After a tough year in 2009, this year SAP will gear up to fight its competitors by offering alternative new Software as a Service (SaaS) models to the SME sector in order to achieve double-digit growth in the Southeast Asian region.
Tom Kindermans, Senior Vice President of SMEs at SAP Asia-Pacific and Japan, the world leading provider of business software, said at the SAP Southeast Asia Small and Midsize Enterprise Channel Partner Summit in Singapore that the company will increase SME business as part of its growth strategy to achieve the goal of one billion users and gain a 35 percent margin by 2014.
“Currently, SMEs contribute a third of the overall revenue worldwide, and we see Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia are emerging markets which will help to drive SAP to achieve double-digit growth for regional SMEs within this year.
“Recently, the company considered offering subscriber-based hosting for SAP’s Business All-in-One solution in selected Southeast Asian countries for the first time.
“The subscriber base is an alternative to offering its solution in Software as a Service, which is a cloud application service. This offering provides flexible and cost-effective deployment options and provides customers with a quicker evaluation time.
The new model offering will help SAP address customer’s needs to reduce their upfront investment by changing IT as Operation Expense (OPEX) instead of as Capital Expenditure (CAPEX).
However, the adoption rate and readiness for the new model varies according to limitations of Internet infrastructure and the attitude of users,” Kindermans said.
SAP’s Business By Design is an on-demand enterprise software solution only available in six countries in the Asia Pacific region and there are no plans to offer it in Southeast Asia because the company hasn’t tested it for feedback from customers.
“We have not shifted business to the cloud, we see it as an additional business extension choice for customers and we believe the on-premise model is still growing but at a slower rate, while the cloud model will definitely grow faster but still contribute a small revenue,” he added.
Srinivas Adimulam, head of SME, Southeast Asia, said that there are many cases where it may be suitable for customers to choose an on-demand model to complement existing solutions. They may use the on-premise model as a core application but may run other applications such as business analytics and customer relationship management on the on-demand or subscription-based model.
For example, some businesses may use applications to analyse spending patterns, so the optimisation module will fit the users’ need.
“Currently, more than 70 percent of customers in the region are SMEs and this segment continues to invest to enhance its business capability and efficiency, especially corporations that have international business.
“This includes Thailand, and SAP has no plans to reduce its investment and activities despite the current political situation and it is business as usual,” Srinivas said.
Kindermans added that it is also expanding its product portfolios to address each level of SME from Business One, which fits with small businesses that have less than 100 employees, and Business All-in-One, which is for mid-sized corporations with less than 2,500 employees, providing an on-premise model hosting subscription. Meanwhile, Business By Design is an on-demand version that addresses a new market which has 100-500 employees.
Moreover, the company will increase revenue from its channel partners to 60 percent and increase as much as partners do. There is only big accounts and markets that partners don’t have reach SAP will approach directly. And it will offer innovative tools to help partners speed implementation and lower customers’ total cost of ownership.
For example, the fast-start program for SAP Business All-in-One solutions delivers innovative tools that let partners configure SAP Business All-in-One online and immediately obtain a cost estimate for pre-tested, preconfigured software and hardware.
In the meantime, the company has developed innovative products to serve the mobile trend so that customers can access applications any time and any where on different types of mobile devices with a user-friendly interface.
SAP also intends to deliver additional innovations for 8.8 SAP Business One, integrating Web 2.0 capabilities and social networking and mobile integrationwhich is expected to be launched before the end of this month.
In addition, the company continues to develop innovative “in-memory database” capability.
Source:http://www.bangkokpost.com/tech/technews/36388/sap-to-launch-alternative-saas-models
