Johannesburg, 02 Nov 2007
SAP is changing its business style to meet an ambitious self-set target of 100 000 customers by 2010.
SAP SME Africa director Derek Kudsee says the company has 38 000 clients, meaning it needs another 62 000 new net customers to reach the goal. "It is a bold initiative," he said.
Kudsee told IBM business partners and SAP value-added resellers (VARs) the company would do this by commoditising its SME offering - "System i" - as an all-in-one solution.
He was speaking at an event to introduce the IBM and SAP channel to the concept. Kudsee said there would be less "endless consulting" and more "plug-and-play".
As an analogy, he used a washing machine or a car, saying the latter was a true turnkey solution: You buy it, climb inside, turn the key and drive it off the dealer floor.
Frank Zimmer, head of the International IBM SAP Competence Centre, in Germany, added that volume sales for SAP applications on System i "requires a game change".
He said the millstone around SAP's neck in the SME space has been the persistent view that "SAP systems require too much time to install, too many resources and too much budget. The perception is that SAP solutions are too complex and only for the large enterprise."
"We think this is wrong," said Zimmer.
Project Kobi
IBM South and Central Africa System i brand manager Craig Zieseniss said the combination of IBM hardware and SAP software cut down implementation time "from weeks to just hours".
He added that the enterprise resource planning software provides a fully integrated system to support core business processes, from financials and purchasing to inventory, production and human resource management.
The "all-in-one" approach also provides IBM business partners and SAP VARs integrated sales, marketing, and service capabilities to support a focus on customer relationships.
"With business analytics and reporting capabilities, it also offers full visibility into business operations and performance," Zieseniss said. "Project Kobi is, therefore, not only helping to meet the needs of the SME market for easy-to-deploy, rapid time to value SAP solutions, but also creating substantial opportunity for the reseller community."
He noted that System i comes standard with its own DB2-based rational database, which saves costs. It also has components like WebSphere, query tools, communications, security and backup software, and all the tools needed for an application server platform. "All this is included, integrated and ready to deploy."
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