The Hindu Business Line : SAP bullish on SMB segment

INDIA'S small- and mid-sized business enterprises (read below Rs 400 crore in turnover) have energised SAP India Pvt Ltd to chalk out aggressive plans to enhance its market presence with new product applications and partnerships.

Having bagged 30 customers in the SMB category during 2003, the company aims to add 50 new customers this year and double this by end-2005.

The SMB segment contributes 20 per cent to SAP India's revenues.

"There is scope to increase this, given the huge potential of the Indian SMB market," Mr Srinivas Rao, Sales Director (Small and Midsize Business), SAP India, told Business Line.

The SAP Group recorded 7-billion euro in revenues for 2003. The Asia-Pacific region contributed 11 per cent with much of the growth coming from high-potential geographies such as China and India.

Bullish on the prospects offered by the small- and mid-sized segment, SAP plans to increase its partner network to 10 by end-2004.

As of now, the company has three partners offering the mySAP All-in-One solution to cover five industry verticals, including pharmaceuticals and wholesale trade.

In its efforts to bag new SMB customers, SAP will extend the scope of the mySAP All-in-One solution to cover 12 industries.

These include jewellery, sugar mills and distilleries, metal, consumer goods, chemicals, and automotives, and micro-verticals such as auto-ancillary units and OEMs.

Quoting an IDC study, Mr Rao said that the Indian ERP (enterprise resource planning) market for application software and maintenance was worth approximately 35 million euros.

Incidentally, market estimates have shown that potential from the SMB segment alone could touch 130 million euro over the next five years.

Globally too, SAP is betting big on the SMB market, according to Mr Rao, with the company expecting 20 per cent of its overall global revenues to come from the SMB segment.

In India, the SMB segment already "contributes a similar percentage.

This is not to say that we will not focus on growing business from the larger enterprises," Mr Rao added.