The Hindu Business Line : SAP eyes SME space; plans more offices

IN a bid to tap growing opportunities in the small and medium enterprise (SME) space, global business software solution company SAP is considering setting up new offices in various locations in India, including Chennai.

"India is currently amongst the top four markets for us in the Asia-Pacific including Japan, and amongst the top two in terms of growth rate. Going forward, the market will be driven by its economic growth, and the desire of Indian companies to go global. Moreover, the SME market itself is growing and there is a heightened interest amongst SMEs to invest in IT for managing their processes, and growing their businesses," Mr Hans Peter Klaey, President and CEO of SAP Asia-Pacific, said here.

The company has offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata. "In addition, two offices in Ahmedabad and Hyderabad are also in place. We are now looking at locations including Noida and Chennai," Mr Alan Sedghi, President and Managing Director - South Asia, said.

Last month, the company had announced its latest offering — SAP Business One — a business software solution designed to address the specific needs of small enterprises in India. SAP Business One enables small businesses to have a single system to automate, manage and control critical operations including sales, finance, purchasing, inventory, and manufacturing, and manage their interaction with customers, suppliers and employees.

SAP Business One can also be leveraged by an eco system of dealers, distributors, stockists, contract manufacturers of large Indian and multinational organisations, as they integrate their processes with those in the value chain.

Overall, SAP had 850 customers in India including 450 in the SMB space at the end of last year. "The focus for us in 2006 is accelerated growth. We want to grow 1.5-2 times faster than the market in whichever market we operate in, and in the case of SME space we want to outpace the market growth by 2-3 times. We want to sharpen our focus in retail as well as public sector space," Mr Klaey pointed out.