SAP has extended access to its software portfolio for partners in order to tap into the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) market with packaged software and services solutions at predictable prices.
Built and delivered through partners, the packages aim to provide customers with a fast return on investment.
The vendor highlighted three important factors that contributed to its strategy, whereby packages are based on SAP software bundled with partner’s services and intellectual property based on a fixed price offering.
They also involve a rigorous qualification process that focuses on the alignment of the value proposition and validation of the partner’s ability to deliver it, as well as exposure on SAP.com, which will provide direct access to partner-packaged solutions and joint go-to-market activities.
According to Australian-based partner, Presence of IT, since 2014, packaged solutions have helped achieve significant global growth and increase renewal rates to 90 per cent.
“Not only are customers staying with us longer, they’re reinvesting in the platform, opening more opportunities for us,” Presence of IT US managing partner, Gordon Laverock, said.
“We have conversations around additional packaged solutions aligned to a clear growth roadmap, each with a very predictable timeline and cost expectation. Our customers love the approach.”
SAP head of global channels, Karl Fahrbach, said the main goal of the strategy was to offer customers a wider set of solutions to meet their individual requirements within an affordable price range.
“As the SAP solution portfolio has grown with the addition of line-of-business solutions and is increasingly focused on the cloud, there is a need for a broader approach to solution packaging that is not only focused on enterprise resource planning software or limited to on-premise solutions,” he said.
Partners can select a variety of SAP solution to help create their own package using:
SAP Business ByDesign solution
SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA
SAP SuccessFactors solutions
SAP Analytics Cloud solution
SAP Leonardo capabilities
SAP solutions for customer engagement and commerce, including SAP Hybris solutions
Recently, SAP decided to “sunset” a front-office service called SAP Anywhere, with which it hoped to crack the small business market.
Launched in May 2016, it was supposed to help small companies build online stores, create marketing campaigns, manage inventory and analyse business performance. It offered integrations with web services from Google, PayPal and United Parcel Service.
Despite a worldwide footprint, with launches in the U.S, China and across Europe, SAP Anywhere had fewer than 60 customers -- and almost half of those are inactive, said an SAP representative.
