SAP announces Partner Advisory Board and expands channel strategy for India

SAP, at this year’s annual Partner Summit in India, announced the launch of SAP India Partner Advisory Board and plans to expand its collaborative channel approach for network of over 600 partners in country. At the Summit, the company also announced its long term plans to fortify its partner ecosystem and accelerate digital transformation in the country to enhance the ‘Digital India’ initiative.

The core plan of this expansion rests on a three-point strategy approach that ties together all the initiatives SAP India undertakes towards building its channel ecosystem:

1.Launch of SAP India Partner Advisory Board- The group comprising of 11 representatives from the partner ecosystem aims to address market opportunities, meet customer expectations and provide the extended partner network with insight to expand the customer base as well as reach of new age technology solutions. Partners may co-innovate with INDUS, the customer user group of SAP, to address customer’s business needs using new age technology solutions.

The founding 11 partner member board comprises of:

· Chida Barat – CEO, Zieta Technologies

· Prashant Pansare – Managing Director, Inteliment Technologies Pvt. Ltd

· Venugopal Uppalapati – Chairman, vCentric Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

· Mike Dhall – CEO, ZenFocus Software Pvt. Ltd.

· Rakesh Barik – Technology Leader, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India Pvt. Ltd.

· Mohan Ramanan – General Manager and Head – Business Applications, Wipro Limited

· Sanjeev Deshpande – Managing Director, iTelligence India Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

· Andy Stevenson – CEO, Fujitsu India Pvt. Ltd.

· Anindya Basu – Country Managing Director, Accenture Services India Pvt. Ltd.

· Balakrishna Navaluri – Chief Operating Officer, Yash Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

· Arnab Basu – Technology Consulting and Digital Leader, PwC India Pvt. Ltd

2. Building ‘specialized capabilities’ to upskill partners – SAP India will work towards continuous enablement and recruitment of partners to drive technology adoption beyond ERP by aiding deployment of solutions in Cloud like SuccessFactors, Ariba, Analytics and Customer Engagement and Commerce (CEC) like Hybris. The company has committed to increase investments in support of development of partner sales and consulting skillset through focused training modules as part of initiatives such as SAP Partner Sales Academy, SAP Presales Certification Drive and SAP Platinum Academy.

3. 100% Partner-led Go-To-Market Strategy for SME business- Currently, 83% of SAP customers in India are SMEs and the partners facilitate 70% of the SME business for SAP India. As part of the channel strategy expansion plans, SAP India has a plan of 100% partner-led go-to-market strategy for SME business. With focused programs, the company will enable partners to grow as well as manage the volume of the business in a competitive way. Additionally, the partner network will act as a conduit for SAP to expand deeper into the country addressing 14 clusters in non-metro locations.

“We want our channel partners to be more equipped and capture the market opportunities by addressing the future digital needs of our customers and prospects. To support this, we are investing in knowledge sharing capabilities and initiatives such as the Partner Advisory Board aims to drive business with partners for mutual benefit,” said Avinash Kumar Purwar, Vice President, Global Partner Operations, SAP Indian Subcontinent. “Customers have been at our core throughout SAP’s two decades in India and expansion to our partner strategy further strengthens our commitment to the ecosystem”.