Technology major SAP plans to digitise 1 lakh companies in India as it believes an increasing number of small businesses will have to comply with the new tax era.

The company, however, did not give a timeline by which it plans to achieve this number. This development comes close on the heels of GST rollout. Luis Murguia, Senior Vice-President and General Manager, SAP Business One, told BusinessLine that the government’s initiatives, coupled with 4G rollout at affordable rates are increasing adoption of technology at a faster pace. Business One is the ERP solution that SAP offers to its India and global customers.

One of the ways SAP hopes to get 1 lakh companies is through initiatives such as Bharat ERP, which it rolled out recently, in partnership with the Indian government. The initiative aims to digitally enable nearly 30,000 MSMEs and youth in the next three years. It will also provide MSMEs with access to technology from SAP to help them streamline and integrate key processes like financials, sales and inventory with a single business software.

“Currently, MSMEs find it difficult to get insights into their business and streamline their processes in line with business objectives and that is an area where technology can help,” said Murguia, adding that in a highly connected world, these companies need tech tools to be on top of their game. Globally, Business One contributes around 50 per cent of the German tech giant’s customer base. In India, it has around 6,700 MSME customers, a significant portion of these are running Business One.

Murguia pointed out that demand forecasting in the case of retail, understanding customer behaviour are some of the areas where BusinessOne can aid businesses. The company also believes that more start-ups are using SAP’s solutions such as BusinessOne.

Competitors also see significant opportunities in making their ERP GST-ready. Recently, another tech giant Oracle announced its cloud computing software to help Indian and multinational firms to be GST-ready.

However, on the ground, MSMEs are loathe to use ERP software as a lot of these businesses are of the view that these do not accurately meet their needs. For example, Syed Muqeemuddin, IT head of Eka – a software provider for agri and commodities, pointed out that when they considered an ERP implementation, they lacked features that factors in their requirements such as demand forecasting and business analytics. “When we evaluated it seemed like this was a small version of their bulky ERP system,” he said.

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