SAP India conducted its annual Partner Summit in India, and also announced the formation of the Partner Advisory Board, which will enhance and expand its collaborative channel network across the country, which includes 600+ varied partners across India, which is a holistic mixture of VAR, consulting, cloud partners, and other specialized area partners.
This was the occasion which cements the long 20-year old stint the company has with India, a lot of which has been associated with the SME sector, and also proved to be a platform for announcing the long term plans to fortify its partner ecosystem and accelerate digital transformation in the country to enhance the ‘Digital India’ initiative.
When it comes to working with new partners, SAP India has been known to pick them on the basis of multiple criteria, including the turnover, people working in the team, other Analys parameters, as Avinash Kumar Purwar, the Vice-President of Global Partner Operations of SAP India mentioned at the summit.
For this very purpose, the company is looking to work alongside partners, especially those that were created in the ‘cloud era’ because a sizable number of products and solutions from SAP India, are based around the technology. With the potential it holds for SAP India, the Partner Advisory board could well be the most crucial tool for management of this expanding network. The names currently on board, signify the importance and diversity of the network, which include:
· Chida Barat – CEO, Zieta Technologies· Prashant Pansare – MD, Inteliment Technologies
. Venugopal Upapalapati – Chairman, vCentric Technologies Pvt. Ltd
· Mike Dhall – CEO, ZenFocus Software Pvt. Ltd
· Rakesh Barik – Technology Leader, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India Pvt. Ltd.
· Mohan Ramanan – General Manager and Head – Business Applications, Wipro Limited
· Sanjeev Deshpande – Managing Director, iTelligence India Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
· Andy Stevenson – CEO, Fujitsu India Pvt. Ltd.
· Anindya Basu – Country Managing Director, Accenture Services India Pvt. Ltd.
· Balakrishna Navaluri – Chief Operating Officer, Yash Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
· Arnab Basu – Technology Consulting and Digital Leader, PwC India Pvt. Ltd
The other immediate agenda was the ‘building of specialized capabilities to upskill partners. SAP India will work towards continuous enablement and recruitment of partners to drive technology adoption beyond ERP by aiding deployment of solutions in Cloud like SuccessFactors, Ariba, Analytics and Customer Engagement and Commerce (CEC) like Hybris.
The company has committed to increase investments in support of development of partner sales and consulting skillset through focused training modules as part of initiatives such as SAP Partner Sales Academy, SAP Presales Certification Drive and SAP Platinum Academy. In fact, going forward, SAP India will be seen having a 100percent partner led ‘Go-To’ marketing strategy especially for the SME business. Currently, 83 percent of SAP customers in India are SMEs and the partners facilitate 70 percent of the SME business for SAP India. As part of the channel strategy expansion plans, SAP India has a plan of 100 percent partner-led go-to-market strategy for SME business.
With focused programs, the company will enable partners to grow as well as manage the volume of the business in a competitive way. Additionally, the partner network will act as a conduit for SAP to expand deeper into the country addressing 14 clusters in non-metro locations.
To this very effect, Avinash Kumar Purwar, Vice President, Global Partner Operations, SAP Indian Subcontinent said, “We want our channel partners to be more equipped and capture the market opportunities by addressing the future digital needs of our customers and prospects. To support this, we are investing in knowledge sharing capabilities and initiatives such as the Partner Advisory Board aim to drive business with partners for mutual benefit.”
“Customers have been at our core throughout SAP’s two decades in India and expansion to our partner strategy further strengthens our commitment to the ecosystem,” said Purwar.