SAP Summit India 2006, held in Mumbai, was well attended and, according to the organizers, attracted almost 3,000 participants, comprised of users and supplier partners.

Alan Sedghi, CEO, SAP South Asia; Donna Troy, Executive Vice President, Global SME Indirect Channels; and Krish Mantripragada, Global Head, RFID, & Sensor Technologies among other SAP executives participating in the event, sent out a powerful message that the company views India as an important market. Alan Sedghi was upbeat about the India market potential, and Donna Troy identified the country as among the TOP 10 global markets for the SAP Business One solutions. With the retail and manufacturing industries growing at an unprecedented pace in the country, Krish Mantripragada was optimistic about the potential for RFID applications in India.

SAP India

SAP, with 10 years of business presence in India, has a strong customer base that is well supported by the company's implementation partners. During these years, the company's employees in India have grown from 10 in 1996 to over 4,000 in 2005. According to SAP, the company has penetrated 26 industry verticals, with industries such as automobiles, chemicals, CPG (Consumer Package Goods), media, and textiles presenting excellent growth opportunities.

About six months ago, SAP launched 'Business One' in India, and since then has acquired close 30 clients. The company has aggressive plans to add about 1,000 clients in the next 12 months, and towards this end, SAP has developed pricing, partner and support strategies. To support SAP's ambitious plans to position Business One as a product suitable for the SME segment, SAP will use its global support center in Gurgaon, a city near Delhi that already supports UK and US Business One customers.

ARC's Analysis

According to Libi Baskaran, ARC analyst in India, the untapped SME seg-ment in India has excellent growth potential, and the functioning support center will signal SAP's commitment to the SME segment in the country. The fixed price approach should allay customers' fears about price escala-tions. SAP will face tough competition from Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle, and 3i-infotech, apart from several others in the India enterprise segment, such as ACCPAC (now Sage), ESS, IFS, Intentia (now Lawson), Ramco, SSA Global (now Infor), and QAD. SAP can, however, use its enterprise level dominance to its advantage to gain a leadership position over the next few years.

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