SAP witnesses a momentum of SME customers and significant deals from diverse industry segments in West
Studies Show SME Customers Benefit from SAP’s Proven, Easy to Adapt and Affordable Portfolio of Solutions for SMEs
Mumbai — SAP India today announced the addition of over 433 new small and midsize enterprise (SME) customers over 2006, translating to the addition of more than one new customer per work day in 2006. SAP All-in-One powered by SAP Best Practices and SAP Business One both powered ahead in 2006 across all the regions of India, bringing the total SAP SME customer base in India to over 883, doubling SAP’s SME customer base in just a year.
SAP India has also witnessed a momentum of SME customers in the West in 2006 ranging from diverse verticals like retail, home-building, chemical, pharmaceuticals, consumer products etc. amongst others. SAP West has been major contributor for most of SAP business in India.
Some of the significant wins of SAP in the SME segment in West are:
-Provogue
-Oberoi
-Constructions
-Claris Lifesciences
-Renuka Sugars
-Meghmani Organics Limited
-Urmin Products
-Camlin
-Nitco Tiles
-Gujarat Flourochemicals Limited
“SAP and its partners deliver affordable and easy to deploy business management solutions for quick ROI and low total cost of ownership by building in best practice know-how,” said Alan Sedghi, President and CEO, SAP Indian Sub-continent. “SME segment is a key focus for SAP in India and the segment is expected to contribute significantly to achieving our target of 15,000 customers by 2010. SAP has built strong network of over 20 partners who offer micro-vertical capabilities and implementation services for SAP All-in-One solution. We are working with over 75 re-sellers and three national distributors to ensure that SAP Business One is accessible to the vast pool of SME’s spread across the length and breadth of the country”.
Provogue, one of India’s biggest fashion brands, chose SAP last year. Mr. Deep Gupta, Director Finance explains, our Company launched the fashion brand ‘Provogue’ in March 1998 and within a short span of seven years, it has established a strong brand identity in the minds of the urban consumer. “We needed a sound IT background to handle the growing business to maintain the brand identity which Provogue has earned”. Mr. Mukesh Agarwal – Head IT says, “We wanted a robust solution that would help us keep pace with technology and the fast evolving trends in the retail business, coupled with strong domain expertise and SAP fitted all our requirements.”
Claris Lifesciences, an international pharmaceutical company that is in the business of manufacturing and marketing sterile parenteral preparations, life saving medicines and hospital products recently decided to choose SAP solutions for its business. Arjun Handa, COO, Claris Lifesciences shares, “Claris started its relationship with SAP in India last year, to create a platform for efficient supply chain management, extensive sales force management globally, good corporate governance practices and financial controls. It chose SAP for the scalability and sustainability it requires for its business growth, especially for International markets.”
Another new win customer of SAP, Shree Renuka Sugars is one of the fastest growing Sugar manufacturing and value chained products of Power and Ethanol in the country. Dwaraka Nath Acharya, CFO and SAP-Project Director of Shree Renuka Sugars, explains, being a seasonal industry, the system deployment was critical in available timelines. Majority of the Processes available from SAP was one of deciding factor. Mr. Acharya further says, ”SAP was a good fit with existing consolidated SAP software environment; integrated with enterprise resource planning back end.” It also had major Business Functions out-of-box. Renuka Sugars is an example of the fastest and successful implementation of complex and challenged business model, right across its remote locations with all core modules
Meghmani Organics Limited, a leading manufacturer of pigment and pesticide products in the country, is the recipient of several prestigious awards in recognition of its outstanding business performance. Mr. Gyan Prakash, Project Manager, Meghmani Oraganics Limited says, “We are surprised with easy acceptance for this ERP Package by our Employees at all levels.”
Studies Show SME Customers Benefit from SAP’s Proven, Easy to Adapt and Affordable Portfolio of Solutions for SMEs
The results of IDC’s most recent biannual Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) market share analysis, reveals SAP as the leader in Enterprise Applications market for SMEs. According to the research, SAP was the leader serving the APEJ SME market in 1H2006 in each application category IDC researched, including Enterprise Resource Management (ERM), also known as ERP, and including Human Capital Management (HCM); Customer Relationship Management (CRM); and Product Supply Chain (PSC), also known as Supply Chain Management (SCM).
