Growing 21% globally; optimistic on UIDAI contract: SAP

Further McDermot mentioned about SAP's race with Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and added that things have moved in the positive direction and SAP is looking forward to being great partners in future.

Below is an edited transcript of Bill McDermot's interview on CNBC-TV18

Q: On a quarterly basis, 12th consecutive quarter of double digit growth, also you have managed to exceed your revenue guidance. Good numbers all in all. What is aiding the revenue contribution at a time when global economic headwinds are still there?

A: It is unusual for a company to have celebrated their biggest year in 40 years on top of the best year we ever had in 2011. Its innovation, the big areas of growth for us are computing on HANA. We have the fastest growing database business in the world now. The Cloud is growing in triple digits. Customers love the idea of consuming innovation either on-premise or in the Cloud and of course the mobility. The idea of the mobile consumer, precision, retailing and connecting all this on an end to end basis so companies run better is what SAP does and it is working.

Q: In the last few quarters, India has been growing by almost 50-60 percent for you. This time around what is the growth for India as well as for the APAC region on a year on year (YoY) as well as quarterly basis?

A: On a global basis the company is growing at around 21 percent, when you combine the software, the cloud and the on-premise. India is in double digits and of course Asia Pacific, Japan as a region is growing at more than 20 percent yoy and is a consistent thing. One aspect in India is rapid deployment solutions where customers want pre-packaged software and services so they are ready to run, low implementation cost and fast time to value.

Strategic industries, the big industries in India are growing 100 percent on a yoy basis. Again, this database story whether it is our Sybase database or HANA bringing things into main memory is transforming the market in India. We have some of the best partners, the systems integrators and technology partners in India and they too are building innovation on top. So, it is all of this coming together for value for our customers and it is an exciting time.

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Q: You have alliances with players like Tata Consultancy Services ( TCS ) and Infosys some of the top IT companies here? Have you extended those partnerships with Indian players?

A: Yes indeed. India is our third largest subsidiary worldwide. Its probably in a class by itself when it comes to the systems integrators and the various partners because not only do we partner together to serve India well, which is an important thing, but these partnerships reach globally. Now HANA is becoming the standard for big data in the industry and the partners are accepting that.

Also on mobile, our unwired platform and our security for the devices and the applications are changing everything in the partner network and you are seeing this major move to the Cloud, whether it is the suite on HANA or Edge applications where you are managing your people, your suppliers or your customers in a more effective way. All of that feeds the eco-system, creates jobs and a lot of value in India.

Q: You were in the race for a contract with the UIDAI here so any update on that front?

A: Everything is going well. All these things have moved in the positive direction and we are looking forward to being great partners going forward.

Q: Is the deal finalised? Can you update us on what is happening with that particular contract?

A: I am really not at liberty to comment on individual contracts without the permission of the other party. Everything is going positive and you should take that as a good sign.

Q: How many client additions in India if any? 2012 was of course the time that clients have finalised their IT spends for the year ahead. How is IT spending looking for calendar year 2013?

A: We continue to add thousands of customers worldwide. Even in this past quarter another 30000 customers were added to the SAP portfolio and India got its fair share. Everybody has an IT budget, but smart senior level decision makers are rethinking how they can appropriate those funds. They are investing in strategic software that can improve the business performance of the company. 

It is no longer 'okay' just to spend 3 percent more this year than last year. They are rethinking how they should spend the whole pie. As they do that they are biasing their spend towards software because that is the innovation layer of technology, the one that can drive business outcomes and that is why we are so well positioned going forward.