Sydney, Australia — SAP and its partners are making an $8 million investment in the Australian economy with the largest single vendor event in the country in November 2001. Bucking the trend of plummeting revenue and lukewarm attendance at previous IT events, SAPPHIRE 2001, the flagship SAP event for customers and partners, has generated $A1.6 million in sponsorship sales within 24 hours.
The sales exceeded SAP sponsorships targets and prompted the creation of a larger exhibition and additional sponsorship options to accommodate business partners.
“SAP and its partners are committed to creating significant value for each customer by creating the best environment for knowledge transfer, networking and entertainment at the lowest possible cost to each attendee,” said Len Augustine, marketing director SAP Australia & New Zealand.
This year an added attraction is running Tech Ed in the region for the first time, which is aimed at software and systems developers who have an opportunity to participate in hands-on tutorials, according to Augustine.
In addition, SAPPHIRE has a line up of speakers and topics that is a combination of e-business and technology, mainly dedicated to CRM (Customer Relationship Management), SCM (Supply Chain Management), Portals, PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) and BI (Business Intelligence). The positive response and high level of interest in Sapphire 2001 comes in stark contrast to the slow down being experienced by many IT companies. SAP, the largest provider of e-business software solutions reported a 24 percent increase in revenue for the second quarter of financial year 2001.
SAPPHIRE is an annual SAP user conference that attracts the best minds in business and technology under one roof. This year’s event will bring international and local speakers from SAP, its business partners and SAP users. Some of the speakers include Henning Kagermann, co-chairman and CEO of SAP, Shai Agassi, head of SAP Portals and Les Hayman, SAP regional president for Asia Pacific.
SAPPHIRE 2001 will be held in Brisbane from 18-21 November. SAP Australia expects between 2,500 – 3,000 attendees at SAPPHIRE 2001. IBM Australia, a major sponsor of SAPPHIRE 2001, will provide all the computer hardware to demonstrate SAP solutions at the conference.
