SAP targets 2-b euro revenue from SME sector by 2010
German IT company SAP is betting big on the SME sector. Having seen huge traction in this business and crossed the 1 billion Euro software revenue mark in Asia Pacific and Japan in 2006, the company has now created a focused team including hub SME leaders, GTM, operations and enablement leads for the region.
The target is to touch 2 billion Euro software revenues by 2010 from SMe business in this region.
Stephen Watts, SVP, SAP Asia Pacific and Japan’s SME organisation said that they expected a 3X kind of growth across countries in the region in the SME business, which already accounts for about 50% of the revenues from Asia Pacific and Japan.
More than two-thirds of SAP Asia Pacific and Japan’s 2000 new customers in the first quarter of 2007 were SMEs. In 2006, SAP Asia Paciffic had announced its plans to more than triples its SMEs customer base by 2010.
India will be a big contributor to SAP. SAP India sees around 30% of its total revenues coming from this segment and hopes to increase the contribution to 40% in 2007, said Deb Deep Sengupta, SME leader, SAP India. He also said that education should also be key.
SAP India has plans to train about 30000 people through its education partners to work as SAP consultants for the SME segment by 2010, Mr.Sengupta said. Currently there are about 12000 SAP consultants catering to this segment in India. The company has launched 35 new centres through partners for e-learning in class B and C cities.
