SAP Lifts Some Restrictions On Partner Sales To Large Companies
The company is specifically allowing resellers of the company's Business Objects business intelligence software to sell to customers larger than the typical SME (small and mid-size enterprise) company SAP channel partners have been restricted to, said Pat Hume, senior vice president of SME indirect channels and communications.
"SAP is examining its strategy in terms of its route to market," she said, speaking at the SAP Influencer Summit in Boston Tuesday.
Until now SAP has generally limited channel partner sales to businesses with less than $300 million in annual sales in the U.S., Asia and Latin America and 500 million Euros in Europe.
But Hume said SAP's channel strategy is evolving and the company's goals are to increase its market reach and boost sales volumes of its ERP and CRM applications, business intelligence software and other products.
SAP is currently removing the sales restrictions for partners that resell business intelligence software from Business Objects, the company SAP acquired in early 2008 for $6.8 billion. Hume said that's because Business Objects channel partners already have experience selling to customers " including large companies " outside the SAP ecosystem. Along with increasing sales volumes, the move could provide SAP with a sales wedge into businesses that use competitors' products.
Hume hinted that sales restrictions on other SAP channel partners also might be lifted, depending on the outcome of SAP's evaluation of its go-to-market strategy.
SAP currently has 5,400 solution providers in its partner ecosystem, including resellers, solution providers that provide SAP with sales referrals, and "extended partners" -- solution providers that work with other SAP partners.
Of SAP's 92,000 customers, 72,000 are SMEs and more than 50,000 of those were acquired in conjunction with a partner, Hume said. Throughout the Influencer Summit a central theme in presentations by SAP executives was how the company has evolved far beyond its image as a supplier of expensive, large-scale applications that appeal only to Global 1000 companies.
"The great opportunity has been to provide a tier-one [software] system to companies who in the past might not have thought they could afford something like SAP," said Michael Pearson, president of Contax, a Toronto-based solution provider and SAP channel partner.
Pearson, attending the Summit, particularly praised SAP's "Fast Start" initiative for resellers of Business All-in-One, SAP's on-premise application suite for SMEs. He said it allowed him to complete a customer implementation in just four weeks.
SAP's EcoHub partner referral program helped Blue Ocean Systems, a Wilmington, Del.-based solution provider, find other SAP partners to work with around the world, said president Eleanor Wu.
In other developments at the Influencer Summit, SAP executives said the vendor's Business ByDesign on-demand applications for mid-market customers should be ready for general availability in 2010.
SAP unveiled Business ByDesign in 2007, but the company has had difficulty finding the best way to sell, service and deliver the on-demand application suite. Currently some 100 customers are using Business ByDesign on a trial basis. In July SAP delivered a 2.0 version of the product.
Some SAP channel partners are eagerly awaiting the broader availability of Business ByDesign. "I see Business ByDesign being a complement to the solutions we already offer," said Ken Eldridge, CEO of Crossroads Partner, a Waltham, Mass.-based SAP partner that already resells the vendor's BusinessOne and Business All-in-One products.
While he acknowledged Business ByDesign would require "a totally different selling and delivery model," he said it should be especially attractive to businesses with distributed operations. "I think the market is ready now."
Several other channel partners at the conference seemed to take more of a wait-and-see attitude, however, saying they would see how the market for Business ByDesign develops.