The Hindu : Business : SAP to invest $1 b to woo more clients

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Wednesday, Aug 29, 2007
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SAP to invest $1 b to woo more clients

Staff Reporter

Targets small, medium-sized customers; to expand partnership with Wipro

Entire executive board on its
maiden visit
Bangalore centre will continue to
play pivotal role

— PHOTO: R. V. MOORTHY

A STRATEGIC HUB: (from left) Henning Kagermann, CEO of SAP AG, Ranjan Das, CEO, SAP Indian Sub-continent, and Leo Apotheker, Deputy CEO, at a press conference in New Delhi on Tuesday.

NEW DELHI: Business software developer SAP AG on Tuesday said it would be investing $1 billion in India over the next few years to expand its reach in the country and garner more customers.

“Emerging markets like India will play a crucial role in our target to sign one-lakh customers globally by 2010. We are mainly targeting small and medium-sized customers,” SAP CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board Henning Kagermann said here on Tuesday.

Addressing a press conference, Mr. Kagermann said SAP had doubled its customer base in India to 2,000 within one year, while it took nine years to enrol first 1,000 customers.

“The unprecedented growth that we are seeing from India is one of the best examples of how our 2010 strategy translates into action. Markets like India are at an inflection point when it comes to the adoption of technology by businesses of all shapes and sizes,” he added. Interestingly, the entire SAP Executive Board is now on its first visit to India.

Stating that SAP Labs India is today the largest research and development hub and support presence for the company outside Germany, Mr. Kagermann said a major portion of SAP’s investment in India was targeted at expanding the company’s global development and services and support hub in India.

“While the Bangalore centre will continue to play a central global leadership role, we now foresee the Gurgaon centre focusing on global service and support scaling up significantly in the next few years to enable us to meet our aggressive goals for India,” he added.

SAP also announced expanding its partnership with Wipro, the country’s third-largest software exporter. Wipro will become a SAP global services partner and establish a solutions lab in Bangalore to showcase the benefits of industry best practices and innovative service-delivery models.

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