New leadership to accelerate cloud momentum with partners and SMB success
SYDNEY, Australia — SAP Australia today announced the appointment of Greg Miller as local head of SAP’s recently announced Global Partner Operations (GPO) organisation (previously Ecosystem & Channels). As general manager for GPO, SAP Australia and New Zealand, Miller will be responsible for accelerating the company’s growth through new and existing sales channels, particularly for the company’s cloud and in-memory data base platform, SAP HANA. The GPO organization will also manage the SAP Business One application set for small businesses, SAP’s OEM business, and other strategic partnerships.
A local industry leader and strong customer and partner advocate, Miller joined SAP Australia and New Zealand in 2012 as chief operating officer. He has more than 20 years of local and international experience in the IT field, including senior positions at Unisys, Oracle, Peoplesoft and Siebel.
Now as head of the SAP Australia and New Zealand’s GPO organisation, he will apply his leadership experience in presales, inside sales, value engineering, industries and sales operations to support the success of SAP Australia and New Zealand’s more than 250 partners.
“Over the past two years, SAP Australia and New Zealand has recruited and enabled more partners in technologies such as mobile, cloud, in-memory, analytics and applications,” said Andrew Barkla, President & Managing Director, SAP ANZ. “As a result, we have been privileged to share in the success of our innovation strategy with a strengthened ecosystem. Now, as we deliver cloud powered by SAP HANA, collaboration with partners will become increasingly important. Greg Miller’s appointment will ensure we continue our course as an open innovator and collaborate more closely with our ecosystem to better serve organisations as they transition to the cloud.”
Globally, SAP has defined a goal of achieving 40% of its revenues through collaboration with channel partners, distribution partners, services partners and original equipment manufacturers by 2015. “SAP Australia and New Zealand is well on its way to consistently achieving this goal,” Miller said. “And we are looking to build on this momentum as we innovate across industries, lines of business and technologies with our partner community.”
Since 2013, SAP has helped enable an additional 60 locally active partners to deliver cloud solutions through its cloud certification.
Focus on SMB success
As part of his GPO leadership responsibilities, Miller will intensify SAP’s delivery to the small and midsize business segment, with purpose-built cloud-solutions, a targeted go-to-market strategy by industry and customer size, new routes to market and a consumer-like experience for customers and partners.
Research from Oxford Economics has shown that over half of Australian SMBs expect to reap a much larger portion of their revenues from overseas in the next three years. As a result, they expect to face increased international competition. “Small and midsized businesses are engines of economic growth, innovation, and job creation, and represent over 95% of all firms worldwide,” Miller said. “SAP and its partners have a decisive opportunity to deliver the technologies Australian and New Zealand SMBs need to compete and take market share. We plan to continuously provide additional solutions from SAP and via our partner ecosystem to enable next generation businesses to compete and win.”
One program developed to support local SMBs is a zero-percent financing option SAP offers through its partners, making it easier for customers to increase their purchasing power and reduce total cost of ownership, while quickly taking advantage of SAP software benefits without impacting cash flow.
SAP has also developed cloud and hybrid starter packages for the SMB market that include fixed-price solutions delivered through partners with a fixed-scope of services and training. The packages enable customers to get up and running fast with cloud across SAP’s cloud offerings, including SAP Cloud for Customer, SAP Cloud for HR and SAP Cloud for Procurement, as well as the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud service.
Miller is also executive sponsor for SAP’s Corporate Social Responsibility programs, including partnerships with The Australian Indigenous Education Foundation, The Smith Family, Young ICT Explorers and Redkite, as well as with The Child Cancer Foundation in New Zealand.
Miller replaces Beth Ryan, who has resigned from SAP as general manager, Ecosystem & Channels, SAP ANZ to take a sabbatical, effective June 13. Ryan was responsible for strong growth in SAP’s partner ecosystem in Australia and New Zealand during her time with the organisation and has provided a strong foundation for GPO moving forward.
About SAP
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