hans Peter Klaey said, “India is currently amongst the top four markets for us in the Asia-Pacific including Japan, and amongst the top two in terms of growth rate. Going forward, the market will be driven by its economic growth, and the desire of Indian companies to go global. Moreover, the SME market itself is growing and there is a heightened interest amongst SMEs to invest in IT for managing their processes, and growing their businesses.” At present the company has offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata. He said, “In addition, two offices in Ahmedabad and Hyderabad are also in place. We are now looking at locations including Noida and Chennai.” Last month, the company had announced its latest offering - SAP Business One - a business software solution designed to address the specific needs of small enterprises in India. The solutions enables small businesses to have a single system to automate, manage and control critical operations including sales, finance, purchasing, inventory, and manufacturing, and manage their interaction with customers, suppliers and employees. Overall, the company had 850 customers in India including 450 in the SMB space at the end of last year. Klaey said, “The focus for us in 2006 is accelerated growth. We want to grow 1.5-2 times faster than the market in whichever market we operate in, and in the case of SME space we want to outpace the market growth by 2-3 times.”