SAP reaching out to SME market through partner network

On-premise is the traditional installed software space which SAP currently has made a name for itself. The software will be enhanced through making it easier to use, easier to implement. On-demand is SAP's cloud offering. SAP Business by Design is one of the most complete and most powerful ERP software offerings.

On-device is all about using powerful mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad to enable an unwired company, allowing people to transact their businesses wherever and whenever they are.

The economic crisis of 2009

Since the economic crisis of 2009, the customer has changed. Time to value is now more important than ever and that means a need for ease of deployment and pay as you go pricing models in a business world where credit is no longer easy to come by. Companies are going from "I have an idea" to having systems up and running on SAP Business By Design (SAP's on-demand offering) in less than a month.

Last year also saw a shift in power from the IT department to the business user. Business now wants more powerful analytics and insight.

The best-kept secrets

Duffaut said that one of the best-kept secrets was that SAP also plays in the SME sector and has done so for some time. Seventy five percent of its 105,000 customers are SMEs. SAP reaches out to the SME market through its extensive partner network.

SAP Business One is for small companies with less than one hundred users that have outgrown their QuickBooks and Excel spreadsheets. SAP Business By Design is SAP's flagship on-demand flagship that it expects to disrupt the market with a feature-set that is unmatched by the competition such as in-memory databases. Business One is only available in China in the region, as well as North America, France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Duffaut spoke of one SAP small to medium business customer that bought its software in 1999. It was a small Canadian company called Research in Motion.

Tom Kindermans, Senior Vice-President for SAP Asia Pacific and Japan said that there were two distinct trends happening in the region. More mature markets such as Japan, Singapore and Australia-New Zealand are turning towards instant value. Businesses are happy to go for 90 percent of what they want if they can get it now, rather than wait months for 100 percent.

In emerging markets, the key driver is being able to go for cloud computing on a pay-as-you-use model as investment money is becoming increasingly hard to come by.

Factor that is high on the agenda for both mature

A factor that is high on the agenda for both mature and emerging markets is data security. Increasingly businesses are realising that SAP hosting data for them is more secure than they could do it themselves. Customers are very sceptical of handing data over to a small third party.

Kindermans said that SAP Business By Design, SAP's on-demand flagship, will come to Southeast Asia, but the roadmap has not been finalised yet.

The other hand

On the other hand, potential SAP customers can take advantage of Business All in One (one size up) today through certified system integrator partners who buy the software from SAP to provide to end users in an on-demand model.

This changes the game and allows real-time computing. Apart from increased speed, this allows for real-time analytics with answers in a second instead of hours and allows managers to run what-if scenarios with their supply chain in real-time.