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SAP is often portrayed as the king of the direct-sales model, but company execs say it is an exemplary partner to VARs, integrators and ISVs.
Executive board member Shai Agassi goes further: "We're the most partner friendly company in the world. We've created tremendous opportunity for everybody who works around us. We have a great symbiotic relationship [with partners] it's not that we don't need them or they don't need us. We both need each other and provide each other with tremendous value," Agassi told CRN Wednesday afternoon.
Agassi, who heads product development and technology and product marketing for the ERP giant, spoke at the company's Sapphire 2006 conference in Orlando. There, the company announced its acquisition of Frictionless Commerce and its supplier relationship management expertise; the general availability of MySAP 2005; and a new business intelligence accelerator.
As SAP tries to better penetrate small and mid-market companies with its BusinessOne and All-In-One lines, this partner mantra had better prove true, observers say. SAP started moving into small- and mid-sized companies with BusinessOne and All-in-One early in the decade.
Leo Apotheker, the SAP executive board member in charge of sales, acknowledges that channel conflict is always a concern, but says the company has made great strides with its new compensation-neutral sales model rolled out in the U.S. early this year.
"We felt there was a real opportunity to provide mid- sized customers with two applications that are fit for industries and for sophisticated businesses [that are smaller] and not treat them like step children," Apotheker noted.
"We know from our data, from our experience, from everything we do, that partners are an essential ingredient to make that happen," he said.
SAP's own sales force is now structured so that it is "completely immaterial for execs and for people who work in territory sales, if [a product] sells indirect or direct," he noted.
The fact that SAP recruits a select group of partners as opposed to huge numbers could make profitability easier to attain for those who make the cut. Some in the Microsoft world say that company's "carpet bomb" approach to partnering has led to over-distribution and margin erosion as partners compete for business.
Quincy Faison, president of Netsirk Technologies of Sunrise, Fla., says SAP's model is working out well for him. Netsirk added BusinessOne to its IBM hardware practice a few years back and has since grown from five to 15 employees. There is plenty of business and little partner-vs.-partner conflict because there are just four or five BusinessOne partners in the state, he said.