The same sentiment is shared by customers who have benefited by using SAP software. Flat products Equipment (I) Pvt. Ltd the first and only company in India to export cold rolling mills to Europe, USA, Korea, China, Mexico and other developing countries of the world has implemented SAP ERP Solution. Flat Products wanted a solution that fitted their needs well. This meant a good match with the industry processes as well as specific needs of the company. The management evaluated industry leading solutions on the basis of functionality and right fit for their organization. “ We selected SAP for two reasons – first, it was the most comprehensive solution addressing all our current business needs and second, SAP is easily scalable, which was important for us, considering our growth plans” says Mr. Carasel D’Souza, Head IT & Project Manager, Flat Products. He further adds, “As we were a growing company we wanted to partner with some software company which helped us to grow, and had a defined road map, as well as it was the only software which matched my exact requirement.”
N.R. Agarwal Group of Industries one of the largest Coated Duplex Board and Newsprint manufacturing Group, has implemented SAP solutions in 2006. For a company faced with the happy problem of managing growth, the need for a robust system was quite apparent. However, while choosing the right system meant finding a company that understood their industry and offered a product that embedded best practices. In SAP, NR Agarwal found that company. According to Anil Singh, CIO, NR Agarwal Group, “SAP was selected primarily for its comprehensive functionality and technical capabilities” adds Singh. One other important criterion for selecting SAP was the fact that the solution had built in best practices for mill products.” NR Agarwal has benefited tremendously from the mySAP ERP implementation. First, they now have single information system providing company wide consolidated information enabling accurate and informed decision taking. “Overall the satisfaction level is very good owing to the real time, accurate and transparent system and information,” explains Singh.
Sakal group, one of Maharashtra’s oldest publishing houses has implementated SAP. A team of senior personnel from every key department in the organisation examined a number of solutions and checked them out against the specific needs of the group. The initial findings were not very encouraging. After months of looking around, the team’s unanimous choice was SAP. Bhausaheb Patil, Director-Technology, Sakal says, “SAP understands our business best”. This was the only solution that incorporated the regional language interface being used by the company. Another point in SAP’s favour was that it was compatible with the Six Sigma processes that the group was implementing at the time. Once this is done, the company would be able to introduce the changes required to make it as well connected to its customers as it has managed to become internally in the past few years. “We want to become more customer friendly,” adds Bhausaheb Patil and SAP will help the company achieve this goal.
SMEs Look to SAP for Best Practices
In another IDC customer survey sponsored by SAP for 50 existing SAP SME customers in the region, preliminary results indicated the top reasons driving respondent companies to deploy SAP solutions included the need for higher levels of integration and collaboration, as well as the ability to control business costs. SAP’s SME customers also saw higher operations and process efficiency as top benefits as a result of using their SAP systems. Further, the survey highlighted that innovation and operational excellence are top strategic initiatives in helping respondent companies achieve their growth objectives over the next one to three years. Over all, the majority of respondents regard IT, including their SAP systems, as having the greatest influence on their operational excellence initiatives, followed by those on regulatory compliance and/or industry mandates, innovation, and channel sales model.
Next Evolution
Delivering the value of enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA) “by evolution” to midsize companies, SAP Asia Pacific is introducing the next version of its SAP All-in-One solutions. Based on mySAP ERP 2005, the latest evolution of SAP All-in-One solutions will enable faster return on investment with a dramatically enhanced and more intuitive user experience, streamlined business scenarios and enhanced analytical reporting.
Looking forward to later in the year, SAP plans to deliver new “SOA by design” solutions to an untapped segment of the midmarket. The solutions will leverage an entirely new platform built on end-to-end business processes and offering dramatic innovations in faster, lower-risk implementation, extreme adaptability and the complete management of the solutions in hosted and on demand alternatives for lowest total cost of ownership.
