European travel firm JV in pact with SAP

BANGALORE, INDIA: TUI InfoTec GmbH, a Joint Venture between Sonata Software Ltd. and European travel major TUI Travel PLC, has signed an agreement with SAP Germany AG & Co in the area of subscription-based hosting.

TUI InfoTec will reach out to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Germany to provide them a subscription-based SAP Business All-in-One (BAiO) solution at a flat monthly fee.

The subscription-based hosting offering from TUI InfoTec will make it easy and affordable for mid-sized companies to implement and quickly realize the benefits of running their businesses on SAP solutions, as a press release tells. It will provide them access to SAP ERP applications with minimized upfront costs and in-house IT requirements.

TUI InfoTec will take the complete ownership of hosting and running the ERP application end-to-end. Through the subscription-based hosted delivery model, customers will be able to deploy an easily customizable business application comprising preconfigured, industry-specific best practices without the capital outlay traditionally required for acquiring software licenses and IT hardware.

The hosted offering claims it will also liberate customers from the need to maintain on-premise solutions within their own IT infrastructures. Enterprises will have to pay only a flat monthly subscription fee per user which will reduce their ongoing operating costs and help them to focus on their core businesses, products and services better.

"With the subscription-based hosting model customers will be able to minimize upfront capital costs associated with software and hardware acquisition, thereby simplifying their cash-flow. It will help lower total cost of ownership based on complete, pre-tested software and associated support services and minimize the number of IT resources that are required to manage and support software and the underlying IT infrastructure." the company says.

“Our partnership with SAP puts us in a unique position to service the growing demands of the small and mid-sized companies in Germany through a comprehensive ERP solution. The addition of a subscription-based hosting option to the SAP BAiO product portfolio provides customers with even more choices to find the right solutions for their individual businesses. Our offering will help these companies quickly evaluate and implement the SAP Business All-in-One solution across all operations, resulting in saving time, effort and money,” said Heinz Kreuzer, Chairman of TUI InfoTec GmbH.