SAP targets small, medium size firms

By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 27 December 2006, 18:30 IST
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Chennai:$10-billion German software maker, SAP AG is looking to reach 15,000 in the next four years. It wants to target small and medium size businesses (SMBs), comprising 50 per cent of the total number. "This is our vision and we can achieve it with India offering enormous business opportunity," said Alan Sedghi, President and CEO, SAP India, at the India Finance Forum organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry. It has however taken SAP, 10 years to get 1,500 customers in India. Globally SAP plans to have around 1,50,000 customers by 2010. India is among the top eight strategic markets for SAP globally, added Sedghi, reports business line. Sedghi informed that SAP India would focus more towards SMBs, giving it a push. The Indian SMBs were now beginning to realize the need for technology to compete with domestic companies and global players. And SAP had a role to play providing solutions specifically for SMBs. From India the German company also caters to neighboring countries such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. "In the next three to four years, growth for us would come from SMBs in India. We hope SMBs to be around 50 percent of our total customers from the present 30 percent. This does not mean business from large customers would slow down," Sedghi claims. SAP is a provider of business software for the supply chain management, customer relationship management, product life-cycle management and supplier relationship management. “More than 34,600 customers in 120 countries run SAP applications from solutions addressing the needs of small and medium size businesses,” says Sedghi. SAP has around 3,500 employees, including in research and development and sales. In a recent announcement Henning Kagermann, CEO and Executive Board Member, SAP, announced that the company had plans to invest $1 billion in India over the next five years. This is keeping in tune with its plans to make India a strategic hub in the Asia-Pacific region.