Helping SMEs Seize the Future

Every year on June 27, Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) Day is celebrated to honor their role in working towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SMEs account for 60% to 70% of employment as well as half of global GDP, according to the United Nations (UN).

With impact in economic inequality, industrial productivity, and growth, it is imperative that these small and medium-sized companies are not left behind in the era of digital technology. Unfortunately, these companies are struggling to embrace the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Larger businesses (over 500 employees) are six times more likely to leverage industrial IoT than SMEs. This worrying trend is exacerbating economic inequality, stifling opportunities for social mobility, and dragging down global industrial productivity.

In the past decade, SMEs have made a paradigm shift in the way they do business by employing new technologies and are able to tap into new markets of opportunity across various industries. They often have ambitious growth plans and a desire to expand their operations efficiently by taking an agile approach. We offer scalable solutions that can adapt to the evolving needs of these companies as they grow, keeping them nimble and allowing them to compete more effectively with some of the larger businesses and effectively balancing the playing field. SMEs are increasingly recognizing the importance of digital transformation and adopting technology to streamline their operations and enhance competitiveness. Keeping in mind that SMEs may have limited resources and IT expertise compared to larger enterprises, SAP’s cloud ERP solutions and analytics enables SMEs to improve efficiency, optimize processes, and make data-driven decisions.

My colleagues Maura and Peter have given us a brief overview on how our solutions for midsize companies packaged for what SMEs need today, while setting the foundation to seize future opportunities. And Oliver provides some insights into how vital our partner ecosystem is for us to serve this market segment.

Peter Dominik:

Product Management Lead

SAP Business One

At SAP we proudly say that you cannot outgrow the SAP portfolio - and it really is true!

SAP has the richest portfolio of solutions for this space, starting with Business One, complemented by GROW with SAP. No matter how small the company is: Any customer can start with SAP Business One, SAP’s affordable ERP solution to manage entire small businesses. After customers grow bigger, they can grow with SAP as a software service provider.

SAP Business One is also SAP’s best-selling ERP by number of customers. It is sold and used in more than 170 countries on all continents. It streamlines key business processes – from accounting and CRM to supply chain management, order to cash or procure to pay. It captures all critical business information for immediate access and simple control, including SAP Business One mobile applications for sales and service roles.

The product can be connected easily within SAP and with the outside world, such as e-shops, web services, partner extensions, tax agencies, and various cloud services. Thanks to Service Layer API, partners can connect to the vast possibilities of SAP Business Technology Platform and even small businesses can benefit from intelligent automation tools for processing invoices from vendors running on SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP).

Have a look at our road map which offers more details on further enablement of SAP BTP, new scenarios for SAP Business One Web Client, more extensibility and cloud management tools for partners, and keeping the product legally compliant.

Want to hear more about what our customers say? Then take a look at the story of Busy Bee, who are now better equipped to cater for their customers’ needs with SAP Business One? There are also plenty of other success stories from hundreds of SAP Business One customers.

Maura Hameroff:

SVP

Cloud ERP Product Marketing, SAP

Not all small and mid-size business are the same, in fact it is hard to see one like the other. As Peter said, we have a portfolio of solutions to help our customers in this space. So, what is GROW with SAP?

It is a new offering?that includes technology?solutions, best practices, adoption acceleration services, community,?and learning – all to help customers?successfully?adopt Cloud ERP with speed, predictability, and continuous innovation. It is designed for companies that need to get up and running fast or accelerate their growth using best practices with plenty of room for innovation. It includes:

1.????Solution:?An ERP, SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition,?and a platform for development and innovation, SAP Business Tech Platform (SAP Build technology, specifically). Delivering a ready to run cloud ERP with?built-in industry best practices?to help customers optimize their processes, build, and innovate in the cloud to grow their business.

2.????Adoption & Acceleration Services: There are?tools & methodology?we offer through SAP Activate and?packaged activation services?through Baseline Activation to help our customers get up and running. And, we have a?robust set of partners?who can also be a source for expertise.

3.????Community & Learning: We offer the SAP?Community and Accessible learning?through SAP Learning which are great forums for customers to tap into and get guidance, expertise, and skills to get the most out of GROW with SAP and support them over the years to come.

This all comes together so that cloud ERP customers can roll out with speed, predictability, and continuous innovation. Take the product tour today to check out some key scenarios and the newly updated user experience.

Oliver Bahner:

SVP

Head of Midmarket & Ecosystem Success,

Cloud ERP

The mid-market is a key target market for us. Since the mid-market is mainly an indirect business, we will only be successful if we empower and embed our ecosystem and partners. Rather than just selling existing SAP solutions, the future role of our partners will focus more on building their own applications or extensions and offering business capabilities that complement SAP's offering, resulting in the most comprehensive portfolio for our customers. SAP Business Technology Platform plays an important role for all new and partner-built capabilities enhancing the scope of SAP's cloud ERP products. To ensure that our partners can perform and leverage SAP technology in a very efficient way, SAP has invested into the Golden Path model on SAP BTP. The cloud ERP strategy includes SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition, future of SAP Business One, side-by-side cloud-native development on SAP BTP, and the future role of our partners was shared during the SAP Partner Summits for SME.

To further strengthen the relationship with our partners, we started a recurring series of Partner Advisory Councils in the regions to gain insights from our partners about business requirements and areas of continuous improvement. This roll-in will become an integral part of our development cycles and futures roadmaps – on the functional aspects, but especially on user and partner experience. Everything we invest into our ecosystem is meant to help our partners to scale their business and provide the best business outcomes to our customers.