ERP major SAP India is in the process of appointing
regional distributors and resellers for its newly launched SAP Business One.
This is the first time the company is looking at working closely with the
channel partners, mainly system integrators at tier-two and tier-three level. It
is to promote Business One-a solution for small enterprises.
“Business One was launched last month in India, mainly to
provide a full-fledged and affordable enterprise solution for the small
companies here. India is known for its vast SME base and it would be a perfect
solution for this market. And channel partners would be the right way to promote
the solution,” said Pranay Mital, Director-Channel Business (APA), SAP Asia.
Following the Business One launch in India, SAP has
appointed HP as the national distributor for the product. It has also appoinÂted
15 resellers in the market. “Going forward, we will create a new
layer-regional distributor, who will be responsible to sell to the resellers.
Initially, we will have seven regional distriÂbutors across the country, before
taking the final tally to 12,” he said.
SAP will also increase the reseller number up to 100,
within the next one-year, while national distys would be increased up to three
during the same period. “The increased channel presence will help the company
to tap more business and SAP is aiming to bring in 100 new customers in the
first year of launch of Business One. With this, we look at more of customer
acquisitions than increasing the revenue base. Overall, our SMB market share is
growing significantly year-after-year,” pointed out Mital.
SAP is looking at creating special channels for specific
verticals such as retail, automotive, pharma, chemiÂcals, industrial machinery
and components and service providers (telco), among others. The company is
taking HP's help while identifying the channel with solution providing skills.
It will offer an extensive program for the channels covering aspects such as
solution training, technical training, providing solution development kit,
certification and more.
“We want partners with both domain knowledge and
geographical strengths. Channel are given an opportunity to develop solutions
around SAP platform, while the company would push for collaborative model
(working with an ISV) also in some cases,” he mentioned.
S Gopikrishnan Chennai, Feb 28