"SMEs Need A Platform To Enable Growth"

In a quick conversation with Biztech2.0, Stephen Watts, COO, APAC and Japan, SAP Asia, talks about how important a platform is for the growth of the SME market.

Could you please talk about the evolution of the SME market?

The SME market, as of today, is getting much more educated and demanding in its requirements and moving much faster than before. It has become aggressive and its requirements are maturing. Today, it is catering to more educated buyers, who want solutions that can address their fundamental needs very quickly.

What is the need-of-the hour of this segment?

What this segment immediately needs is a platform to enable growth. SAP provides the fundamental technology platform to enable that growth and provides an opportunity to move quickly.

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According to you, what are the major challenges being faced by SMEs?

India faces a major challenge on the talent front. This holds true for our customers, partners and for us.

What is SAP’s India roadmap?

We think that there is a market opportunity in particular in the on-demand space. This is a market, which we haven’t addressed till date, and are aggressively looking at to make our mark. We are operational in six major countries around the world, India being the sixth one and we we’ll work through our growth process this year. The immediate step for us right now is early partner selection. After this, we’ll move to early customers and drive early adoption and then from next year scale the business up.

What is SAP’s value proposition for India?

I would say that SAP’s value proposition for India is the platform and scalability that the business offers. Our key proposition is that we are a partner of choice.

What is your prediction about the future of the SME market?

There is a wave of maturity that is naturally going to build over time. There is a lot of early adoption in the lower rung SMEs. It is a very exciting time and in a few years’ time, this market would have immensely matured. Right now, they are looking for the platform, the maturity and the skills will come following that and this will only grow over the next ten years.