Mumbai: Helping channel partners to tap the opportunities in the SME segments and enhancing them to make the best out of the Indian digital drive seems to be the key focus area for SAP.
The company also said in a select media round table on the sidelines of their partner summit that its key focus and commitment is towards enhancing customer and partner ecosystem by pledging to help ramp up the workforce in the country to take forward the digital transformation agenda.
In the wake of GST roll-out and Digital India initiative, more than 51 million SMEs in the country will eventually have to onboard or scale their technology infrastructure. It will, therefore, give rise to an industry wide requirement of digital experts who will have the capability to enable enterprises to transition to a digital platform. SAP understands the urgency to fulfill this necessity. SAP India commits to skill, reskill and up skill 1.5 million SAP consultants to plug this digital gap within the next three years.
SAP said that India saw the GST migration by customers in three parts- enterprises which migrated well in-advance; those who adopted at the eleventh hour; and those who are still in the transition process. SAP had offered help-drive across 21 cities and had GST solution centers in 40 locations across 22 cities. These solutions gave offerings at end-to-end level. Currently, 320 plus Indian universities and education institutes are members of SAP university alliance program having introduced SAP technologies to more than 3 million students.
Speaking about their focus towards the SMEs and the local players who are dominant in the segment, SAP while agreed that cost is definitely a key factor in the market, there are many enterprises who are looking for value-addition and want the ease-of-operation than the cost-factor alone. Some of the other factors that might make SAP a preferred solution, according to them, are the consistency, flexibility and regular updates. SAP also recalls that the growth of on-premise storage is still 8 to 10 percent while the cloud growth story is 35 percent.
Some of the key industry verticals that the company is focusing are pharma, manufacturing and construction sectors. Also, SAP said, not only is it keen on the metros but also the tier-2 and tier-3 cities which are gaining more traction with the announcement of the smart cities.
“Our partner ecosystem is the “lifeline” that connects us and our customers,” said Deb Deep Sengupta, President and Managing Director, SAP Indian Subcontinent. “Currently, an estimated two lakh SAP consultants thrive within our partner ecosystem which contributes approximately USD 8 billion in revenue. SAP in India has a defined and a clear partner strategy that propels our objective of growing together.”
Partner Packaging factory:
SAP India has started various initiatives and launched new programs through the partner ecosystem: They had also announced the launch of Partner Packaging Factory, an aggregator model where the entire SAP package is developed by their own partners.
“SAP Partner Packaging Factory opens up an exciting new customer engagement opportunity for our partners,” said Anthony McMahon, Senior Vice President, General Business (SME) & Channels, SAP Asia Pacific Japan. “It is a one stop shop for SMEs to evaluate SAP solutions and fast-track their digital transformation journey.”
Partners Co-innovate To Drive Customer Success:
SAP’s best-in-class technologies and platforms augment the capabilities of its partner ecosystem to co-innovate. This synergistic collaboration by SAP and partners result in new offerings and solutions for the digital era that enhances customer success.