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Ambar Singh Roy

To expand SME clientele base

MR ALAN SEDGHI

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Kolkata Feb. 18 Enterprise business solutions major SAP India Pvt Ltd is hopeful of doubling its headcount in India from the current 3,500 to 7,000 by 2010. By that time, the company hopes to have a customer base of 15,000 companies, according to Mr Alan Sedghi, President and CEO of SAP Indian Subcontinent. Currently, the company has 1,400 clients in the Asia-Pacific region including Japan.

Speaking to newspersons on the sidelines of a "media off-site" workshop recently in Bangalore, Mr Sedhgi said that a majority of the projected customer base would comprise small and medium business enterprises (SMEs). "SAP India is looking forward to an undisputed leadership in the emerging market for business process solutions. In India, our focus is to be present in the Fortune 2,000 and the Fortune 2,00,000 companies," Mr Sedghi said, adding that 60 per cent of the companies' clients in terms of numbers comprise SMEs. It was hoped that, by 2010, 80 per cent of the company's clients in the Indian subcontinent would be SMEs.

According to Mr Sedghi, SMEs currently account for 35 per cent of the total revenue of SAP India. By 2010, 50 per cent of SAP India's revenue would be accounted for by SMEs even as the balance would come from large enterprises. "We need to make the market and take the market," Mr Sedghi said, adding that SAP was working towards "productising services". The idea behind the initiative was to ensure flexibility in SAP's offerings. "We believe that there are customers who want our services on-demand for the first time before wanting them on-site".

On-demand services

SAP's CRM on-demand services have been launched even as a non-exclusive arrangement pertaining to human resources services has been entered into with Tata Consultancy Services.

Asked if SAP was contemplating extending its on-demand services beyond the realm of HR, Mr Sedghi said the service could be extended to anything that is "performance critical", such as payroll management and utilities billing. "On-demand applications have their space. I don't think that the space is huge but there is a niche space," Mr Sedghi said.

He said SAP was keen to access the market through partners for greater penetration and scalability. "To access the market, we need more partners to work with us," he said. To ensure SAP customers' access to the "best certified consultancy", the company has firmed up plans to augment the number of e-learning centres.

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