MUMBAI: SAP , Europe's largest technology company, will skill, reskill and upskill 15 lakh SAP consultants in the next three years as it looks to target small enterprises to grow its business in India.
At present, 80 per cent of SAP's 8,600 clients in India are small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs).
“We are known as a company which helps large enterprises. But the 51 million SMEs is the potential marketplace we want to address,“ said Scott Russell, president at SAP for Asia Pacific and Japan. He said many SMEs don't use any underlying technology to run their businesses due to lack of knowledge, access, financial inhibitions and often a lack of understanding of how to use digital technologies.
SAP said with the rollout of Goods and Service Tax and the government's Digital India policy, Indian SMEs will have to scale up their technology infrastructure. “It will, therefore, give rise to an industry-wide requirement of digital experts who will have the capability to enable enterprises to make the transition to a digital platform. SAP understands the urgency to fulfil this necessity,“ it said.
The Germany-based company, which is a market leader in enterprise application software, is transforming itself into a cloud-based service company from being a company dependent on costly up front installations and licence fees.SAP's Russell said that if India wants to truly become a digital economy then all companies --big or small --need to participate.
SAP India has started various initiatives and launched new programmes through its partner ecosystem.
In June, SAP partnered with the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) to jointly launch Bharat ERP, a programme aimed at digital empowerment of small businesses in the country. The initiative aims to digitally enable nearly 30,000 MSMEs and youth in the next three years. It will also provide MSMEs with access to technology from SAP to help them streamline and integrate key processes like financials, sales and inventory with a single business software.
