SAP rolls out new SMB plan

ORLANDO: SAP is rolling out a SMB business plan in India which will see it increase its channel partners (Value Added Resellers) who bring in industry specific expertise and hire more people for its SAP Labs in Bangalore.

Speaking to Cyber News Service, SAP APAC chief Peter Hans Klaey said the number of people in India’s SAP Labs will go up to 750 to 1000 people from the current 500 people. As part of SAP’s global SMB drive it is appointing 50 new channel partners of which one third will be in India. 'Indian ERP market is two to three years ahead of China. We are now talking of business strategy management in the Indian market,' Klaey said. SAP is pushing its 'extended, connected ERP' concept in markets where ERP has saturated, like in Australia and Japan.

Admitting that CRM has not been a major hit from the SAP portfolio, Klaey said that SAP is pushing the concept of connected CRM. 'We bring integration of CRM with the existing ERP free of cost. We believe that CRM should be connected with the rest of the enterprise applications in order to function effectively and drive down costs.'

Worldwide CRM has been a slow growth area for SAP. However, with the announcement of myCRM 4.0 SAP seeks to address this market more aggressively. Klaey said the company clinched CRM deals in the first quarter.

SAP has a worldwide footprint of 60,000 installations at approximately 20,000 clients. Klaey said SAP aims to grow 1.5 times more than the market growth which is about 3 per cent for 2003 according to AMR research.