SAP SE launches Grow with SAP in India to capture MSME segment

Technology

German software giant SAP SE announced a service, Grow with SAP, for mid-sized customers in India to provide end-to-end solutions such as cloud computing, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). The development indicates a bullish outlook amid increasing cautiousness around tech spending globally.

According to Kulmeet Bawa, president and MD, SAP Indian Subcontinent, the company sees around 80 percent of its customers in India coming from mid-sized organisations.

“We more than doubled our cloud clientele in the last two years, that too on a large base. Globally, India has one of the largest footprints of the growth and pace we are seeing. India is shaping the whole techade and SAP continues to be intrinsic to it,” Bawa told the media at the SAP Now event.

“We have more than 10,000 customers in the mid-market segment. With Grow with SAP, we are bundling the services and business technology platform, which will enable low-code developers to build intellectual properties (IPs) on it,” he said. Of its 26 industry verticals it is servicing, utilities, manufacturing, CPG, metals and automobiles are the largest segments.

Bawa added that the public cloud market is set to touch $13 billion by 2026, quoting an IDC Research.

In terms of pricing, the product will be customised by SAP’s partners catering to the end-customer. “We work with partners. Grow with SAP is designed to build industry-specific IPs that will be up and running in 4-6 weeks. They can bundle and fit it to price points,” Bawa said.

The new product is getting launched at a time when IT services companies including Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys are talking about the clients becoming cautions of tech budgets and delaying decision making as macro-economic challenges are worsening.

TCS’ CEO and MD Rajesh Gopinathan in an earlier interview with Moneycontrol also highlighted that there was some level of over-spending on cloud over the last couple of years and that has started to cool down.

SAP, however, remains bullish on the demand it is seeing and has not experienced any slowdown so far.

Bawa said, “We have not seen a slowdown from our perspective. There’s still a lot of euphoria, exuberance in this market.”

During his India visit in February this year, SAP’s global CEO Christian Klein had told Economic Times, that the company is also planning to double down on investment in India over the next five years in terms of increasing team size and hiring here.

The company recently also made headlines for laying off about 300 employees across its India offices.