SAP targets SMEs with new app

[Nick]

In a bid to secure its lead in the SME market, SAP Thailand recently launched Business One 8.8 application to help customers accelerate their productivity, respond to market changes and make a faster return on investment with lower total cost of ownership.

Thomas Zack

"SAP has been well recognised for large enterprises, but our solutions are not just for big companies, but for all sizes of business that want to maximise their business performance," said SAP Thailand managing director Thomas Zack, who noted that software licenses and implementation start at a very low cost.

The SME sector is a vibrant business which has grown over 1.5 times faster than the overall SAP business, he said, adding that 77 percent of SAP's customers are SMEs.

SMEs in Thailand are part of the global supply chain, he said, pointing out the automobile manufacturing of which many Japanese business are based here. SMEs here need to strive for more flexibility to better respond to changing business environments and customer demands. They will also need to better integrate themselves into global business networks.

Zack noted that the SAP Business One 8.8 app, with its accelerated innovations, comprehensive functionality and superior user experience and collaboration features, allows SMEs to do all that effectively.

Of the three strategic pillars to broaden market coverage and serve the SME market including brand expansion, portfolio expansion and partner ecosystem expansion, the managing director said SAP has a number of active partners focused on solutions for SMEs and they help accelerate innovations for the benefits of customers.

Zack said that the company had been affected by the recent protests as its office is on Silom Road. However, he said there was no impact in terms of financial accounts, as clients have not slowed their buying decisions and SAP continues to deliver solutions to customers.

"Some have postponed the purchase orders from May to June, and thus we have not changed our sales target for the second quarter," he said.

The managing director pointed out that SMEs in Thailand represent a huge potential for growth and the market opportunity is rich. SAP will focus on sales and marketing and partnerships to capture a bigger market share in 2010. The new product release in the second quarter will accelerate growth and gain more market attention.

"SMEs must become empowered to adapt their business models rapidly with a flexible IT platform that adapts to business changes instantaneously. Business software allows company owners and managers to accelerate decision-making based on true real time insight and it should be more consumable to provide ease of use for users living in today's web world," Sack said.

For the large enterprise accounts, the managing director noted that SAP's strategy has not been changed though major projects have been delayed, but not all of them. "There are still a lot unknown plans of investment in public projects, but the commercial side is as usual and continues to go according to plan," he said.

According to Usa Jiraanuntakul, the company's channel manager, the new SAP Business One 8.8 release accommodates the continuous demands of the changing market by including an upgrade wizard that is simple and straightforward, reducing customer downtime to a minimum and also integrates with partner applications and business services. In the future, customers will be able to more easily extend their solutions with cloud-based applications, mash-ups and mobile integration.

Customers will experience mobile solutions for Business One with a new capability to integrate mobile devices into business processes analytics as the application integration framework enables using mobile devices in a generic way with SAP's partners providing front end applications for various mobile devices and additional scenarios will be developed and offered by SAP partners.

About the author


Writer: Sasiwimon Boonruang
Position: Database Reporter

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