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Software giant SAP has completed a corporate reorganization, including a restructuring of its channel operations that will result in the company relying on the channel for all sales to small and midsize customers and at least double the channel's share of SAP sales by 2015.
The reorganization, which creates four presidents reporting to SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott, brings all of the company's channel operations under Eric Duffaut with the title of president of global ecosystem and channels.
Before the reorganization, which was effective Jan. 1, SAP's channel operations were a complex matrix of the company's indirect sales and SME (small and midsize enterprise) operations. Duffaut, who reports to McDermott, said in an interview that all of the company's channel operations are now under a single manager for the first time.
The other presidents include Robert Enslin, who was president of SAP North America and is now in charge of all sales operations; Sanjay Poonen, previously an executive vice president and general manager, who now oversees SAP's go-to-market and solutions strategies; and Jose Duarte, previously president of SAP's EMEA operations, who is now president of all SAP field services.
The channel management changes will bring more continuity to SAP's channel efforts, said Duffaut, who oversees all partner categories including VARs, volume resellers and systems integrators.
"Partnering is critical to the strategy of SAP," he said, contrasting the company's reliance on partners with the approach taken by such vendors as IBM and Oracle to sell more complete hardware-software systems. "We want to drive co-innovation with our partners to better help us cover our markets, increase customer touch points and act as a force multiplier for SAP."
Next: The Channel's Share Of SAP's Sales
