SAP, the €20.8-billion enterprise application software giant that celebrated its 20{+t}{+h} year in India, announced its APJ (Asia Pacific Japan) Q1 financial results ending March 31, 2016, from India instead of its APJ headquarters in Singapore. APJ notched revenues of €704 million, contributing 15 per cent of SAP’s global revenue of €4.7 billion in Q1. SAP surpassed €3 billion in revenues in APJ in 2015 underpinned by strong growth in cloud and software revenue. In an interaction with BusinessLine , President of SAP Asia Pacific Japan Adaire Fox-Martin, who was dressed in ethnic India wear, outlined her plans for India.

What made you announce Asia Pacific Japan Q1 results in India for the first time?

To acknowledge SAP’s 20{+t}{+h} anniversary in India and the contribution of the 6,500-strong India Labs organisation in particular, who have contributed not just to SAP’s success but to customer outcomes. We have huge intellectual property here. This is an opportunity for them to engage with the customer-facing field team which is at the other end, thereby helping them understand the outcome of what they develop here, understand their little role and how that role contributes to creating the whole customer outcome.

What are your key priorities for the India market, especially in the SME segment which is a big growth market for SAP?

India is one of our top three markets in the APJ region and the second largest subsidiary for SAP with over 9,000 employees in 8 cities and over 6,600 customers. India is a very significant component of our success in Asia. We saw large acceptance of our next-gen ERP suite S/4HANA not just from large enterprises and public sector but, from the SME segment that constitutes 83 per cent of our customer base in India contributing to one-third of our India revenue.

My key priorities for India are supporting our customers as they transform digitally both in the public sector and large enterprise, allowing them to compete in new dimensions and operate their business efficiently and another key priority is the SME segment. In India, we see a strong uptake for our cloud solutions because it lowers the cost of entry for our solutions.

Our cloud products help engage with consumers, employees, suppliers and even things (IoT). I see that as a continuing growth strategy for us, as we enable these companies get to global scale and also enable the ministries and other govt departments/agencies that make up the public sector to deliver on their vision of Digital India, Start-up India and Skill India.

Can you name some innovations from India that can be taken to global markets?

Globally in APJ, we have a lot to learn from how the India team operate and manage the SME business. That team has a lot of best practices that we want to replicate in other geographies — not just in emerging markets but in mature markets like Australia. There are a whole series of different aspects in your business when you are looking at SMEs — you have to be very focused on the value proposition, you have to be very targeted on sub-sectors, so that you have a unique position with the sub-sector and so on. The India team has built a strong ecosystem of partners that will help implement our solutions. These partners need to have a strong relationship with both SAP and the customer. India has a strong methodology for managing the partner community, which is an extension of SAP.

Are you planning to introduce new initiatives for India?

We have just launched an initiative in APJ called ‘Back to Work’ for women who want to get back to work after a break. Many women who were on the fast track in their careers quit midway to look after their children. We are rolling it out in Japan and Korea this month-end and thereafter to the rest of APJ.

We will introduce a set of projects on a website, which women can work on for 3 months from home, part time or flexi time, at good pay rates. We will provide them a mentor to walk them through the process and re-skill them to meet the demands of the project. At the end of the project, we can consider getting them back into the company’s payrolls. In APJ, 33 per cent of our workforce are women.

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