SMBs make up nearly two-thirds of SAP’s new Asia Pacific customers; Continued double-digit growth expected in 2005
Singapore — Demonstrating increasing success in the small and midsize business (SMB) market in Asia-Pacific, SAP Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) today announced year-on-year total software revenue growth for SAP solutions for small and midsize Businesses nearly doubled in 2004, with an average of three new customers each working day of the year. In 2004, SAP signed nearly 200 new mySAP™ All-in-One customers and more than 400 SAP® Business One customers, underpinning another successful year of SAP’s two-tiered SMB solution strategy and bringing the total number of current SMB customers in Asia Pacific to nearly 1,000.
The number of SAP’s SMB partners grew over 150 percent during 2004 with more than 25 new mySAP All-in-One partners and nearly 60 new SAP Business One partners joining forces with SAP to deliver SAP SMB solutions in Asia Pacific.
SMBs are the fastest growing customers for SAP in Asia Pacific with more than 60 percent of new customers coming from this segment. Innovative small and midsized enterprises such as Taylors Wines (Australia), Guangdong Foodstuffs Imp.& Exp. (Group) Corp. (China), Inzi Display (Korea), Micro Borosil Glass (India), JJ Drinks Manufacturing (Singapore), Nova Furniture (Hong Kong), B.K.B. Hevea Products Sdn Bhd (Malaysia) and PT Dynaplast (Indonesia) have selected SAP’s business solutions to help streamline their business processes, increase efficiencies and achieve a rapid return on investment.
“There is a growing demand for cost-effective, highly scalable and easily maintainable solutions among Asia Pacific businesses,” said Pranay Mital, Director, SMB Operations, SAP Asia Pacific. “The need to address market challenges on a real-time basis and the need for improved compliance are driving SMB businesses to integrate business information into a single version of truth across the organization for effective and efficient decision-making. With mySAP All-in-One and SAP Business One solutions, SAP along with our SMB Channel Partners is delivering constant business value to thousands of such SMBs, helping them quickly gain competitive advantage with minimal costs.”
SAP Business One Gains Momentum Across the Region
Shin Chon Feed, a Korean-based manufacturer of quality animal feed products has selected SAP Business One as a cost-effective solution to integrate the systems across the different business locations. “Our top priority was to establish connectivity and increase operational efficiency with minimum investment,” said Son Ik Sueng, Finance Manager at Shin Chon Feed. “We thought implementing SAP would cost us about 5 billion Won (approx. S$8 million), excluding additional customization. We were happy to discover that our investment was only 35 million Won (approx. S$55,000); an excellent price for a quality solution.”
At PT. Polymindo Permata, an Indonesia-based specialized manufacturer of tubes and hoses, SAP Business One has been implemented to enhance efficiency and productivity across its organization. The investment of about S$32,000 covers all licenses including software, hardware, implementation and training. “SAP Business One has helped us reduce costs, sharpen our competitiveness and deliver more value to customers,” said Junus Sumardi, President and Director of PT. Polymindo Permata. “We are now well-equipped to achieve our aggressive growth target of 30 percent and expand into the upper mid-market segment of the industry.”
mySAP All-in-One Moving from Strength to Strength
Australia-based ImpediMed is an innovative organization that utilizes bio-impedance technology to assess human body composition. When the company decided to upgrade its systems to meet global best-practice quality and regulatory standards it turned to SAP for a flexible mySAP All-in-One solution that could grow with its business.
“When we benchmarked mySAP All-in-One against other ERP solutions, we recognized that SAP was driving industry best practices and would deliver the flexibility to grow with our business,” said Neville Bertwistle, General Manager, ImpediMed Medical Devices. “Because mySAP All-in-One is built on the mySAP ERP platform, it gives us the confidence that any future expansion we achieve will be supported and painless from a software perspective.”
Kores a diversified company providing its wide customer base with items such as office stationery products, educational aids, computer stationery and art materials recently selected mySAP All-in-One for its ERP capabilities.
“Over the past few decades, Kores has diversified into multiple businesses like trading, manufacturing, real-estate, software, foundry and engineering,” said V.K.Marathe, EDP Manager, Kores India. “After an extensive evaluation of all the major ERP vendors, Kores India found SAP was the best fit for our diverse business practices and offered the lowest total cost of ownership and superior functionality.”
Partners’ Value Add Through Local and Industry Expertise
Providing customers with a single point of contact, SAP’s SMB solutions are sold exclusively through certified SAP business partners with a deep understanding of small and midsize companies’ needs and industry best practices.
SAP’s business partners provide customers with dedicated support and expertise in the customers’ local market and industry, as well as implementation and training services. Each new business partner undergoes rigorous training to ensure that they are able to provide customers with service that meets SAP’s stringent quality requirements.
“With more than 500 qualified solutions used by more than 11,000 customers in more than 50 markets around the world, SAP clearly has the leadership position with our depth and breadth of solutions in the SMB market,” said Donna Troy, Senior Vice President of Global Small and Midsized Business for SAP AG. “SAP is unique in its ability to offer business management solutions for SMBs that integrate all critical functionality into a single system. Looking forward to 2005, SAP and our partners will continue to change the SMB software game by delivering integrated business management solutions that help our customers achieve their goals for profitability and growth.”
SAP’s success in the SMB market has been in tandem with the establishment and development of new partners in the region. Over 2004, SAP Asia Pacific added more than 80 partners to serve small and midsize customers. In Asia Pacific, new mySAP All-in-One partners include Daesang IT (Korea), Tsinghua Unisplendour (China), and Spectrasoft Technologies Ltd (India). New SAP Business One partners include Obtech (Australia), Han Consulting (China) and The World Management (Singapore).
“The decade-old partnership has endured the test of time based on the foundation of dependability and trust. SAP and SISL complement each other’s strength on technology and domain focus with process orientation. Going forward, SAP and SISL will continue to bring the best in class solutions and ensure the continued leadership position for SAP in the SMB marketplace,” said Mr. A.S.Viswanathan, Executive Director, Siemens Information Systems Limited (SISL), a mySAP All-In-One Partner and winner of the Best APA SAP Business Partner 2004 Award.
“We will continue building on our responsibility as a market leader to deliver value to thousands of SMB companies in the region through a network of quality channel partners, thus doubling the number of satisfied SMB customers every year,” said Mr. Mital. “By executing on this two-tiered, partner-led strategy, we expect to become the number one SMB player in Asia Pacific by the end of this year.”
